Preparations before you buy your mouse

• Do you have a cat?
• Is there enough room for a cage?
• Can you give enough attention to a mouse?
• Do you have a dog?

Alrighty. If you passed that, then here are some things that you will need to buy.

I reccomend buying a glass tank to put your mouse/mice in. If you opt for this, make SURE you have a screen or some covering to prevent you mouse form getting out. You can buy a plastic cage, but chances are that the mouse will scratch up the plastic making it unable to view through clearly. Also mice can gnaw through plastic and may escape. Do not, unless you have a very obese mouse, for any reasons put you mouse in a wire cage. I have one wire cage in which my most trusted mouse lives. He's too dumb to figure out how to crawl through the bars, and even if he could, he wouldn't want to get out because he's extremely lazy... hence his name being "Stoner". So all in all, a 5 to 10 gallon tank will make the best home for your new friend.

You can purchase bedding at most department stores like KMart, WalMart, and even at Tops. The best bedding you can get is PetsPick brand. It comes in cedar chips, pine chips ((what I'm currently using)), and pine shavings that I've seen. You probably want to get the small size of bedding, which comes in cubish shapes of about 1 1/4 ft by 1ft by 4 inches. If your planning on starting a gigantic mouse colony of over 10 mice, then it is best to get the large economy size, which is HUGE. This 'grande' package is about 2ft by 1 1/4 ft by 8 inches. And not only is it rather large, it's also rather CHEAP. I paid a little under 6 dollars for my PetsPick large pack of pine bedding at KMart.

Water bottle's these days are EXPENSIVE! They're large, cumbersome, and if your mouse is smart enough, useful escape devices. After some stupid kids were being dumb and playing with their glass water bottles, they broke it and glass water bottles were from then on labled as 'hazards'. So then the companies switched to plastic. If you can get your hands on a glass bottle, keep it. They work fairly well, although, are far surpassed by the quality of the plastic shaky ball bottles of today. These bottles can run anywhere from $2 to $5. If you would rather not have a water bottle, there is also the option of a a water dish. They can be the lid of a peanut butter jar, the cut of section of a 20 oz. pop bottle, or if you're creative and resourceful, a saki cup. If you happen to be in highschool taking a ceramic class, and you have some free time and are allowed to use extra clay, you can make your own dish. Make sure you GLAZE them well.

It is easy to get baffled when you walk down the pet isle in your local store. Pre-packaged food costs an arm and a leg, and treats are convineintly located right next to the food... to confuse you into buying treats. You best bet is to go to the bulk department and buy a pound for under a dollar. Another thing, it doesn't matter if its marked bird seed... as long as it is small enough for a mouse to grasp in its paws, its good enough. And people, feeding your mouse only seed is not "good enough". Like any other animal, they need a balanced diet. It doesn't take that much effort to grab a carrot, cut it up in peices, and throw it in the cage. My mices favorite treat is cucumber and watermelon rind. They also really love cheese, but provide this sparingly, because it is high in fat and makes their poo mushy. ;-)

Along with these things, you should prvide you mouse with a little bit of tissue (the kind without lotion) or toilet paper so they can make themselves a bed. Also a chew toy of some sort. This can be a cardboard toilet paper roll or special wood chews sold by pet stores. If you do not already know, a mouse's teeth, like any other rodents, don't stop growing, so if they have nothing to wear their teeth down on, they just keep growing and growing until they are so long that the mouse can't eat. In one case, a hampster's teeth grew straight through it's lip and had to be taken to the vet.