This article is from the WSSF 2016 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

By Karen Robbins

I’ve read different ideas on keeping young male mice from fighting that are housed together—putting in an item from their old cage without washing it, placing some soiled bedding in the new cage, only cleaning part of the cage, giving tubes and houses, cleaning everything and giving new houses/toys so they are busy checking everything out, etc. What I found works best for me is to only clean the pee corners and to sprinkle old bedding on top of the new. Same when I need to clean most/all of the cage. I don’t take the cagemates out or their houses when cleaning, and if I don’t put a little dirty bedding on top, they will start fighting.