Orson
A few days ago I forgot to post the story of Orson the mouse.
One night a few months ago we took our cat Rudy out on a walk (he wears a leash) around the apartment complex and he stumbled upon one baby mouse in the parking lot. Then a second one. The mice were cold and chirping very quietly. We put Rudy back in the apartment, grabbed flashlights, and got a box lined with a scrap of cloth to put them in.
After we returned to scoop up the two mice up, we looked around for more. Underneath a car that had been sitting in the lot for months we could see another babe in our flashlight beams. Then another! And Another! Five baby mice in all, scattered not too far from each other, eyes unopen, cold to the touch, and so little they hadn't yet learned how to walk, they just shakily crawled around. I researched online and from their coloring and size I identified them as deer mice (adorable little guys).
We collected all five in the box and slowly warmed them in the apartment. They all smelled like motor oil and we guessed their mom made a nest up inside that abandoned car and the babies fell out. Don't know what happened to the mom but if she'd been around she wouldn't have let her kids chirp for her for too long, and they'd been out there for quite a while seeing as how they were cold and scattered pretty far from each other (considering their limited mobility).
We knew we needed to feed them something fatty so we mixed half and half with soy milk and did our best. Long story short, the mice all held on for a few weeks -- their eyes opened, their bodies started growing into proportion to their big heads -- but all four died except for Orson, he was our lone survivor.
We set Orson up with a nice home, wood shavings and the whole bit, but I guess it wasn't good enough for him because one morning we awoke and he wasn't there. He escaped and we never even saw a sign of him after that. Never heard a mouse in the wall. Never found anything chewed up or nibbled on. Never saw mouse droppings. We thought maybe one of our cats got to him but even cats leave signs of having killed and eaten something and the apartment was spic and span.
So, Orson went missing and that was the end of that. I miss him.
(He's got a bald spot on his head in the picture, which the mouse books said is normal for hand-raised mice. The fur grew back about a week later.)
One night a few months ago we took our cat Rudy out on a walk (he wears a leash) around the apartment complex and he stumbled upon one baby mouse in the parking lot. Then a second one. The mice were cold and chirping very quietly. We put Rudy back in the apartment, grabbed flashlights, and got a box lined with a scrap of cloth to put them in.
After we returned to scoop up the two mice up, we looked around for more. Underneath a car that had been sitting in the lot for months we could see another babe in our flashlight beams. Then another! And Another! Five baby mice in all, scattered not too far from each other, eyes unopen, cold to the touch, and so little they hadn't yet learned how to walk, they just shakily crawled around. I researched online and from their coloring and size I identified them as deer mice (adorable little guys).
We collected all five in the box and slowly warmed them in the apartment. They all smelled like motor oil and we guessed their mom made a nest up inside that abandoned car and the babies fell out. Don't know what happened to the mom but if she'd been around she wouldn't have let her kids chirp for her for too long, and they'd been out there for quite a while seeing as how they were cold and scattered pretty far from each other (considering their limited mobility).
We knew we needed to feed them something fatty so we mixed half and half with soy milk and did our best. Long story short, the mice all held on for a few weeks -- their eyes opened, their bodies started growing into proportion to their big heads -- but all four died except for Orson, he was our lone survivor.
We set Orson up with a nice home, wood shavings and the whole bit, but I guess it wasn't good enough for him because one morning we awoke and he wasn't there. He escaped and we never even saw a sign of him after that. Never heard a mouse in the wall. Never found anything chewed up or nibbled on. Never saw mouse droppings. We thought maybe one of our cats got to him but even cats leave signs of having killed and eaten something and the apartment was spic and span.
So, Orson went missing and that was the end of that. I miss him.
(He's got a bald spot on his head in the picture, which the mouse books said is normal for hand-raised mice. The fur grew back about a week later.)
posted by MW at Sunday, December 25, 2005
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