To My Micies,
My dad bought 5 mice for snake food but mom fell in love with one of them whom she called Lucky, so dad didn’t feed them to the snake. Zippo was my baby, he was white with pink eyes. He was eaten up by our other male mice. They were injured badly, so to put the males out of our misery, they were going to become snake food, but I had fallen in love with Zippo. Mom let me keep him, but warned me that he probably wouldn’t live much longer. The only cage we had for him was a small 2 level cage with a wheel.
The 2nd level was only a little strip to set a food dish on, but he was a sweet mouse, and deserved more, so I built him a 3rd level. It was nice and big, and I cut up an old sock and made him a mini mousey hammock hanging neatly from the top of his cage. I glued little tunnels on the top level made from toilet paper rolls, and took a cardboard ribbon spool, cut off the bottom and a doorway for sleeping,
and he was happy.
Every day, I played with him and cleaned his wounds with water, until soon, there was only a scar and fur was growing back. Mom let me put Lucky in there so that he could have a companion. They loved each other. Lucky followed him everywhere. She was so happy, and so was he. They ran in the wheel together and slept in the hammock, but Lucky was a frail mouse and died 4 days after moving in with Zippo.
We let Zippo say goodbye and had a small ceremony, but Zippo was a little mopey. He didn’t run around as much or eat as much. So, we went to the pet store a couple days later to get him another companion. The only female mice that they had that were colored were feeder mice- or soon to be snake food, so I wanted to save one of their lives. I looked in the tank and saw 2 of them that were sooo cute.
I couldn’t decide which one, so mom let me get them both. One was black with 2 white stripes on her back and the other was white with honey colored spots patched on her eye and her back. I called the black one Cookie Monster, or Cookie for short, and the honey one Honey Bear, or Honey for short. We bought a bigger, nicer cage for them, and it was nice so I didn’t have to add anything, just a small pringles can and some tubes so they could play and sleep.
They grew to love each other and clean each other every morning, but time slipped by me and Zippo was nearly 2 years old (an old age for a mouse.) Well, we lived in Ohio, and they survived the drive to Mississippi, which was pretty lucky. Zippo was going onto 2 and 1/2 years old (really old for a mouse) and I was getting worried.
I found him dead on March 2nd. We put him in a small box, but it was rainy, so we couldn’t bury him yet. A week later, Cookie kept shaking, and her fur was dirty. I looked closer, and the dirt was moving, she had gotten mites. She died that night, and I found Honey dead the next day.
The good thing was though, that they all got to be buried in the same box together. Black mice are allergic to mites, so if you have mice (black, brown, grey, tan or white- any color) check them every day, and look closely, also make sure you have mite spray so you can spray your mice
at least once a week.
Mites aren’t visible until the last couple of days of your mouse’s life. I learned this from when mom went online to look it up, I did some research too. To my sweet micies- Zippo, Cookie, and Honey Bear, Farewell