Mouse Nails

by PeachesandPepper92918 Mon 22 Jul 2019, 10:02 am

Hello! Does anyone have any suggestions for filing down mouse nails? During my playtime with Benson, he was continuously running up my arm, and I noticed how sharp his nails felt. It wasn’t until later that I realized he left scratches all over my arm. I have never had a mouse with nails long enough to leave marks and have never even really heard of it in the mouse community. I’ve heard of leaving a few rocks in their cage in the hamster community. Any other suggestions would be great. Thanks!

by Robin~ Mon 22 Jul 2019, 10:13 am

You can trim your mouse's nails down at home, however I would speak with your vet on ways to properly restrain them. Those little guys can be very squirmy!

For wearing down nails in the future (note: this won't fix already long nails), using a brick is really nice since it's rougher than most rocks you find outside. Just bake it and you're set to go Smile

by MerciToujoursMaPetiteBoop Wed 24 Jul 2019, 8:48 am

My hands are too clumsy to even trim my own nails -- I have to file -- so when my little April was new, I used to take her outside to walk around on the concrete sidewalk for a while after the sun went behind the trees (she was albino, so I had to be considerate of her "pinkness"). That seemed to be a very good nail trimmer ... and then the weather turned cold.

April's vet clinic gave her a pedicure that December, and said she took it very well. Then at the February follow-up, my little mousie girl had a panic attack being among strangers and me not present, and she blacked out and needed oxygen. The pedicure was immediately halted, and I was advised not to subject her to that again.

It took some creativity and some trial and error, but what I eventually found to work pretty well was to save clam shells (from stuffed clams) -- large quahogs were the best -- and put a few on the floor of her home enclosure and play box to walk over and climb on. I set one in front of her water dish, and she'd climb onto it to drink.

Also helpful was to use cheap dollar-store nail files, rather than popsicle sticks, to make little platforms and connector pathways between the tops of boxes and other objects. I was worried about her chewing on them, which she did, but she was smart enough to know that stuff wasn't food.

And so we managed April's little claws, and she was welcome to crawl around inside my shirt whenever she wanted to and I wasn't doing anything that could endanger her -- no half-hour scratch-a-thons while she ran up and down and over and across between her naps inside my sports brassiere.

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Mouse Nails

Mouse Nails

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