How to Choose Treats for a Pet Mouse

Co-authored by Alisa Rassin

Last Updated: October 20, 2025

Choosing Healthy and Safe Treats

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Creating Healthy Eating Habits

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Expert Interview

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Expert Q&A

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Tips

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Warnings

If you want to reward your pet mouse with a treat, it's best to make sure it has eaten its regular nutritional food first. There are lots of options for healthy snacks to give to your mouse, but it's important to limit it to small quantities. Fruits such as blueberries and bananas are great treats for mice, as are vegetables like celery, broccoli, or peas. Avoid giving your pet toxic foods like chocolate or grapes to keep it happy and healthy.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Choosing Healthy and Safe Treats

1
Feed your mouse cut-up fruits as a healthy snack. Fruits such as blueberries, strawberries, apples, and bananas are all safe for you to give to your mouse. Make sure the fruit has been washed, and cut it up into small pieces so that your pet can easily eat it.
- Never feed the mouse grapes or raisins, as these are toxic.
2
Dice up certain vegetables to give to your pet mouse. There are many vegetables, such as broccoli, celery, peas, and carrots, that are good treats for your mouse. Wash the produce under clean running water before giving them to your pet, and dice them up into bite-sized pieces.
- Turnip greens, squash, and cauliflower are also good treat choices.
- Lettuce and corn can cause tummy aches, so avoid giving large amounts to your pet.^{[1]
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  Alisa Rassin
  Exotics Veterinarian
  
  Expert Interview}
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3
Give fatty seeds, nuts, and grains to your pet sparingly. While mice love seeds, they have lots of fat in them and should be given only occasionally. For special treats, you can give your mouse a tiny bit of wild bird seed, and sunflower seeds are another favorite.^{[2]
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- Cooked pasta or small crackers can be given to your pet mouse with a little bit of peanut butter on top as well, but not often.
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Try commercial mouse treats if they're made with healthy ingredients. There are lots of store-bought mouse treats that can be found at pet stores or online. These treats tend to be very sweet, so give them to your pet sparingly, and read the package before purchasing so that you know which ingredients are in them.^{[3]
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- Look for quality ingredients listed first, such as oats, white millet, or flax seed.
- Avoid packages with lots of corn or fatty nuts.
Foods such as chocolate, candy, chips, cookies, and other fatty, unhealthy foods should never be given to your pet. They can make your mouse unhealthy and sick, and some of them (like chocolate) are even toxic to mice.

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Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Creating Healthy Eating Habits

You can supplement your pet’s normal food, such as rodent pellets, with a healthy snack. It’s important that your pet eats its main food source before you feed it snacks so that it's receiving all of the nutrients it needs.^{[4]
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2
Feed your mouse a small amount of treats to avoid overeating. While it can be tempting to let your pet indulge in yummy fruits and veggies, this is unhealthy for it and can cause it to become overweight.^{[5]
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Expert Source

Alisa Rassin
Exotics Veterinarian

Expert Interview} Give your mouse treats in very small quantities to ensure it remains healthy and happy.^{[6]
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- While the amount of snacks you give to your pet will depend on their size, most mice eat about 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of food a day, so the snack size should be a small portion of this size.
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Avoid feeding your mouse seed mixes. Mice love seed mixes, but these aren’t ideal for providing nutritional value. A mouse tends to pick out and eat the seeds that are its favorite and leave the rest, leading to an imbalanced diet.^{[7]
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- If you’ve been feeding a seed mix with pellets to your pet as its main meal and it's only eating certain parts of it, you may want to switch to a different type of food.
4
Watch to make sure the snack isn’t causing diarrhea. If you give your pet too many fruits, vegetables, or other types of snacks, it may cause it to have a stomach ache. Similarly, certain foods may cause your pet to have diarrhea, so if you notice this, stop feeding the food that caused the upset stomach to your mouse.^{[8]
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- Wheat and corn are known for giving mice stomach aches.
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Expert Q&A

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Can mice eat lettuce?

Alisa Rassin
Exotics Veterinarian
Alias Rassin is an Exotics Veterinarian and the Owner of The Exotic Animal Hospital of Pennsylvania in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. With over a decade of experience, she specializes in treating reptiles, birds, and small mammals. She holds a Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris from The University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Veterinary Biomedical and Clinical Sciences from Penn State University. She was also certified by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Alisa Rassin

Exotics Veterinarian

Expert Answer

They can eat certain types of lettuce, like romaine, green-leaf, or red-leaf lettuce—just make sure that you don't give them lettuce very frequently. Iceberg lettuce should be avoided altogether.

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Tips

Treats such as low-sugar cereals (like Cheerios), plain popcorn, and dry oatmeal can also be given to mice as treats.

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Make sure you clean out any uneaten food from your pet's cage the next day.

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Warnings

Never feed your mouse foods such as chocolate, onions, raisins, grapes, walnuts, rhubarb, or raw beans, as they are toxic.

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