Hey folks,
I've been browsing these forums on and off ever since I discovered a small house mouse family living under my kitchen floor. At first there were just signs of one or two mice (very low droppings count) so I dug out my old mouse cage (I bred fancy mice for a while as a kid...) and got myself a humane catch and release trap.
I laced the trap with crunchy peanut butter (my favourite and theirs. lol) and within the first night I had caught 4 mice, 2 older but clearly not yet fully grown mice, sexed as male and female and 2 much smaller, maybe a few weeks after weaning completed, baby (toddler) mice. The adults were very skittish as would be expected, along with one of the babies but the other baby would happily sit on my hand and take food and treats and even enjoyed a little tickle around the ears and neck.
Inspired by this beautiful little family unit I decided to keep them well fed and watered until our nasty sudden snow of late Dec/early Jan was on it's way. The small family unit thrived, all 4 learning to eat from the supplied food bowl, drink from the water bottle and knowing when I was paying them attention or bringing them food.
The adults were still skittish but a lot less fearing of me, the smaller skittish baby became a bit more trusting and the seemingly tame one continued to behave much like a domestic mouse.
Moving back to the kitchen, the droppings had not cleared up so I was convinced of more mice squatting under my floor. I caught several more over the next few weeks, either via the trap or literally catching them in the bin (clever little buggers) and then catching them in a small wire waste paper basket and using one of several small plastic mouse cages as a halfway house until they are relaxed enough to move them into the mouse house. I would watch them for several days, as and when I could for any irregular behaviour and infighting but nothing ever occurred.
Nearly a month later and I now have 16 House Mice taking up residence in my cage, enjoying the luxuries of free board and accommodation. One or two (I think it's actually just a single adult) has made a few bids for freedom but never really seems that fussed when caught wandering around the floor and being swiftly picked up (via the small wire bin) and placed back in the cage.
In total I have about 3-4 "babies", all fully weaned but clearly still young in age, 2 MONSTEROUS adults (these are the biggest mice I've every seen, a good 1/3 bigger than any domestic mice I've even encountered, very long bodies and big shoulders and heads!) about 8 average size mice and a couple of hard to tell ones. lol
Now I know this may seem like a cruel endeavour, catching and housing wild mice but they no longer have to scrounge for food, they still have a ready supply of the sweet things they seemed to attack most when in my bin and they now get treated like royalty within the house.
They have all tamed down, enjoy bath time; I move their bedding (an old converse box, very cool mice here!) into the bath (we use the shower instead...in case you're wondering. lol) and they all venture out the box, run around, rough and tumble with each other, let me feed them and handle the odd few that seem to enjoy the attention before they one by one climb back into the bedding almost as a 'playtime is over' gesture and are returned to their cage wherein they replenish their fluids one after the other and continue the games without me, amongst themselves. They all seem to be a family unit, with near identical markings. The males (of which I believe there are either 8 or 9) don't ever fight (as is suggested when males and acquainted from birth or young age) and all the research I have done suggests that the females will not go through their cycles whilst so many other females (again, either 7 or 8) are around, thus helping with the obvious breeding like crazy issue.
The cage is a very large rat cage with 3 separate storeys, lots of tubes and areas to climb and dig (deep tray filled quiet high) and several toys to interact with (Terry's Choclate Orange boxes, 3 fixed together in an L shape is their favourite thing in the world at the moment, especially when I hide a blob of peanut butter in it).
After all of that, my question to you fine folks here (you've all inspired me to talk about my new family) is will they be ok like this or should I hand them over to the RSPCA (please note that the trap has not caught anything in nearly 2 weeks now, in various places with previous mouse sightings around the house), something I am more than happy to do. Will they just release them into a new location or keep them in an enclosure for safety? I obviously have no qualms about giving them to the RSPCA but I would be concerned that the family unit would have to go back to foraging for food and shelter and would suffer because of it.
If anyone would like pictures I can upload some.
Thank you in advance for any thoughts and/or comments.
Re: 16 wild house mice... 
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