# African Pygmy Mouse Care Information



## Neon Gliding Lizard (Oct 21, 2011)

Hello- 

I have seen a couple of these for sale and was wondering if anyone can help me with the care requirements. I searched " African Pygmy mice care" in the search but the only things that came up were ones for sale. 

Thank you


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

Found this if it's any use: crittery.co.uk - African Pygmy Mice You have to follow the links for caging etc.


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## duffey (Mar 1, 2012)

The African Pygmy Mouse is an easy species to keep.

Housing
A small plastic or glass vivarium - top opening and well ventilated. Substrate needs to be friable - non compacting - to allow the Mice to dig under it. I place a number of toilet roll and kitchen roll cardboard tubes in the tank and then pour the substrate in.

Standard mouse food, bird seed plus slices of cucumber, carrot & sweet potato comprise a good diet.

If you can, obtain more than 1 pair - they will breed in a colony. I've had over 20 in a colony in a 12 inch tank. When they reach that density it is easy to start a new colony.


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## acapae (Feb 24, 2012)

I was just going to advise Crittery  There's also the spin-off exotics mammals forum: • Index page
eta - I'd advise searching google too. In my research I found an awful lot of conflicting information, so I read as much as possible from as many different sources and sort of came to my own conclsions on a few things.

I've been researching them since January and am picking some up on Friday. I'm keeping mine in a converted IKEA bookcase because I want to give them enough space that they're fun to watch rather than just toddling about in a little tank. And also I'd rather a one-off cost on housing and not needing to think about needing to upgrade should they breed. I've designed it so that I can
a) slowly increase the amount of space they have though rather than scaring them
b) split it into two seperate homes should rather more of them than I'd like appear :lol:

I'm planning on using Aubiose as substrate and hay for nesting material.

I've been told that fancy mouse food is unsuitable as being so much smaller they need much higher protein levels - unless of course you're going to supplement that by adding other things or feeding more fresh. Mine are getting a home made mix with lots of small seeds usually found in native wild bird/ finch/ small aviary bird food with mealworms and Gammarus shrimp for protein.

I've no idea what sort of fresh food is suitable though; what else do you give yours duffey? And are you fine to chuck a lump in, or do you need to slice it up into tiny pieces/ grate it?


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## duffey (Mar 1, 2012)

Hi Acapae,

How many are you pickIng up on Friday?

I used to provide thin slices of cucumber & sweet potato for mine - just lay slices on the surface of the substrate and remove after a few days and replace with fresh.

Small seeds are ideal - sunflower is too big for them.

Never tried mealworms with mine - I'm always wary about letting loose something with the jaws of a mealworm. Live mealworms are quite capable of chewing through meat (live or dead).

You could try the odd waxmoth larvae.

Good luck,

Duffey


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## acapae (Feb 24, 2012)

Thanks for the reply duffey. I'm getting 4-6, I think. It depends a bit on exactly how many of which sex there are - being checked between now and then.

Thin slices of veggies I can do, thanks. The mealworms I'm giving are dried ones, definitely not alive! Most of the protein is the shimp though (also dried)  Do most people give them live bugs for protein then? The biggest grains in my mix so far are buckwheat, safflower and hemp. I wasn't sure about the size of those to start with, but they're included in the mix that they're eating in their current home.


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## duffey (Mar 1, 2012)

4 to 6 is a reasonable number to start with!

I never fed livefood as protein, but due to their ground based way of life, it's possible that they may take insects in the wild. If you want to try them on livefood, small softbodied grubs - waxmoth larvae & fruit beetle larvae could be tried. 

I used Foriegn Finch mix as a 'basic' diet, often adding short lengths of millet sprays and seeding grass heads (from a safe unsprayed source). You can experiment with wide variety of small seeds, veg and fruit - but care needs to be taken that foodstuffs can't rot - they take food underground so I used to limit the amount of fresh veg supplied. They will use fresh veg as a source of liquid.

One thing you may find cropping up if you breed them, will be colour 'morphs' - blue and 'red' cropped up in my colony. During discussions with a guy called Eddie Cope (one of the most knowledgeable 'rodent' men I've been privilged to know!) It seems that the colour morphs occur naturally in the wild - so should be considered as morphs or colour variations and not mutations.

Mike


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## acapae (Feb 24, 2012)

Cool, I'll bear that in mind.... but most likely probably won't :lol:

Coming from a science background, I'd refer to any colour difference as a [genetic] mutation, regardless of whether the variations are restricted to captivity or not. The ones I'm getting are blue though - I know that much.


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