A new type of soil material for a burrowing chamber for mice

We measure general activity of mice(Mus musculus) in a burrowing chamber from an ecological point of view. Natural topsoil or sand, however, is not suitable for long-term dwelling of mice, because burrows are likely to keep collapsing and to become rapidly rotten from being sprinkled with water to guard against collapse. For the present study, we devised a mixture of absorbent cotton and wood shavings as soil material. The mice burrowed in this soil just as they would in natural soil. About 10⁴ cm³ of the cotton-shavings soil were durable for at least 40 days with 3 mice. These results suggest that this soil material can be a useful tool in not only the study of general activity but also other studies (e.g., the observation of maternal behavior of mice in burrows).