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[Mrs. Beach]

One of the brown baby boys in my recent adoption/rescue of Many Mice (two mothers and two litters totalling 16 mice) escaped three days ago.  His grandfather was a wild house mouse.  I hadn't gotten him tailed yet and he ran up my arm, above the cage wall, and launched himself into the air, ending up behind a book shelf.  Although I took everything off the book shelf and tipped it over, he wasn't there.  He's about four weeks old (just grew his mini balls) and not hand tamed at all.  I left a KK on its side with water, nesting material, and lab blocks inside, the lid just propped so he'd have room to enter.  The first two days a lab block was missing each day, then nothing.  No more poops on the floor.

Just this evening my husband called out "Oh!" very loudly from his study, the room adjacent to where the Many Mice are having QT.  The brown baby boy had just crawled under the door and into his study.  John said he was in the corner, but he was not.  Couldn't see him any where.

We are basically snowed in so a live trap isn't an option right now.  I cut down and duct taped a big cardboard box, the size photocopier paper comes in, so that it has an opening small enough for the mouse to get through but not large enough for him to drag a lab block through.  I've filled it with shredded tissue, a water bottle on a stand, and several lab blocks.  I also cut a larger door, held closed by duct-tape-on-duct-tape, to open to retrieve him.  Just checked and it was empty.  I'd put it where he was last seen, but that was a very cold place.  I've put it in a darker, warmer spot, in the open closet.

Is this a reasonable idea?  Is there something better I could be doing? 

I just think, here I am, having trained twenty mice in this house to answer to their names in case they ever get loose, and the one mouse who gets loose is not unly untrained, but doesn't even have a name yet!

One last question:  Should I retrieve this mouse, should I put it through QT?  No knowing where it's been or who it's been associating with?

[Mrs. Beach]

I was at the hardware store, having just purchased two live traps for $4.99, when John called and said something was in my home made live trap, and he'd turned it on end.  I drove home, took the live trap and a KK into the bathroom, put a towel across the door crack, and made the transfer in the tub.  Mr. Houdini shall not escape again!  He looks pretty calm.

BIG QUESTION:  Do I quarantine him for three weeks now or can he go back with his brothers?