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Mouse diet request
could someone raising mice on zero-a post a list of foods and best practices for that? Thanks in advance. Just caught one and it's mate is still on the loose. Thought I'd at least get them through the winter on zero-a before taking them to a new home outdoors.
Hill Country, your post made me smile and I have some caveats and yet I also have some desire to support you haha...
OK, as a person who is a "farmer" I'm exposed to wild mouse germs ALL THE TIME and nothing bad (?) has happened to me. They actually are adorable.
However, wild mice and their droppings have been associated with bad diseases. I mean real bad.
Regarding bought rodents: My kids brought home a rat from school, and it ended up getting cancer pretty quickly. The other kids who brought home rats also said the same. A friend said that it is "a thing" that some of the non-wild rat lines have goofed up genetics... (And this friend doesn't really think conspiratorially. But I guess I could see that at some time a person might have bred rats for cancer research and those genetics got out?). I wonder if schools often need volunteers to take rodents?
I have caught mice in my attic in "have a heart" traps, and you have to bring them a long ways (a few miles) to make sure they don't come back! Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
Edited to add: I think rodent studies are interesting, but they only go so far, people aren't rodents. I even think one person might vary a LOT from another person.
Experiments are fun though. My chickens are getting lower A kitchen scraps and Organic Chicken Feed now, sometimes mixed with white rice. They are free range, which means they choose some of their diet. Some are very old.
Some of my chickens have had chronically sore buts (this is supposedly caused by yeast infection). One of the best things for it is Apple Cider Vinegar in their water (which some may think is interesting in itself).
I feel that their butt inflammation has dissipated a bit on their new diet.
My cats are also on low VA, which I post about in another thread. I should update...
lil chick - funny that, I was watching this video when I caught #2 and just as I started typing here I heard a 'snap' and sure enough caught #3 and it's now in the 'holding pen' (Rubbermaid bin).
Check out Zack Bush's response at 24:00 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRNH4U92KeU
I heard about that thing where they have to be relocated far away. Crazy nature! We kept a small flock of Brown Leghorns down in Texas and I found they loved the Audabon Bird Seed from Costco. Side-by-side with any other feed and they'd go for that. We had 5 acres of Mexican Junipers, so lots of bugs and soil critters for them, plus scorpions, yum. Fed a lot of them to nature over the years - lots of predators there - even had a nesting pair of Caracara falcons across the way that took a few of our hens. I raised Black Soldier Fly grubs as a hobby. They're a real nutritious treat. They'd line up along the fence for a few handfuls of those.
Thanks for the danger-tip. Didn't know that. Did a lot of careful clean-up the last few days, gloves, hepa-vac, chlorine wipes. Might just put them on Craigslist - "Free Bin - Three Mice" (and counting)!
@hillcountry that was an interesting clip, thanks! I def have had intuitions along those lines (balancing your biome via nature). Digging in the dirt, taking care of animals, being outside... it's all bueno for you for sure. However, not enough to forestall or overcome VA overload, IMO. But helpful.
I joke with people that I don't use hand sanitizer because I work hard to get the diversity of germs on me! Germs are your friend. Which famous WAPF said "I don't want milk without germs in it!" haha...
It's best not to inhale droppings-dust, wash up well, and of course... never to get bit!
Here's a tip on spider bites if that's a concern in your area. Use a fence-charger on the low-setting and shock multiple points, in a circular fashion, around the edges of the swelling/bite. Do about 10 shocks each time and do it a few times each day. My brother closed-up a brown-recluse bite that was necrosing and had inflamed out to a quarter's worth in size. He let it go way too long before doing the shock therapy, but it still halted the advance and slowly backed it off. I did the same on what was likely a spider bite, but didn't let it get quite that far before I realized it was something pretty bad when I saw it was becoming an indented pit sort of thing. Heard about it from an old doctor in Arizona who claimed it works on snake bites. It think his name was Dr. Douglas. He said the current altered the venom protein such that it wasn't a toxin, or recognized as a toxin, can't recall. I use a Zareba B10LI with 4 D-cell batteries. Fun at parties too!!
why would that work, I wonder?