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  #21  
Old April 5th 04, 09:38 PM
Alison
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wrote:

Even if it doesn't get beyond the cats learning
not to pounce on the cage (something we'd like to
stop before it starts) then at least I won't have
to worry about whether or not we left the bathroom
door open when we go grocery shopping.


Sorry. As a veteran cat and mouse owner I'll urge you to ALWAYS worry. I
have lost many mice to the cats, including mice that were housed in
heavy glass aquaria with sturdy mesh lids duct-taped on and weighted by
20 lb. toolchests. (The cats got behind the cage and worked in concert
to push it off.) I've recovered more from their mouths as they huddled,
growling, behind the couch. Leaving a door open and walking down the
hall was a recipe for disaster. Leaving a door open and leaving the
house was a guarantee of much havoc and carnage.

In fact, the difficulty of keeping the two species separate, and the
heartbreak of losing cherished pets so often, has finally convinced me
not to adopt any more pet mice (though I am SO tempted by some
hobby-bred fancy mice that are about to become available).

Mice are sweet affectionate little guys, but no matter what you do,
they're sitting ducks for the predators you house.

(BTW, check IMMEDIATELY to make sure you have a matched pair and if not
separate them. If their "parts" match, then learn to really sex mice and
make sure you've got two girls. Boys will fight, sometimes to the death,
except under rare circumstances. Girls from a situation such as you
describe are almost certainly pregnant.)

-Alison in OH
  #22  
Old April 7th 04, 03:41 AM
Cathy Friedmann
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"Laura R." wrote in message
.. .
circa 5 Apr 2004 13:34:31 -0700, in rec.pets.cats.health+behav, Steve
G ) said,
No. I have some gaoled wild mice (they were swiping my seeds, so they
are in chokey until they reform) and gerbils.


Gaol, I know, but what's chokey?


Not sure here, but in "Matilda" (Roald Dahl), the chokey was a tiny
closet-like space where Miss Trunchbull (huge, beefy, former hammer-thrower
headmistress of a school) put the kids she wanted to punish. It had only
enough space to stand upright - barely.

Cathy

--
"Staccato signals of constant information..."
("The Boy in the Bubble") Paul Simon



  #23  
Old April 7th 04, 03:41 AM
Cathy Friedmann
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"Laura R." wrote in message
.. .
circa 5 Apr 2004 13:34:31 -0700, in rec.pets.cats.health+behav, Steve
G ) said,
No. I have some gaoled wild mice (they were swiping my seeds, so they
are in chokey until they reform) and gerbils.


Gaol, I know, but what's chokey?


Not sure here, but in "Matilda" (Roald Dahl), the chokey was a tiny
closet-like space where Miss Trunchbull (huge, beefy, former hammer-thrower
headmistress of a school) put the kids she wanted to punish. It had only
enough space to stand upright - barely.

Cathy

--
"Staccato signals of constant information..."
("The Boy in the Bubble") Paul Simon



  #24  
Old April 7th 04, 03:25 PM
Alison
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equalizer wrote:

It was the bit about cruelly picking up the mice by the tails that got
me. Sounded like a very well-crafted troll. I was trying to imagine what
he thought the correct way of handling mice was -- perhaps cradling them
gently on their backs and scritching them on their bellies and under
their chins?

eq


Clearly you haven't educated yourself about the care of domestic mice.
(Not that I expect you to have, but jumping to conclusions based on
misinformation isn't very clever.)

Picking a mouse up by the tail, especially away from the base of the
tail, and not supporting the body is an unpleasant way to treat the
creature and could result in stripping the skin from the tail. A
skittish mouse that must be picked up quickly may be gripped firmly at
the base of the tail and scooped with the other hand. A mouse in the
process of taming should not be exposed to this rough treatment; herding
it into a container like a cardboard tube and picking that up is
preferred. A tame mouse is generally scooped up bodily and accepts this
treatment happily. (Heck, my pet mice would run into a proffered hand at
any time; one would even come when called to do so.)

Pet store employees that handle the stock like this (or that scoop fish
out of the water and handle them bodily when transferring them to bags
for sale) are just asking for the animals to get stressed and sick, and
are clearly undereducated about their job.

So, I agree with Dennis, troll or no, that he shouldn't have bought mice
from a place that mishandled them so, since he's just supporting the
mistreatment.

-Alison in OH
  #25  
Old April 7th 04, 03:25 PM
Alison
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equalizer wrote:

It was the bit about cruelly picking up the mice by the tails that got
me. Sounded like a very well-crafted troll. I was trying to imagine what
he thought the correct way of handling mice was -- perhaps cradling them
gently on their backs and scritching them on their bellies and under
their chins?

eq


Clearly you haven't educated yourself about the care of domestic mice.
(Not that I expect you to have, but jumping to conclusions based on
misinformation isn't very clever.)

Picking a mouse up by the tail, especially away from the base of the
tail, and not supporting the body is an unpleasant way to treat the
creature and could result in stripping the skin from the tail. A
skittish mouse that must be picked up quickly may be gripped firmly at
the base of the tail and scooped with the other hand. A mouse in the
process of taming should not be exposed to this rough treatment; herding
it into a container like a cardboard tube and picking that up is
preferred. A tame mouse is generally scooped up bodily and accepts this
treatment happily. (Heck, my pet mice would run into a proffered hand at
any time; one would even come when called to do so.)

Pet store employees that handle the stock like this (or that scoop fish
out of the water and handle them bodily when transferring them to bags
for sale) are just asking for the animals to get stressed and sick, and
are clearly undereducated about their job.

