Raising a Baby Mouse 3/10 How Much to Feed

Warning: for inexperienced animal people the failure rate for trying to handraise a baby mouse is around 75%. It is very painful loosing a baby mouse because you get to love them so much. Think carefully about it before you try.

How much to Feed

Knowing how much to feed a baby mouse can be tricky. Officially you should feed every two hours round the clock until weaning and 0.05 cc formula per gram of body weight each feeding session. I was not that precise, I fed Matilda until she seemed to have had enough. At first she would be super enthusiastic about her food and then as the feeding session progressed become calmer until eventually she refused to eat anymore. This let me know it was time to stop. Feeding Matilda never took very long, at most 5-10 minutes. Stuart was much more fussy and with him it took longer.

If your baby is fussy right from the start of the feeding session then you need to persevere. Offer it food and then give it a break for a minute and then try again. If the baby is not eating after about ten tries you have to give up and hope things are better next session, you can't force a baby mouse to eat.

Stuart learned in the space of half an hour what babies are all about. It took a while for his instincts to kick in, but after that he could not have been a better 'dad' to little Matilda. Eventually he would lead me to his travel cage, hinting he wanted some family time with Matilda and me. He just loved it when I would let him take care of Mattie. A few times he stole her from me and took her to his travel cage himself :)

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• mouse
• mice
• baby
• infant
• pinky
• fuzzy
• cute
• animal
• rodent
• care
• feeding
• hand
• raising
• rearing
• bottle
• milk
• caring
• sweet
• parental
• instincts
• father
• dad
• behaviour
• imprinting
• Stuart
• Matilda
• nursing