As many of us currently bask in temperatures more akin to those we usually associate with the Southern Mediterranean, it brings with it something of a challenge for the small animal fancier. How do we keep our mice cool? Fancy mice tend to have very little issue with colder conditions and seem to cope well, but hot weather, especially the sort of temperatures we are experiencing at present, are another thing all together and the effects can be devastating.

I suspect many of you, like myself, keep your mice in a shed or outbuilding of some kind. Unless you are very fortunate these will be subject to the vagaries of fluctuating weather conditions. I thought I would just share with you some of the actions I take to reduce the overheating factors in my mousery. It is most certainly not my intention to teach anyone to suck eggs, and indeed I would be very interested to hear hints and tips from other club members as to what you do to cope with this situation.

My shed is 12’x6’ and sits at the top of my garden with some natural shade afforded it by nearby foliage. It is fully insulated as it was for many years the stud house for one of our Egyptian Mau stud cats. The insulation undoubtedly provides additional internal warmth in the colder weather and to some extent does help keep some of the external heat out during warmer spells. Unfortunately, this is not sufficient. So, what else do I do?
Firstly, I deploy two powerful fans to keep the air circulating. I complement these with buckets of cold water positioned just in front of the fans to provide an additional coolant. As we all know, heat rises, so all my boxes that are on the top shelves are taken down and placed on the floor. It does mean that once I’ve done this, I cannot easily move in the shed, but I figure that is a small inconvenience to ensure the mice are more comfortable.

I also ensure that the water bottles are topped up with fresh cold water on a regular basis as they can become unpleasantly warm, and I suspect this makes many of the mice less inclined to drink. A tip I was given many years ago was using ceramic tiles that have been placed in the fridge or freezer for a while and then placed on the floor of the boxes, providing a cool spot within the box for the mice to simply walk across or in some instances to lie on.

Some of you may have seen the picture I posted on the NMC Members Facebook group page recently, showing I have now fitted a full heat reflecting tarpaulin over my shed that covers both the whole roof and the set of windows that run along the front that get the full glare of the sun until early afternoon. It has added an additional layer of heat protection. The tarpaulin was surprisingly cheap, good quality, and comes in a variety of sizes, and I would recommend checking it out. I got mine on eBay.

Heat reflective tarpaulin

These are my own methods to try to keep conditions more comfortable for my mice in these sweltering temperatures. None of them are groundbreaking, but they are all relatively easy to implement.
However, as I said earlier, I would very much like to hear what others do to tackle this issue so please share because I’m sure it will be of interest to many other members. As the old saying goes, “every day is a school day”.