 |
 |
 |
||
| At home with friends | Showing signs of pregnancy | Looking for dinner | ||
Manjula is a standard self champagne tailless female (Mus musculus)
Manjula is the gourmet chef and fine wine connoisseur.
Male mice are called 'bucks', female mice are called 'Does', and baby mice are called 'Pinkies'.
Her role is a production and development officer... the rest of her time is spent sleeping, eating or drinking.
Manjula lives in a commercially available rodent box, which are approximately $30AU (Nov.2007) at most retail outlets.
The bedding we use is pine wood shavings and their daily feed is a mix of various seeds we purchase at city farmers for approximately $5AU (Nov.2007). They also get some rolled oats, wheat (whole), crushed bran and dog biskets.
Males excrete a small musk like scent that 'some' people find offensive (da wife!). We've found that by adding a couple of drops of imitation vanilla essence to the water bottle each time it's refilled, this scent can be minimised. Females don't leave this scent or if they do it's undetectable to us.
Our female eats (per 24 hour period) about 6 grams of the seed mixture and 3 of the small Pedigree dog biskets which are great for gnawing on. She also has a 50ml water bottle of which decreases about 5ml over the course of the day. Before giving birth her feeding drops off about half. But she more than makes up for it after giving birth sometimes more than doubling her daily intake of food and water.
In
her spare time she enjoys baking (cakes
especially), Japanese food, entertaining friends, and busking
!
Photographs open larger in new window
|
|
|
||
| At home with friends | Showing signs of pregnancy | Looking for dinner | ||