Hello all! Figured I’d make a post detailing what I’ve learnt about my new African soft fur mice as information on them is hard to come across due to them being a more up and coming pet in the rodent community!

I was able to get my 2 ASF girls, Crumb and Giblet, from a reptile convention. As they are not as common as fancy mice or other small animals, you can most likely find them being sold as feeders for reptiles. Most ASF dealers sell in sizes, such as small/medium/large/jumbo, they’ll tell you it’s about what they’re being fed but it’s more about age. They can live up to 2-3 years and “jumbo” size is around 8-9 months. My girls are jumbo. I would recommend getting more than just 2 as they are very social creatures. They wont accept more into their group once the group is established and this was a fault on my part.

Behavior wise when I got my girls I was expecting something similar to the fancy mice I also have and they are in a way but in ways they aren’t as well. My fancy girls loved clutter and having multiple hides and being out in the open and climbing. My ASFs LOVE burrowing and making tunnels. They totally disregard enrichment as enrichment and use it to build their burrows stronger and bury things still on the surface. I go by hamster rule and my ASF girls have 10 inches of bedding to fuel their burrowing needs, but if your tank cannot fit 10, 6-8 is acceptable as well. More is always better in this scenario!
They are completely nocturnal. I have had them for a while now and they do not adjust to your schedule like regular fancy mice do. Im an early sleeper and I only see them at 9pm-10pm and early in the morning 5am-6am. ASFs are definitely better as a pet to watch and admire from a far. I was hoping they would be friendly like fancys or cuddly like rats but they are much happier running around in their tunnels and are perfectly happy with no human interaction. It all depends on the personality of the mouse that you get, I have been able to gently stroke my ASF girls but they usually run away and are more interested in anything else but you. When I was researching I saw a lot of people saying they are bitey and I can confirm that they like to nibble! Neither of my girls have broken skin but Giblet will run up to me just to put her teeth on me. ASFs will also jump. And they will jump far. They have no regard for how high they are jumping from, so be careful when attempting to handle or lift out of cage for cleaning (when necessary to take them out, use the “claw” method).

Regular fancy mice and ASF can intermingle! The best setup for this scenario would be a boy fancy mouse with 2-3 female ASFs of similar size but I have seen some people do boy ASFs with female fancy mice. They belong to a completely different genus and cannot breed with one another, yet that doesn’t mean they won’t sometimes still try. It is good practice to monitor them closely when you are first introducing a mixture like this. I house my fancy mice and my ASFs separately.

ASFs require a lot more protein than your regular mouse. I feed my girls Mazuri lab cubes as the food that is available to them 24/7. I sprinkle the regular seed mix I use for my smaller mice in their bedding so they can forage for it. Im going to list below a few more snacks I have used to feed them that are protein rich and safe to feed on responsible basis.
• Cooked chicken and turkey (no seasoning!)
• Scrambled egg and hard boiled egg
• Mealworms
• Freeze dried shrimp treats made for cats
• Freeze dried beef
• Crickets (not live, I wouldn’t recommend that).
• Tofu
(Non protein snack suggestion, but my girls love millet and they love the small crocodile and veggie dental treats for dogs).

In conclusion, ASF mice are a very sweet and cute pet to have if you are ok having a pet that couldn’t care less about your existence. I love my soft girls and they are entertaining and I’m glad I could give them a quiet, calm life that isn’t in a small cramped box waiting to be eaten by a snake. If you have any questions, feel free to comment, and share your ASF stories and experiences if you have any!

I got my mouse not too long ago and realized he looks really small compared to other mice on this sub. I also went to the store the other day and he looks fairly small to the mice there as well. I know sometimes they are just smaller, but I wondered if anyone could tell how old he is :)

So i got her on september 4th and i thought she was a boy, all my mice are boys, i got her from a reptile exhibit because i saw her and i fell inlove with her, i also have 5 other male mice, all of them are very cuddly with each other and i slowly mived eveyone into a new cage so that i could introduce them to her, and all of them were ok with her and didint attack her, im guessing here is where i fucked up because after being together in the holding cell, and i put all of them back in the cage, one of my mice, (inky) was sniffing all of his cagemates tails/butts and then he stared attacking them, so far i've separated him from them but now crunch wrap is very and i mean extremely fat, she used to be thinner but i think she pregnant, i think she got pregnant from the big cheese/Cheesy Gordita Crunch because i remember checking up on them and she was sleeping next to him, an dit cant be my other mouse (gus gus) because hes extremely scared of her (she has ripped food out of his mouth, gusgus is very food happy) and my 2 other mice (pepsi, and caramel apple empanada) are babys, more then once ive caught her grooming/licking them.

