My rescued newborn mouse is doing good.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

Okay, so here's the story. My two female leopard geckos are both pregnant. I was informed that they should get a newborn "pinkie" mouse weekly when pregnant because it's loaded with calcium and a big source of food, so it fattens them up. I personally feel bad doing this, but hey, it's for the best of my geckos and I'm a good gecko mom. I buy a pinkie mouse for each female, drop them in the food bowl and head out. I was hoping that they'd both be gone when I get home.

I come home like 12 hours later. One is still in the food bowl, obviously very weak and to make it even more pathetic, completely covered in calcium and gecko vitamin powder. I decide that the thing needs a chance. So I wipe off the vitamins and set it up a new little home. It's living in a plastic Guinness hat with a towel and cotton balls inside on top of the heating pad. Ironically, it shares the heating pad with the incubator for the gecko eggs.

After checking out some websites, I find out that I can rehydrate it with gatorade or pedialyte. A couple feedings with gatorade and it's all perked up. It was so small, it couldn't even drink off a tiny eyedropper. I had to dip a cotton ball in liquid and let it suck off of that. Now, it's moved onto puppy formula. I've had it for about 5 days now. It's grown a lot. It's ears poke out and the tail is getting long. The eyes are just starting to open and it has the very fine layer of fur and big long whiskers. I can't believe it's doing this well. I've successfully hand-raised dozens of animals, but it was always birds.

The cutest thing is, when I put it down on the floor, it crawls to my hand. It knows my scent. I'm it's giant mom. I need to give it a name though.

[Maat]

1. Bless you for your rescue!

My friend bought a rat for his snake, and then just didn't have the heart to make it food. That rat became one of their favorite pets.

We have the 'rat sisters,' Oreo and Star. They are really fun and intelligent pets.

Sounds like you are good doctor! I'm glad she (he?) is doing well. If you go to the pet store, you will find lots of helpful things. I had to put "our rat sisters" in separate accomodations, because they like being able to know the other one is near, but have space-sharing issues. I have these wicker-basket-like little homes I put in there, and they each sleep in one. Lots of fun stuff in the pet store for mice, including little exercise wheels.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. I'm not sure if it's a boy or a girl. It's too small.

I've had pet rodents before. A pair of incestuous lesbian hamsters. Man, they freaked my mom out so much. We also had a pet vole for awhile that we named "Molevole" because we didn't know if it was a mole or a vole at first. Molevole was rescued by our German Shepherd. Basically the dog was pushing it around in the snow (it was pretty frozen) and my mom went to check out what the dog was doing and found this little rodent. It was a baby, because it did end up getting bigger but it didn't need to be handfed or anything. So we had Molevole for the winter through until the summer. We let it free in the woods because it started getting really hyper in it's cage. It was a cool pet while we had it though. It would run on a hamster wheel and take baby carrots from us then bury them. It always acted fairly wild though. We couldn't actually touch it, even though it would take food from our hands.

[Maat]

10. That's a great story!

I find our rat sisters to be very friendly - but we got them when they were babies, and I held them quite a bit. They're blind as bats (I'm probably exaggerating, but I'm told by the vet that it's the rodent's sense of SMELL that is valuable to the rodent, not the eyesight). Mine wake up, and I think that they think my long fingernail is a tortilla chip (like the kind my hubby gives them - I sometimes get a kind of an exploratory nip; apparently my nail doesn't taste that good from their facial expression).

[neweurope]

2. How sweet. Love this story.

:yourock:

If it's a male, I'd call him Hannibal :)

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

6. It doesn't matter. I just name my pets without regard to gender.

I even have a black leather spiked collar on a female cat. It suits her. She's the ultimate don't fuck with me cat.

[Oeditpus Rex]

3. This is makin' me smile real big

What a wonderful, humane thing to do. :hug:

:yourock:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

5. Yeah, we're an animal house.

Four Cats
Midnight-Rescued alley cat. She's 13 now, but we got her at seven weeks. Her siblings and mother were killed. She's indestructible herself. She has a chronic sinus problem (like me), missing a bunch of teeth, and was once lost in a blizzard for two weeks. She came home skinny but healthy and with a sudden appreciation for humans.
Cuddles-Pretty, but stupid Ragdoll cat. He was purchased, then adopted by our German Shepherd. Bites but usually too lazy and fat to put the effort into it.
Ginsberg-Named after Allen Ginsberg. Smart, if you ignore that he likes to roll in mud. Was given to me by a friend (a pregnant cat adopted her) so I told my mom I found him by the dumpster at work.
Peaches-Rescued "Ragdoll" cat. I think she's actually Birman and she didn't come with papers. Breeder gave her to us because she had too many litters to breed again. She came to us scared of everything and 5 lbs. Now she's in love with Ginsberg & me and 9lbs (STILL SKINNY!!!)

Two Dwarf Rabbits-Darwin & Elfie. They're both about 4 months old, so they're hyper as hell. It's hilarious to see them when they get exercise time. Pick running in circles at top speed. Stopping. Jumping straight up and doing a 360 midair then repeating the process.

Three Leopard Geckos-Killer (female), Stumpy (female) and Spot (male). All pretty chill. Spot can be brought out in public and he won't leave my shoulder.

Two Bearded Dragons-Dr. Gonzo (missing front leg, half his toes & half his tail) is mean as hell, but who is going to take a crippled vicious lizard, so I have him for life. His sister, Raoul Duke, is very nice.

Plus some fish and now the baby mouse. I used to also breed parakeets and finches, plus we had a cockateil. Then, there was the Pitbull Shepherd rescue (sweet and loved all people, dogs, and cats) and the German Shepherd (crazy, loved her family and her cats. Nothing outside).

[radwriter0555]

7. Call him "Snack"..

Awww, I love mice... I'm glad you gave the little guy a chance.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

8. That's actually a pretty cool name.

We might have a winner.

[China_cat]

9. You know, you can get frozen

pinky mice and warm them in the microwave and not have to put yourself through this again.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

12. Yeah, I know but the geckos won't eat anything thawed and frozen.

Even if I move it around for them.

[blindpig]

11. Good luck on the gecko eggs.

When they hatch be sure to house the neonates seperately, they're snappy little cusses and will bite off the tails of cagemates which can be fatal in an animal so young. If you have termites available give some to the little guys, they're great for fattening and promoting quick growth.