So, I agree with Dennis, troll or no, that he shouldn't have bought mice
from a place that mishandled them so, since he's just supporting the
mistreatment.

-Alison in OH
  #26  
Old April 7th 04, 08:43 PM
Alison
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equalizer wrote:

It was the bit about cruelly picking up the mice by the tails
that got me. Sounded like a very well-crafted troll. I was
trying to imagine what
he thought the correct way of handling mice was -- perhaps
cradling them
gently on their backs and scritching them on their bellies and
under their chins?


Clearly you haven't educated yourself about the care of domestic
mice. (Not that I expect you to have, but jumping to conclusions
based on misinformation isn't very clever.)


Picking a mouse up by the tail, especially away from the base of the
tail, and not supporting the body is an unpleasant way to treat the
creature and could result in stripping the skin from the tail.


snipped and re-ordered

Actually, here's a picture of a mouse I caught in my old apartment,
in a live trap. I picked it up by the tail. The picture was taken
seconds after I released it. If you look closely, you'll see there's
absolutely NO damage to its tail.

http://web.newsguy.com/equalizer/mouse.jpg


I don't see how your response is an adequate rebuttal either to my
description of the standard of care for *domestic* mice, nor to my
cautionary note that this mishandling *could* result in a stripped tail.

-Alison in OH
  #27  
Old April 7th 04, 08:43 PM
Alison
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equalizer wrote:

It was the bit about cruelly picking up the mice by the tails
that got me. Sounded like a very well-crafted troll. I was
trying to imagine what
he thought the correct way of handling mice was -- perhaps
cradling them
gently on their backs and scritching them on their bellies and
under their chins?


Clearly you haven't educated yourself about the care of domestic
mice. (Not that I expect you to have, but jumping to conclusions
based on misinformation isn't very clever.)


Picking a mouse up by the tail, especially away from the base of the
tail, and not supporting the body is an unpleasant way to treat the
creature and could result in stripping the skin from the tail.


snipped and re-ordered

Actually, here's a picture of a mouse I caught in my old apartment,
in a live trap. I picked it up by the tail. The picture was taken
seconds after I released it. If you look closely, you'll see there's
absolutely NO damage to its tail.

http://web.newsguy.com/equalizer/mouse.jpg


I don't see how your response is an adequate rebuttal either to my
description of the standard of care for *domestic* mice, nor to my
cautionary note that this mishandling *could* result in a stripped tail.

-Alison in OH
  #28  
Old April 9th 04, 05:49 AM
Dennis Carr
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On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 16:38:02 -0400, Alison wrote:

Sorry. As a veteran cat and mouse owner I'll urge you to ALWAYS worry. I
have lost many mice to the cats, including mice that were housed in
heavy glass aquaria with sturdy mesh lids duct-taped on and weighted by
20 lb. toolchests.


It is a good thing then that the cats cannot open a round doorknob and
push the bathroom door open, and that we habitually keep the bathroom door
closed accordingly. =^^=;;

Mice are sweet affectionate little guys, but no matter what you do,
they're sitting ducks for the predators you house.


Yeah, that's kind of what we're learning here. I really wish I didn't
buy from that shop in the end (hard lesson - never EVER buy anything from
a pet shop in a mall, even if they pointedly don't sell Hartz... and I
should know better, having attempted to breed cats... Doh!), but I'm at
least pleased to know that these are two little ones who aren't going to
either turn into snake chow or be mishandled as such.

As for the matching pair... um.... hooboy. Alison, would you by any
chance know about how much your vet would charge to neuter a mouse,
ballpark figure? Or should we just get another cage?

--
Dennis Carr - | I may be out of my mind,
http://www.dennis.furtopia.org | But I have more fun that way.
------------------------------------+-------------------------------

  #29  
Old April 9th 04, 05:49 AM
Dennis Carr
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On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 16:38:02 -0400, Alison wrote:

Sorry. As a veteran cat and mouse owner I'll urge you to ALWAYS worry. I
have lost many mice to the cats, including mice that were housed in
heavy glass aquaria with sturdy mesh lids duct-taped on and weighted by
20 lb. toolchests.


It is a good thing then that the cats cannot open a round doorknob and
push the bathroom door open, and that we habitually keep the bathroom door
closed accordingly. =^^=;;

Mice are sweet affectionate little guys, but no matter what you do,
they're sitting ducks for the predators you house.


Yeah, that's kind of what we're learning here. I really wish I didn't
buy from that shop in the end (hard lesson - never EVER buy anything from
a pet shop in a mall, even if they pointedly don't sell Hartz... and I
should know better, having attempted to breed cats... Doh!), but I'm at
least pleased to know that these are two little ones who aren't going to
either turn into snake chow or be mishandled as such.

As for the matching pair... um.... hooboy. Alison, would you by any
chance know about how much your vet would charge to neuter a mouse,
ballpark figure? Or should we just get another cage?

--
Dennis Carr - | I may be out of my mind,
http://www.dennis.furtopia.org | But I have more fun that way.
------------------------------------+-------------------------------

  #30  
Old April 9th 04, 06:09 AM
Dennis Carr
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On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:34:31 -0700, Steve G wrote:

Asking if a carnivore and its prey will be best buds is a bit like
asking if cheese would be a suitable material from which to make an
artifical kneecap.


Oh, so THAT is why my right kneecap bothers me so. Also explains the
intense urge to use my knee for making quesadillas. =^^=

Seriously, though, I kind of figured this - thus the original question.
In any case, thanks again everybody for their answers.

--
Dennis Carr - | I may be out of my mind,
http://www.dennis.furtopia.org | But I have more fun that way.
------------------------------------+-------------------------------

 




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