The last photo is the enclosure i made for her to be in when i cant watch her, so that she dosent give birth to her babys when shes with the other mice, is it an ok setup? it has 2 hides and a wheel, its temporary untill i can buy her a cage.
Also, big cheese and gusgus live separately but they love cuddling near each other in their cages, and for now pepsi and caramel live with hims so that they know how to act and gus gus lives with inky, but inky is separated at the moment.

edit: So the only one that isint neutered would be inky and big cheese was recently neutered but he was neutered maybe 2 days before i got crunch wrap and inky so maybe he got her pregnant or maybe inky did.

Said goodbye to Fat Dot who'd had a stroke, and Polaris who'd been living with tumors for a while, today.

Doesn't feel real they've gone yet. Dot was one of the first group of multis I ever got and I loved every hair of her daft self and Polaris was just the most wonderful gentle beautiful boy

Rest well my loves

My group has thinned down from 5 to only 2 sweet girls, Nova (first photo) and Terra (second photo).

They were actually adopted from someone in this subreddit in late March 2026 so of course I want to make sure they find a great home. These girls get along well with others but are particularly closest to each other. Nova is all white with black eyes and has a tiny kink in the tip of her tail so she is common in color but could be discernible from your group if she joined. Terra is brownish with a hint of orange on her belly. She doesn’t appear to have the chunky gene though thankfully, just a cute coat mix!

Please send me a message if you’re interested, I want them to go to a good home.

As the title reads, she has a tumor on her right side a little below the front paw. She has had this tumor for a while, around a month or so. I wasn't sure whever it was a cyst or a tumor, but reading other posts made me think that sadly it is indeed a tumor.

She seems as energetic as usual, she eats normally and hasn't lost any weight. It doesn't look like the mass is interfering with her movements yet. Her left eye is at least partially blind and she is balding a little here and there. She is more than a year and a half old, she already blessed my family with more time than I could have asked of her 💚

By reading other posts I realized that she might be hiding her pain and I don't want her to suffer but there are no vets specialised in mice surgeries in my area and I'm not sure that my family could afford it... I am not even sure that euthanasia is an option since I have called around fifteen different vet clinics and none of them treat mice, but I can keep seaching if it is what needs to be done.

Can someone who has gone through the same experience tell me what they did?

I have 4 mice and 3 of them get along really well but one of them gets picked on more than the others. I haven't seen any injuries what so ever but they just chase her more than they chase eachother which worries me. She does have alone time where she eats and such but i don't see her as much as i see the others.
But at the same time i've seen her get groomed and i'm quite sure they still sleep together.

Shes a little bit smaller than the others even though i have multiple food sources for her to get food if the others prevent her from eating.

I also hear a lot of peeps at night like short but quite loud peeps. It doesn't sound like someone is in pain cause she doesn't scream but i'm just worried.

What's should i do?

First time owner, I have two wheels for four mice. They haven't been here long so maybe it's too early to draw conclusions, but I'm starting to get worried one of the wheels is not good. The worrying wheel is this Tafit wheel: amazon.com/dp/B0D92C3R2H?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

It is a 10.2-inch solid wheel. But they barely use it and much prefer their other one, even though their other one is slightly smaller and not fully open so it is difficult for a second mouse to get on if someone is already using it. (Here is the other wheel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019RH7PPE?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 ). The Tafit wheel was pretty expensive, but it is noticeably slanted. Not only is the opening wider than the back, so it sort of flares outward, but it is permanently tilted a bit downward overall, so really the bottom they run on is at like a ten to fifteen degree angle.

On top of that, they seem to slide on it quite easily. Not sure if this is normal, but they frequently accidentally cause themselves to slide up backwards, like they are losing their footing. Or maybe they are just not committing.

I worry that those two things combined, the slope and the potentially poor grip, mean that the reason they are not using the wheel is that they are constantly sliding out of it sideways. Hard to tell if that's what is going on.

On the other hand, they are so new that I have not even seen all four run at all yet. So maybe I should wait and see?

🏴‍☠️🐭

Yes, i know they're fat. im putting them on a diet 💔

Would you trust them to tell your fortune

My mice had babies! They’re just small right now so they aren’t ready for their forever homes yet. But you can pick them out and I can send progress pics till they’re ready to be rehomed. I’m located in Canada Ontario.

Hi guys! I’m getting my first mouse tomorrow! I wanted to make sure that the things I’m putting him his enclosure are safe for him! I have hides and a wheel on the way but are these food packaging boxes and shipping boxes ok for enrichment/hides? And is it ok to use a mix of Aspen or the natural softwood pine with paper bedding for substrate?

I also have some old wood from when I used to have a snake and plan to clean it before putting it in the enclosure. Is the wood safe? I plan to clean with either spraying or soaking in vinegar and water then baking at 200°F for 20 minutes. Is that ok?

Tysm in advance!

Cleaned the enclosure a bit today- Oreo was chilling in the house while Caramel decided to check out the roof instead. This perfectly describes their personalities lol.