Hi Rebekah

Thanks for responding and the advice. I have made a note of the phone number.
Katherine Medina also replied and refered me to a web site called Fancy Mice
which has some excellent photos of the private parts of mice. As our mice like
climbing the side of their wire cage I can have a good look at them without
either of us getting stressed. I am pleased to say that with help from both of
you I have decided they are both girls, and even if I am wrong they both look
the same beneath the tail. I had fears of a pregnancy when we observed Holly
apparently mounting Belle, but the web site answered that too. Girls can do
that to girls when trying to assert dominance. They had also just been put back
into a clean cage.

We haven't been feeding them meat or diary products, and not too much in the
way of green vegies, so maybe the smell is still a dominance problem. Although
I thought it wasn't as bad through last week even though the weather was really
hot. Perhaps they just didn't piddle as much! I also cleaned the cage with some
disinfectant as our previous mice (even though they departed this world over two
years ago) had lived in it too. The cage had been cleaned before I stored it
and before Holly and Belle moved in, but I thought maybe they could still smell
traces of Leah and Karli. Time will tell. The most important thing is not
having to tell my husband about the patter of very tiny feet!!

Another question about general health. I have noticed they seem to be
scratching a lot and then cleaning where they have scratched. Do you think they
may have some hitchhikers annoying them? I can't see anything obvious. What
would you recommend to treat them easily just in case?

Thanks again

Dawn

Rebekah Mitchell <lady_azurewolf@...> wrote:
The Rat Fanciers Society of Australia who are listed in the Melbourne
Yellow Pages under Clubs/Pets should have the contact phone number for
a Rebecca Topliss who is a mouse expert and breeder. I do not remeber
where she is located.

Smell can sometimes depend on diet.
Meat based products can make rodents smell. So too can diary products.
Or too many green vegetables.

When male mice develope testicles at about 3 months of age they should
be quite obvious.
Also, on females there is no hair above the vulva and they should have
a slight opening just above the protruding vulva (which is the vaginal
opening). On imature female mice this is often a tiny patch of bare
skin, or tiny indented spot. This needs good eye-sight to check on
mice, and any vet with a magnifying glass should be able to see this or
else they should be in veterinary work...You can often check yourself
by holding the mice bottoms up and gentley pressing the protruding bit
back towards the creatures stomach (in the opposite direction to the
anus. It is addmittably a little hard, especially on wiggly mice or
very young ones, but not impossible.

Males will have hair from the anus all the way down to the penis and a
much greater gap between these private parts than the females do with
their own bits (know what I mean).

Hope this has helped.
Rebekah





Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]