Can a Pet Mouse Live Alone? 4 Things to Consider

Pet mice are social animals that like to be in good company with their peers. While they can be kept alone, it’s definitely always recommended that you get them a buddy or two to make them feel more at ease.

If the mouse is kept alone, it might get very lonely, and you will not see the best of your mouse in that case. They will start to hide, they might not eat, and it just wouldn’t be so fun if there were more mice in your tank.

But it’s not good to keep just any mice together. If you plan to keep several mice together, it’s better to have a good plan. Some types of mice will get on better together than others, and you will need to consider a few things when you try to keep mice together.

Namely, males don’t go very well together, and many mice owners prefer to keep several females together because they are easier to care for, don’t smell as much, and they are also friendlier towards each other and don’t start to fight.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can keep mice together and why keep a mouse alone is not the best idea.

Can You Keep Female Mice Together?

Yes, this is the most common way of keeping mice together. Mice prefer to live in small colonies, especially female mice.

It is a very popular way of keeping several mice together. That’s because female mice are just not as aggressive as male mice, and they won’t start fighting with each other.

Also, female mice won’t reproduce, so you won’t have to worry about having additional small mice any time soon unless you add a male to the tank.

Female mice also don’t smell as much as male mice. These tend to have much stronger odors, and they actually use odors to mark their territory.

And female mice don’t do that, and they don’t smell as bad as the male mice. That’s why keeping female mice is also more hygienic.

You can keep several female mice with great success. You can keep 3-5 female mice, and in some cases, even more, if you have a cage large enough.

And they will be very happy to live together as long as the conditions are right and you take good care of them.

Can You Keep Male and Female Mice Together?

Some mice owners also tend to keep male and female mice together successfully, although this can be slightly more challenging.

As soon as you have males and females together, reproduction can happen, and soon, you can have dozens of additional mice to care for, which is something most mice owners don’t want.

Mouse owners often get lazy about this. They let males and females mix together and before they know it, the female is pregnant and in a few weeks, new mice are added to the tank.

And then it becomes a big problem when there are these mice in the tank, and many owners just decide to remove the babies or kill them.

It’s better to be precautionary about this, though. You will do yourself a big favor if you keep males and females separate in separate tanks, and just allow them to play together occasionally and let them breed if you want them to breed.

However, another issue of keeping males and females together is that once the females have babies, the males might actually kill the baby mice and might even consume them, so you do really need to be careful about this.

So keeping male and female mice is completely possible, but only under the right circumstances. You should make sure they don’t breed as easily, and only when you want them to breed.

You can do that by keeping them in separate tanks and breeding them when you want them to breed. Keeping males and females can be hard, but it can be done with some careful planning.

Can Two Male Mice Live Together?

One thing you should never do is keep two male mice together in a tank. You might already know that males are aggressive towards other males, and they will also get territorial against each other.

So keeping two males together in the same habitat is not good, and they might start to fight. This aggression can lead to injuries and in some severe cases, even death.

Try to make sure you don’t keep two males in the same confinement because males will get aggressive against each other, and you will see them start to fight, and that’s never good. It can lead to injuries and even death if you are not careful.

Can Mice Live with Hamsters?

No, mice should not live with hamsters. These animals are very different and hamsters are usually much larger in size.

They might get aggressive towards each other and you can see that they might start to fight. And if that happens, hamsters will normally win because they are larger in size but also stronger.

These animals also have different requirements for keeping them together, so that’s another thing to consider. They will prefer different foods, they will behave differently, and they will also move around differently.

You can keep hamsters and mice in separate tanks – that’s the best idea normally, and you should avoid keeping them together. It can result in aggression and potentially, death.

Conclusion

So mice are social animals that prefer to live in smaller colonies. You should always try to keep them in small groups, and it’s not recommended to keep them alone.

They will get lonely and when that happens your mouse will get sad and depressed and might start to change its behavior.

So try to keep them in smaller groups. But there are requirements for that as well. Female mice will get better on together, while male mice might fight against each other. Keep these things in mind when keeping mice together.