Does Anyone Here Have Pet Mice/rats?

[wombat]

If you have pet mice or rats, how did you manage to help them co-exist happily with cats?

 

[mokapi]

I've had mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits with my cat. Rats and mice will likely always be stared at by kitty; there's not much that can be done about that. I've always handled my pocket pets within sight of my cat, let the cat sniff them, etc.

I would never be comfortable letting a mouse or rat run loose around a cat...guinea pigs and rabbits don't always look enough like prey, but a mouse is the literal ideal diet for a cat, so that's just asking for trouble.

Incidentally, I had a three-legged hamster named Jujubees that my cat adored. He would like her, curl up with her, etc. I accidentally left her cage open while on a lunch break, and returned to work without noticing. When I got home that night, my cat was going nuts at the door. Crying, walking in circles, clawing at my legs as I walked up the stairs. I tried calling him up for his dinner but he stayed in the landing. Turns out Juju was fast asleep in one of my shoes, at the base of the stairs. That tiny, three-legged hamster had somehow walked all the way across my apartment and down an entire flight of (luckily carpeted) stairs.

 

[wombat]

I love the story about Jujubees and your cat!

 

[LTS3]

I currently have two mice. Both cats ignore them. Occasionally one will lie near the box and watch the mice but that's pretty much it. Even so, the cat are not allowed in the bedroom if I'm not home. I don't think the mice care for the cats, either.

My previous cat couldn't have cared less about mice either. He found one in the basement once and brought it up still alive. I managed to get the mouse into a box and let it go outside. I did have a pet mouse once and he was ignored. My cat didn't care for the gerbils either. The gerbils would roll their excerise balls right into my cat and my cat would just look at them. He'd eventually get annoyed with the balls constantly rolling into him and move off the floor. The gerbils had a large open playbox that they played in every night (closely supervised) and my cat never bothered them at all.

 

[Ardina]

My previous roommate had a hamster whose cage was in the living room. Saipha would sit and stare at it for hours, occasionally trying to bat at it through the tank glass. At some point, the hamster escaped from the cage and made its way into my room, where it nearly became lunch. We had to rescue the poor thing and get a sturdier top for the tank. Maybe if the cats are taught to respect rodents from a young age, it might work. And larger rodents like rabbits might be okay. But I wouldn't trust a cat to go against its natural instincts.

 

[mightyboosh]

We have two rescue mice. Betty brought them in on separate occasions about a year ago and one had a broken leg at the time. They're in a big glass lizard tank with fine mesh lid so they're safe. Betty and Oliver show no interest but new boy Chubchub keeps eyeing them up.

 

[NewYork1303]

We have two gerbils. They are kept in the bedroom, which is a room that the cats aren't allowed in (Carrot has an obsession with peeing on the bed). We let the cats in sometimes when they are supervised and they all stare at the cage. We had them in the living room very briefly, but Ruby literally will throw herself into the side of the cage.

 

[lyrajean]

Cautionary story about rodents and cats. We had a long-haired tuxedo cat named Jedi and a fluffy hamster that we used to put into the rolly-ball things with the screw on top thinking it was "safe". My mother was rounding us up for bed and when we came downstairs again the empty ball was sitting in the middle of the dining room floor! We searched high and low and then wondered where Jedi was. I found him sitting in the corner of the room licking his paws and looking very satisfied with himself. I then looked across the room and spied the decapitated hamster on the other side of the room.

Can't really blame him. Easy meal and those instincts are very strong...

 

[Shane Kent]

I used to have three aquariums (25, 33 and 75 gallon). My cats spent hours and hours watching fish and pawing at the glass. One night they knocked a filter out of place and I woke up to over 10 gallons of water on the floor. I was living in an apartment building, thank God the carpet and under padding soaked it up. I hoped and prayed there was no water damage to the apartment below us which it seems there was not.

I don't think I would try having a mouse, rat, hamster, etc. because I am fairly certain my cats would work non stop at getting them.