A baby mouse only a day old was saved by a family after their cat sniffed it out. The pet owner said that their cat would not stop scratching at this one specific spot in the house as if there was something there, so the family decided to check it out.
After removing that part of the home and investigating further, they found a nest with two baby mice in it who were only a day old. The finding of the nest made the mother run away and the family knew that if they didn’t act quickly then the likelihood of the baby mice surviving would be slim.
They first contacted RSPCA, who drove out to the location, saw the mice, and named one of them Penny because she was the size of a coin. They then took the mice and transferred them to Pawz for Thought, who have great experience in caring for mice, and said they would take them into their care.
The team said one of the mice didn’t make it and they feared Penny might not make it either because they were both abandoned by their mother so young. The first night Penny stayed at the facility, they placed her in an incubator and fed her goat’s milk with a tiny makeup brush.
Pawz for Thought said the best thing to do is try to get a mother mouse that had just recently given birth and integrate Penny into them. Fortunately for Penny, a mother mouse at the facility had just recently had babies so the team decided to place her in the nest.
“It was really her only chance of survival,” Trish Storey of Pawz for Thought told The Dodo. “I took Penny and wrapped her in some of the nest material from the litter and then took four of the babies and placed them in the bedding with her.I put them in the nest material back into the cage, and the mother came immediately to inspect. One by one, she took her own babies back to the nest and finally took Penny.”
Everyone was on the edge of their seats watching and hoping to see if the mother would take Penny into her care, and fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. The mother took Penny in as if she was one of her own even though she was much younger than her newly adopted siblings.
“We did not disturb her at all for over a week, but when we looked in, we could see Penny among the other babies,” Trish said. “Much smaller but doing well. The risk had been that the mother might reject her or that she would be pushed out by the older babies, but that had not happened.”
Thanks to the family calling, RSPCA for transporting, and Pawz for Thought for caring for the animal, Penny is doing well and is expected to grow into a very healthy mouse. She will be rehomed as soon as she is big enough.