Wild deermice living with tame mice

Deermice can easily be kept with domesticated mice. My two little deermice Cyrus and Weston were fully accepted members of my mousy colony. Everyone loved them. The deermice were extremely affectionate. They did everything at a higher level than the domestics - they were more athletic, more energetic, more intelligent, more interactive and more affectionate. The brothers were especially bonded to each other. Cyrus was slightly handicapped from an earlier injury and I always had the feeling that Weston watched over him.

In the second half of the video, domestic mouse Clay is being very bossy towards the youngsters and generally showing them the way of things.

A lot of people who keep a wild mouse will give it a domestic mouse as a companion. Every mouse is an individual, but for the most part the different species get along well (especially if introduced at a young age), since mice in general are very social animals. Except for the house mouse, which domestice mice are descended from, wild mice cannot interbreed with domestic mice so there will be no babies. You do need to watch for aggression and if there is any separate them. The biggest danger though with keeping different species together is disease transmittance. But here the ballance between quality of life and the risk of reduced quantity of life needs to be taken into account. Every animal keeper must make this decision for themselves.

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Pets & Animals

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