Harvest mice | Housing | Care & handling  | Feeding | Breeding

Harvest mice (Mycromys minutus)

Harvest mice are small climbing mice, which live spread out trough Europe and  Asia. Harvest mice live in social groups, and are active throughout daytime. The mice are nice to look at and not for handling, because they are small and very quick. The mice have a reddish brown back and a pale white belly. Their body length is about 35 - 76 mm and the tail is about 46 – 72 mm in length. An adult harvest mouse weighs between 5 – 10 gram. In captivity the mice can live up to 2.5 years old.

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Adult Harvest mouse		Adult mouse with a young mouse

Housing

Harvest mice aren’t very difficult to keep. You can house them in a large  terrarium (see picture) with lots of branches and ropes. As substrate for the enclosure you can use sand or small woodchips. You can also place some dry leafs, grass and reed on the bottom. The natural habitat of harvest mice are shrubs and cornfields. They  can jump and climb very well. The mice have a prehensile tail, which they use for climbing. Branches, ropes, standing reed panicles, grass and corn stalks, can be used as climbing objects. Usually they build their own nests from grass and corn stalks, if there is enough available for them. Hanging readymade nests of hay are also good nesting places, as well as small hanging flowerpots or spherical hayracks. The mice will build their own nests in it (see pictures).

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Harvest mouse enclosure		Nest

Care and handling

Harvest mice are easy to keep. To keep them healthy you must feed and water them in time, that’s the most important thing to do. Also important is to clean the feeding dishes on a regular basis, to keep them free from mould and vermin. Hygiene is important because the mice usually pee and defecate in their dishes. The enclosure doesn’t have to been cleaned very often as with most rodents. These small mice aren’t very filthy and don’t smell.

Handling these small mice isn’t very easy. They’re very small, vulnerable and quick. A person who is used to handling small rodents, can pick them up by their tail. Usually they immediately climb up their own tail, and can bite really hard so be careful not to drop them. Keep the tub you want to put them into above their enclosure. If you drop one it falls in the tub or in his enclosure and not on the ground. In case one escapes, you can catch it very easily with a mouse-friendly mice trap. Place the mice trap with some fruit in it along the wall.

If you are less experienced with handling mice, you can use a small container to catch them. Place the small container in the enclosure en try to drive the mouse in to the container. Block the entrances of the small container with both hands and pick it up. Place the small container with the mouse in his new enclosure and set the mouse free. It’s also very easy to determine the gender of the mouse by using a transparent container.

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Feeding

Harvest mice eat mostly seeds, corn and insects. Small seeds and corn are very suitable for them to eat, like weed seed, tropical seed and wild bird seed. Beside seeds, their diet must be completed with small insects such as buffalo worms and small crickets and some insect food for birds. It’s all about the proteins which they need in their diet. Water can be served in a drinking bottle, best with a nipple without a ball. When you use one with a ball, it better be a very small bottle, otherwise the ball can cause the mice trouble. Water can also be served in a bird fountain (see picture) that’s placed on a stone. The mice have a very high metabolism, so they must have access to food and water at any time, otherwise they will die!

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Breeding

Harvest mice are sexually mature when they are 40 days old. The gestation period is the same as that of fancy mice: about 21 days. The litters contain 5 – 6 babies (sometimes up to 9), they’ll produce about 2 or 3 litters in a year. The babies are born naked and blind. Within 10 days, they will open their eyes. The baby mice will suckle until they are 14 days of age (fancy mice will suckle up to 4 weeks).

Mothermouse with baby		Young mouse just left its nest

Literature

• Dekker, R (2000). Knaagdieren encyclopedie. Warffum: Welzo Media Productions.

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