QUESTION 1: What kind of food do mice need?
ANSWER: Mice are omnivorous, but eat mainly seeds, so they actually would eat just about anything. The best food to feed mice are high quality human food, as opposed to pet shop food that is almost always old and contains whatever crap possible.
Health store food for humans are usually of much better quality than pet shop food. Avoid buying pet food at all, it is usually old and unhealthy. The only exception to this rule is bird food, which is fine except that it contain too much fat so you can only give that in small portions mixed with other food stuffs.
Feed only healthy food of all kinds, no pizza, no sweets or any kind of junk food. Avoid sugar, salt and spices added to the food.
Any kind of seeds, fed in variety, is good. Just avoid giving much of the fat seeds like sunflower seeds and bird seeds. Oats, wheat, rye and barley are very good and should be fed plentiful on a daily basis. These seeds are hard to chew, and should be fed crushed or rolled, not whole. Any kind of other seeds can be added for variety and extra nutrients.
Here in Sweden the base of the diet may consist of porridge oats, which is oats that is prepared especially to make porridge from. Up to half of the dry part of diet consist of this kind of palatable oats. The rest may be different kinds small seeds bought in the health food department mixed with a little sunflower seeds or bird seeds and raisins.
Here is a special recipe for mice and rats that I got from a wellknown Swedish mouse and rat breeder:
3 parts oats, rolled or crushed
3 parts wheat, rolled or crushed
3 parts rye, rolled or crushed
3 parts barley, rolled or crushed
1 part millet
1 part flax seeds
1 part sunflower seeds
1 part sesame seeds
1 part dry dog food, cat food, unsweetened bisquits or hard dried bread
Mice also eat bread, pancakes, pasta, potatoes, rice, legymes,
vegetables, meat, just about anything healthy in human food.
Feed these things in the way people would eat it, for example
give cooked potato not raw, and so on.
This should of course be home cooked!
Food especially made for human babies is good to give mice. This can be bought in different forms, but if it is made for small babies you know it must be healthy. I often buy food for very young babies, like 3 months old or younger, and give to my pets. Then I know there is lots of vitamins and other healthy stuff in the food...
I recommend avoiding most food made especially for pets, since generally it has very low quality and mice are extremely dependent upon high quality food.
Here is an updated version of the recipe:
3 parts oats, rolled or crushed
3 parts wheat, rolled or crushed
3 parts rye, rolled or crushed
3 parts barley, rolled or crushed
1 part millet
1 part buckwheat
1 part Eukanua (dry dog food)
1/2 part flax seeds
1/2 part sunflower seeds
1/2 part sesame seeds
1/8 part alfaalfa seeds
1/8 part quinoa seeds
QUESTION 2: Can I give my mice vegetables or fruit?
ANSWER: Yes, small pieces of fruit and vegetables are good for mice, give as much as they eat in a short while, and try to vary between different kinds of fruit and vegetables. In the summer you can pick a few dandelion leaves of some clover or other healthy herbs outside if you have a place where they grew away from pesticides, roads and dog pee.
QUESTION 3: How much food do mice need?
ANSWER: As much as they can eat. Never leave their
feeding bowls empty and always feed the mice BEFORE the
feeding bowls get empty. Mice generally eat a whole lot
more than you may imagine from their size, and they can get
sick from not having food around all day and night.
If you think your mice are fat - do not take away their
food, give lots of non-fatteing food instead!
QUESTION 4: What should I feed to a sick or unhealthy mouse?
ANSWER: I'd give baby food plus the kind of food you give humans that undernourished (you can buy stuff like that in a pharmacy). But a sick mouse also needs to see a vet!
Copyright Eva Johansson.
Last update: 3rd of December 2007.