Advice on mice throwing food everywhere?

by AmoraChinchilla on Wed 26 Aug 2020, 12:08 am

My wife and I have had this problem for a long while now, and searching about it online just brings up a lot of "how to get mice out of your house" articles.

We scatter feed treats for our mice, but the main source of food is always in a food dish so that we can see when we need to refill it, and so that when it comes to cage cleaning time there's not a bunch on the floor that they either never found or forgot about.

This works fine for most of them, but we have a few trouble makers who love to just throw the food everywhere to find their favorite bits- especially the boys, and the waltzing girl we had.

I've considered switching to pellets for these trouble makers, but I know that it's very boring for them. So if I could, I would prefer to be able to have the mix just stay in place so I can keep an eye on when it needs refilled.

Does anyone have advice on this? Is there anything in particular to do about it, or should we just switch to blocks when they do that? Thanks!

by MeanMurine on Sat 29 Aug 2020, 4:38 pm

Hey there! Bit of a late reply, but I have a doe that absolutely digs in the food bowl to get to what she wants. I switched to a very large, shallow ceramic dish with a curved edge and nowadays she manages to throw out far less food. As a bonus, the bowl fits everyone in it at once and mice sure like to sit over their food as they eat. You'll have to put up with them using it as a toilet though. Personally, I wouldn't trade the enrichment value of a mix for a tidy cage, especially since mice will move the food from the bowl regardless.

by AmoraChinchilla on Sat 29 Aug 2020, 8:54 pm

Oh same, I've got so many girls who practically swim in their food! It's funny, but I find the boys are more likely to just straight up kick it out.

I agree that the enrichment of a mix is more important, which is why I would much rather find a way to solve this issue for the few who are really bad about it. I don't mind a bit of mix on the ground, but some of them throw everything out completely.

What do you think about putting some sort of container with mesh on top under the food bowl? I was thinking that would make the food they kick out just drop into there and easy to recycle. I know mice shouldn't be only on mesh because of bumblefoot, but I wasn't sure what the consensus was on having a small portion (in this case, a couple of steps) of mesh in the cage.

Alternatively I suppose a really high sided bowl would work, but I'm always afraid of making it so high they can't jump out easily.

by MeanMurine on Sun 30 Aug 2020, 5:23 am

Sounds like mesh container would be fantastic at collecting stray food, as well as mousey waste and bits of bedding tracked by our little friends though. I'm not sure how recyclable soiled feed is, making it quite a conundrum. As for the mesh making up a portion of a cage's surfaces, I imagine if mesh wheels are considered safe, so are mesh sections.
A high sided bowl would work, don't worry about mice not being able to make their way out (they can jump out of a five gallon bucket!). As long as none of them are elderly or somehow less mobile, a reasonably deep bowl should pose no issue.

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Advice on mice throwing food everywhere?

Advice on mice throwing food everywhere?

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