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Phoebe the Mouse
Oct. 17th, 2017 11:54 amThis is Phoebe, my wonderful old lady mouse! I adopted her and her litter of three girls from a pet store last February. This pet store chain by rule can only sell animals of one sex from their stores; this store only sells males. They got Phoebe by mistake, and of course she ended up pregnant, so they couldn't sell her or her female babies. So that's why they were adoptable.
Unfortunately, not long after I took them in, two of the babies (Lydia and Junia) got sick and passed away. The only survivor (Priscilla) grew up very small/stunted and had a lifelong constant respiratory issue as a result of being sick as a baby. And she ended up living only half her normal lifespan, leaving Phoebe.
Phoebe was infected too, but survived just fine, probably because she's an adult. She gets occasional breathing sounds like Priscilla had, but it's just occasional and doesn't seem to bother her. She's a hardy lil gal, and a sweet one too. She's not affectionate like the rats, but most mice aren't. What she is is amazingly calm, which is super cool for a mouse since they're more high-strung than rats. But I can scoop her out of her bed when she's sleeping and she's completely chill (I generally don't do this because she's an old lady who wants to sleep but I CAN and she tolerates it) I also trust her with my four year old niece (I don't always trust the niece with her though!)
Because her cage is small and she can't kick bedding out of it, she gets to be the only rodent who lives in my room, and I really enjoy having her there :) She's fun to watch when she's awake, and she doesn't make noise at night either. Just some rustling around sometimes when she makes a nest but I don't find that bothersome, it's actually kind of soothing :)
( Read more... )
Unfortunately, not long after I took them in, two of the babies (Lydia and Junia) got sick and passed away. The only survivor (Priscilla) grew up very small/stunted and had a lifelong constant respiratory issue as a result of being sick as a baby. And she ended up living only half her normal lifespan, leaving Phoebe.
Phoebe was infected too, but survived just fine, probably because she's an adult. She gets occasional breathing sounds like Priscilla had, but it's just occasional and doesn't seem to bother her. She's a hardy lil gal, and a sweet one too. She's not affectionate like the rats, but most mice aren't. What she is is amazingly calm, which is super cool for a mouse since they're more high-strung than rats. But I can scoop her out of her bed when she's sleeping and she's completely chill (I generally don't do this because she's an old lady who wants to sleep but I CAN and she tolerates it) I also trust her with my four year old niece (I don't always trust the niece with her though!)
Because her cage is small and she can't kick bedding out of it, she gets to be the only rodent who lives in my room, and I really enjoy having her there :) She's fun to watch when she's awake, and she doesn't make noise at night either. Just some rustling around sometimes when she makes a nest but I don't find that bothersome, it's actually kind of soothing :)
( Read more... )
