Of Mice & Women

One day while Betty was working, a lady walked through the door & let it be known that there was a litter of mice in the shelter parking lot. Now mice are a problem even for a shelter that saves the lives of all kinds of critters, so this news wasn't all that welcome. However, the lady was expectant, so Betty went out & collected the little motherless creatures. Upon bringing them inside, they cuddled into her sleeve, causing everyone to go "Aaaawwwww".



Hand feeding baby mice is usually not successful. They don't tend to survive. However, everyone pitched in and the mice were given nourishment from a syringe. Over the next little while, a number of the babies died, but two made it. People thought feeding them was crazy, but seeing their little paws hold the syringe brought the "Aaaawwww" out again.

Betty brought the mice home after work each day to keep them fed. The plan was to release them when they could eat on their own.

Right.

We set their little cage up in the basement, away from all the cats upstairs. As soon as they became old enough to explore their surroundings, one escaped. He stayed nearby, so Betty snatched him up and put him back in his cage. She bought a more secure cage that afternoon. I looked at her & she mumbled "I bottle fed them...." Luckily, both critters were male.


I looked up mice on the web and discovered their life expectancy to be about 18 months to 2 years. That didn't seem too bad, so I went out and bought some tubing to go with the cage. Might as well give them a good home for their short little lives. Of course it didn't end there. I bought another cage because I felt they needed a bit more room to run around. They were mice & needed exercise! I also got some cute accessories - a 'restaurant' and a 'spaceship'. Within a week we found a large hole in the bottom of the spaceship. Luckily both mice were still in the cage, so I got rid of the craft and capped the tube leading to it.


I named them Stewart (of course!) and Solly, short for Soloman. As they grew, their little personalities came to the fore and we found we couldn't handle them anymore. It was Solly who'd bitten Betty a number of times, and we soon figured it was Solly who had escaped. He's definitely the Alpha mouse, while Stew is at times quite timid and afraid of change. Solly gnaws on the cage when he sees I'm getting the food ready for them. He also reaches through the cage and bats at me as if to say "Closer - closer - I want to tear you apart!" He's pretty fearless. One day I took my specs off and leaned in to inspect a part of the cage. After a few seconds my eyes focused on something moving just in front of my face - Solly reaching through the bars, waving his little paws at me, trying to nab my nose! "Closer - closer - fight like a man! I'll tear ya apart!"


Ungrateful brat.