I am a huge animal lover.  I admit, I can't help myself with animals.  I don't have as much sympathy for humans as I do with animals because humans have the conscious ability to better themselves.  Domestic animals do not. They can't get their own food or set up a place to live. They can't better their environment or make their lives pleasant.  So when I go to a pet store to get food for my existing pets, I try not to look at the feeder bins because I always leave depressed that I can't save more helpless, mistreated rodents.  But I still make the mistake of wandering over, sometimes, because occasionally I feel I'm one of the very few who actually cares about the little critters. Many times I've had to tell (a disgruntled) Petco employee that the rat's water bottle has tipped over or some mice have no food.  When I see the animals in horrible conditions, sometimes I can't help myself.  I have to save what I can.  Besides the numerous rodents I've saved from people who couldn't keep them anymore, I have a few mice that I got from Petcos or pet stores that kept them in horrible conditions.  I can't save them all, but I can at least help out a couple.
 
 

This is my main tank of saved girls.  At one point I had 13 girls in it, some from people who couldn't keep them, others from pet stores. Some I've found good homes, others died. There has been a little turnover in the tank. After one or two have left, another one might come.  There was a point where I was trying to find a home for all these girls, but the ones left I will keep. I've grown too attached to them.   This tank is a ten gallon. Originally, they were in my 25 gallon tank but as their clan grew smaller, so did the tank.  But these girls are all healthy and have been okay for a long time. The last death was about six months ago (at this writing) and since then, there have been no deaths or problems at all.   These are the Albino twins, the only two girls in the tank that I've never actually named, simply because I can't tell them apart. The last one that died was also one of them (the Albino Triplets they were called then). These are the two friendliest mice I have. Out of this tank, they are the ones who always want to be held, always want to come out. When the others will scamper away, these two will come to me.  They also are the only ones in the tank who will always toss all their food out of the dishes. I don't know why. As soon as I fill it up, they jump in and kick it all out. So half of their food is always on the ground. But let this be a lesson. Those feeder mice get a bum rap. Simply because they don't have fancy colors, they should be livestock?  No! If you want a great pet, buy a one dollar feeder mice. You can't go wrong! Here we see a top view of the tank. In the wheel is Ava, the mouse I've had the longest of any mice I own, and Lil' Sister (the black one), who came over with two other mice I have in different tanks. I didn't know if she was the sister or one or both, so I just called her Lil' Sister.  This is Millie, a mouse I save on December 31, 1999 (the eve of the "millennium"), so I call her Millie. She has since moved to another tank (down farther on this page) because the other girls (mainly G.G. and Cyclops) didn't get along with her or her sisters. Here is Cyclops, a mouse I took from a girl who didn't want her mice anymore.  She has one eye.  The one with her nose in the air is Ava and the one closest to us is Eve (purchased with Millie on "millennium" eve).    Right now in the tank lives Cyclops, G.G. (Gray Girl, the boss of the tank), the Albino Twins, Ava, Big Mama (another albino who used to be so fat she looked pregnant but has since lost all her weight. She's not as friendly as the twins), and Lil' Sister.

 

This is one of those "Safari Habitat" cages.  It is the best cage I've ever had for mice and next to the large ferret cage my rats are in, the best cage I've ever seen.  It's got an upper level, a wheel that actually works well (not one of those stupid plastic wheels that come with some cages that won't turn), easy access inside and an amazing ease of disassembling for cleaning. When you first put it together, you wonder how the hell you'll ever be able to clean it.  But after it's assembled, it comes apart in two pieces.  The only drawback is the wheel, although an excellent wheel for the mice, they poo all over it, and quick.   In this cage I house my three "house" mice, Zed, Psycho and P.J.. They are the ones who are actually in my kitchen, open to the "public" to see when they come over.  This is Zed. He's pretty big.  He was a feeder at a Petco.  He is one of the nicest rodents I've ever owned. He loves to be pet. He's friendly to all other mice.  I wish people who were thinking about getting hamsters or gerbils for pets could see Zed, hold him for a minute and let him sit on your shoulder.  I think they'd change their minds pretty quick about what type of pet they'd get.     Zed lives with Psycho, who is from a girl who had him with other female mice. She realized he wasn't female when he was hopping all around acting crazy amongst all his girls (he didn't get any pregnant) and she named him Psycho.  In reality, he's a far from being a psycho as you can imagine. He is the white version of Zed (except not as big).  He loves to be pet and will always come to you when you approach his cage.  This is why I keep these guys in the kitchen. They're close to me when I'm in there, I always give them treats and they are rewarding pets. P.J. is a little guy I saved with his brother (Whitey, who's in another cage).  I call him P.J. because he looks like a mini version of Psycho, so I call him Psycho Jr.. Zed and Psycho are pretty much the only males I have that have been civil to other males. So when new baby males come over, I try them with these two first. There will be a little nipping at first, but usually they accept any other mice that are put with them. Squeaky (down farther down) lived with Psycho and Zed since he was a little baby but as he got older, he started picking on Zed all the time.  One day I noticed Zed had little cuts all over him. I realized Squeak was beating the crap out of him. Zed was stressed and losing weight. I moved Squeaky out and he's in his own place. Zed got better real quick. I'll never make the mistake again of assuming the mice put with them are as good as they are.   It's hard to believe these little guys could have ended up as snake food.

