Nursing injured wild mouse back to health

[meowzer]

Hello,

My cat brought in an adorable little field mouse, luckily we were able to save it but it has a broken leg. We bought it a cage and some food and are attempting to nurse it back to health. It is so friendly and will sit in your hand, which I thought was strange. I thought it would attempt to bite or be afraid, but it's not. My question is, has anyone else had an experience like this? Are they normally tame? Do we need to be worried about disease or anything? I'm afraid we will become so attached we won't want to let it back in the wild when it's leg is healed, which it seems to be healing quite nicely.

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated!

[Abra]

Hi Meowzer,
when you say baby, what is the age? is it eating solids on it's own now or are you supplementing it? How is it doing?
I have had expirience rescuing many animals. I had a baby rabbit once who was tame, only because it was going through shock, and it slows down their entire body. You may need to put some branches, leaves and grass in it's cage. Also try to use outside water when feeding it, water from your tap you would hook a hose up to. Maybe put a little dirt in it's nest box as well. He MAY be going through shock, depending on how old he is. Try to leave him alone for a couple of days as quarantine just to have him get used to his new atmosphere, surrounding, scents, and sounds. He is probably extremely scarred.

I don't think you will need to worry about disease or anything, but you may want him to go in to the vet for a visit and some advice. If he bites you and you feel tingly sensations near the area he bit you will want to go in asap for rabbies shots.

Good luck and please keep us posted!

[krazy4birds]

Hi there Meowzer...Good luck to you with your little critter rescue. I know nothing about how to go about it but I have been told what Abra said about the shock thing. He may come out of shock and realize he is "captured" and try to bite to get away. The vet can tell you more. Good luck to you as I am embarassed to say I am still one of those people who holler "MOUSE AAAAAAH" and go the other way...LOL...So I do admire your spunk.

[Jerica]

Hm, I would have to say it must be in shock. I have caught a wild mouse because my female mice attracted a young male mouse to the cage, he was only about 5 or 6 weeks old because he was small and slipped into their wire cage and I caught him in their plastic tubes. Well he and the two female mice I put into the aquarium so he couldn't escape and would be with the mice he was so fond of (I did have a male mouse who was the son of one of the female and a brother to the other but I didn't know how he would react to a strange male mouse) Anyways, I finally did switch this little mouse to the cage of the other male mouse because he was old enough to breed and I thought he should keep him away from the females. Well he ended up dying couple days later from shock or something. One female ended up having 11 babies and her mother helped care for those babies because she was pregnant too. After the mother had 9 babies she continued to help with the 11 and her 9 died. I know this doesn't help you but I just wanted to tell what my experience was with a wild mouse. Now to help you, the little mouse you found like others said is probably in shock and I agree you should let it be in the cage alone for a couple of days, it may end up dying though. If it is eating solids then just feed it seeds and give it some water, otherwise if it can't eat solids you are in for a lot of work. To help its leg, well, you pretty much have to let it heal on its own. I once had a gerbil that had two back broken legs because one of the dogs I had a long time ago knocked the cage over and killed its mother and brother and hurt it. I named her lucky and after awhile her legs just healed. So I bet if you just let the little one be alone it will heal quickly.

[coolkatie2]

first my cat brought one mouse in a big one looked like door mouse and dropped it on my lap it wasnt ingured so i put it in a box quick and was tryin to call him back in so i could reliase the mouse after a while he came back with another mouse i was thinkin how many he got after all there was about five or more and most of em were babys so i thought he got a family witch im still not sure about the babys could only run abit so i put them in a bush there still there now but i noticed one didnt walk at all but was tryin to limp with only to good paws and so i scooped im up he was bleedin a bit from one side but just a small indent it still healin now my cat was in de house while i did this but recently let im out by accident my dad was at the shop gettin my lunch while all this was happin so im healin a baby what should i do with it im stuck