Wednesday, March 14, 2007

My New Pet - Morris the Mouse

Last weekend Matt's little sis Elissa rescued a little mouse as he was being attacked by her cat. She knew I wanted a mouse so she made a little cardboard box house for him and kept him in there until we had time to figure out where to put him!

We couldn't quite figure out what he was since he didn't look like a regular mouse - he was much more pointy and stood on his hind legs a lot. It turns out he's a field mouse, and we originally thought he was a baby (since he's SOOO small) but it looks like he's full grown and won't be getting any bigger.

Morris's CageSo we went and bought Morris a cage for him and tried to make is as comfortable as possible with lots of fun things for him to play with. Unfortunately, at the corners of the cage the bars were slightly further apart than everywhere else, so in about 5 minutes Morris squeezed through and was running around the house quick as lightning. Elissa managed to catch him again, and we put him back in the cage but made sure to seal the big spaces up with masking tape.

It took him a while to get used to it, and he kept hiding under the newspaper. After a while he built up the courage to explore and finally discovered his wheel. It's so cute! He runs on it for like 10 minutes at a time, but he's yet to figure out that if he stands on top of the wheel, it will turn and make him fall off.

Weeee!He's really nimble so I haven't been handling him much (he's so small I don't want to hurt him!) but he's already used to people and doesn't get frightened at all. He actually keeps running in his wheel even if I'm carrying his cage around! I've noticed that as soon as we start talking to him he'll run out of the house and go straight to his wheel - I'm pretty sure he's showing off to us!

My parents were angry at first (my grandma still wants to kill it) but now they love him (how could you not!) and I often catch my mum or dad talking to him when they think no ones looking :)

Morris Resting in his Wheel

4 comments:

Rick said...

I have a friend who has THREE mice in his house. Want them too?


PS be careful you dont get rabies or something. You know the wild ones are pretty filthy creatures. Will he need shots?

Jess Manea said...

No thanks - one mouse will do for the time being :)

I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any diseases - I asked the lady at the pet shop where I bought the cage if we should be worried about stuff like that and she said it was fine. I think it's cause he's a field mouse and not a house mouse.

Plus his little teeth couldn't bite through your skin even if he tried!

Simon said...

Rick - Australia or in some instances "Stralia" is one of the last places on earth free of rabies.

Jess - he is not Field mouse, you can tell by looking at his chest... There is no big capital “F” … now I know about mice, I have see every episode of Mighty Mouse and he had a capital “M” for Mighty, and subsequently Mouse…

(he probably is a field mouse)

alexevanlover123 said...

My story : me mom dad ricky dacota were all out side i see my cat run over to the curb and pick something up!!!! it was skeaking very loud so i turned around and cried my mom said she's ganna have to get used to this girliy girl stuff and ran over to see if it was dead.... i didn't look she told me to go get a towel so i ran inside and got one she grabed the field mouse and he was hurt bad so she held for a little bit and said he might not make it but we'll give it a shot and i grabbed my old hermit crab cage (which is pretty big) and we put down a towel and i used my old hermit crab hiding log and he didn't seem like he was ganna make it ....i woke up and he was squeaking and looked at me so i ran in the kitchen and got him a little cheese bread and some salad and of course water ......we waited till yesterday and he is running around happy and he is super cute today i read ur blog and i saw u put there teeth are to small to break the skin so i told my mom and she ran in and picked him up she fell in love ....... and was talking in that baby voice to him/her and we named him/her kurby so hows ur mouse?