I went to the pet store and bought my first two mice. They were both males. One of them was realy quite,stayed in one spot,and his eyes were almost closed.He also had a little brown lump on his back. The other one was running around and somtimes he would try to fight the quite one.Last night they were fighting and i heard a tiny squeek. it was relly late so i didnt bother to get up. Well this morning i woke up and i found the quite one dead. He appears to have no marks, so i dont think the other one killed him. My mom is doing the great train race thing and when she gets home we are going to call petsmart. Do any of you have suggetions?
Answers:
It's true, usually males can't be kept together. Males should live alone, but make up for it w/extra attention and plenty to do in the tank (tunnels, wheels, things to chew, etc). Females do best with others, but don't allow them to live with males, because they'll breed back to back..which is very hard on them and the litters. In the future, have a single male or two or more females together.
take the mouse to the vet
Male rats can stay in the same cage together but male fancy mice cannot. I'm sorry to say this but males are very territorial and get vicious to each other. Having 2 females or 1 male and 1 female is OK. When you heard squeaking you should have separated them immediately if you just put it in a box. But what can you do? I'm sorry for your lost...
Sounds like the ''quiet'' one was ill. When picking out a pet mouse, you should look for the ones with alert eyes, active attitude, not being picked on (but not picking on any others). Stay away from mice that are hunched over, have red discharge from the eyes/nose, rapid breathing, rattling noises while breathing (like they have a stuffy nose), and fur loss.
Males aren't always suitable to live together. Please do NOT get "1 male, 1 female", because that'll get overwhelming way too easily.
the person above is right about picking out mice. you want clear bright eyes, no lumps and bumps, and active. male mice can be kept together and should be kept in at the very least pairs. when a mouse attacks another one and the one being attacked is ill it doesn't take much more than stress to kill the ill one. there doesn't have to be a single mark left if the quiet one was ill. the intimidation alone would have done it.
Male mice don't usually get along well together. Two females would be better suited in one cage. Sorry to hear about the one mouse. The lump on that mouse's back might have been from a fight, it could have been a scab or something. If it is worse than that, and there was something wrong with that mouse (sick wise) then I would take your mouse to a small animal veterinarian. Of course call the place you bought the mice from, most places have a guarantee of some sort on livestock. Especially Petsmart and Petco. Anyway, if you notice anything funny about the other mouse, his eyes look cruddy or if his bottom looks consistently wet, there might be a problem there. Talk to the pet store people first, then if needed take it to a vet.
The same thing happened to me once, I was keeping two male mice together, alone, in the same cage. You see, I guess it's okay to keep more than two males together, like five or more, but just two is bad, they will compete for food. You know the answer isn't that you can't keep males together, because at Petsmart, they keep males and females in different cages, for obvious reasons.
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