 

Whitey lives in this Kritter Keeper with Tiny, a little albino baby male I saved yesterday. Whitey came with P.J., but after they were in their own cage for a while, Whitey started fighting with P.J., so P.J. got moved with Zed and his namesake.  Whitey lived alone for a little while until yesterday, when the little Tiny got put with him and they are getting along great.    This cage was once used for a pacman frog, which is why that black strip is at the right hand bottom. That's a thermometer strip.    This is Squeaky's cage. He was with Zed until he beat him up.  He looks just like Zed too, except for Zed has the brown bottom and Squeaky is all black. He's called Squeaky because when I first got him, he was squeaking constantly.  He's not so bad now.  He can't live with any other mice because he will fight.  He loves that upper level on his Kritter Keeper and spends more time there than he does in the bottom. This is Goliath with Tiny.  I was at the Petco  getting food and I stupidly had to check out how the rodents were doing. There he was, in the feeder bin. He was so big, I actually thought he was a small rat, but he wasn't killing any mice.  I watched him as he mounted every female in the bin. He was too nice looking for me to leave so I got him and one male with him. Of course, once alone, he was picking on the little guy, so Tiny ended up with Whitey (above). Goliath is in a cage now (the cage that my old buddy Wunnuy used to live in before he died; see previous entries on my web site). Goliath loves to be pet. He's a little shy, but once you hold him, he's extremely friendly.  Even the girl, as she was pulling him out of the feeder bin, said "man, this is a cute guy." Check back later for more on Goliath. The other male mouse I have is Zac, who is the male mouse I've owned the longest and only Ava has been here longer. He's a great little guy, who I used to let run around my desk when I was working because he'd come back to me when I called (I've since changed my desk to where it would not be possible for me to let him run around). Unfortunately, Zacky is ill and I'm afraid won't be around much longer. I believe he had a stroke, as he has problems standing straight up and climbing and he's got some disease (or bugs maybe?) that his one eye is bulging out (and totally blind) and his other is on the way. He still runs (slowly) in his wheel and loves his treats and I have his cage right by my desk so I can keep an eye on him. I can't photograph him though, because he's not suitable for a picture. There are other pictures of him on my site and I hope you'll check them out because he was a looker.

 

Finally we've got the other girl's abode.  This place was set up simply because my favorite little girl, Bean (who is at the top of this page trying to figure out what she's doing wrong on the wheel) was getting the crap beat out of her by the other females, so I set her up her own place.  I call her Bean because when I got her, the second I got her home and opened her box, she jumped out, at least a foot and a half jump upwards, to my shoulder and sat there, like a Jumping Bean. She came with Squeaky and Lil' Sister, Petco saves.  I don't think she's a regular mouse, but a deer mouse or something like that because she's smaller and built a little differently than the others.  I didn't want her to be alone so I got her a friend, an albino girl named Kitty (I call her because she sleeps in catlike positions), a very friendly girl.  Then on December 31, 1999, I decided it would be nice to save a couple mice for the "millennium."  I got three girls at Allen's Pet store on Lincoln Blvd. in Venice, Ca (a place where the mice are treated poorly).  Eve, Millie and Skunky (because she looks like a skunk) live in this tank too.  In the last few days I've discovered all three new girls have lumps.  Millie, shown here with Bean on the wheel (yes, Bean does know how to use it correctly after all), has a huge lump on her throat which just started growing. So far she's doing fine, but I'm worried about her.   Skunky has a lump on her back that hasn't been getting any bigger and Eve, who we thought was pregnant when I got her, also has a bump on her back.  She has lost a lot of weight the last few days and appears to be sick, not moving around too much, always sleeping in weird positions. It's sad these nice little girls are all diseased, but at least they will live their lives in comfort, something they would not have done had they stayed at that horrible pet store.

Right now, Whitey (and Tiny), Squeaky and Goliath are available to a good home or homes.  They come with their cages and accessories. My only condition is that I get to deliver them to your home and see that you own other mice and are not going to feed them to snakes. I have delivered other rodents to a few people around California and can provide references if necessary because I'm not going to let someone just come here and take them on their word that they won't be fed to reptiles (Yes, I've had people try that, luckily I did some investigating first).

I love animals and if you have pictures of your rodents, let me know. I'd like to see them.