Small pets: Which are the nocturnal ones?

Nashrah Fahim
4 min readAug 12, 2021
Photo by Frenjamin Benklin on Unsplash

Some small pets are active during the light of day and some are active during the darkness of night. The ones which are more energetic during the night are called nocturnal animals. These unique animals have some special character and they are usually hardest to take care of because of being small and delicate.

Which small pets are nocturnal?

The most common nocturnal small pets include mice. African pygmy mice are among the smallest nocturnal pets. Other such animals in this list are gerbils, and rats. Aye-aye is believed to be the largest among all the wild and pet nocturnal animals of the world.

The nocturnal small pets

The small pets for kids are really cute and it is a treat to the eye to watch such pets playing with your kids.

They grab the attention and make everyone around playful and cheerful. That’s why they are the best pet for children with anxiety.

Mice

Mice are naturally nocturnal animals as mentioned above and that’s why they are observed to be more active during the night.

Photo by Benjamin LECOMTE on Unsplash

But sometimes the pet mice, because of being adjusted with the people of home, are also active in daylight.

It happens when their owners use to feed them or use to carry out any other activity with them during the daylight.

If you use to work during the daytime and are not available to look after the pets.

So these small pets are the best fit for you because they will pass their entire day sleeping and that is why for you they are easy to take care of.

Gerbils

Gerbils are not entirely nocturnal animals. Instead, they pass almost 6 hours sleeping in the daylight and similarly almost 6 hours of sleeping during the nighttime.

Photo by Silje Roseneng on Unsplash

Because of this, they are seen sleeping and inactive in daylight also hence considered nocturnal animals.

But it would be more correct if we call these small pets crepuscular. This term is used for such animals who are active in the period of day after the sunset or before the rising of the sun, which means in the twilight.

They are very good small pets because they do not disturb their owner often and they do not have many demands.

Rats

Rats are also believed to be the best small pets for cuddling. They are very good pets and usually, they travel in search of food.

The rats love to roam here there for their food sources.

Photo by Marlen Damm on Unsplash

Rats are even wild or pet but both are considered social creatures. However, it is not a good idea to keep wild rats as pet animals because they may harm you or someone else.

Despite being nocturnal, the rats are also seen active during daylight.

How to take care of your small pets?

Good sleeping hours

It is really important for small pets to have a good sleep in order to have good health.

Good sleeping hours will help the pets to restore their energy and become highly active and cheerful.

As observed in the mice that if they have a rest and sleep for 14 hours so it will help them to gain energy after relaxing.

In gerbils usually, a different sleeping pattern is observed. They can remain awake for an hour or two hours if they had slept before for one or two hours.

Good sleep for is rats about 15 hours daily. After that, they can stay awake at night.

Feed them right

The best way to take care of small pets is to feed them right. It is really important to know what is good for your pet and what is not.

Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash

If we talk about mice so many people use to feed them with cheese. People think that it is their favorite but not body has actually asked their mouse about it, lol. Mice also feed on bread. Some owners also feed their mice with the cooked pasta.

Gerbils feed on grass. They have also be seen eating fruit and vegetable. So fruits and vegetables could be a very good and healthy addition to their diet.

Rats are both pet and wild. They are omnivores in nature and can digest meat also. Therefore their diet should have meat init along with fruits and vegetables.

Conclusion

Nocturnal small pets are surely not easy to take care of, but it is not impossible either. Although there is a difference between our and our pet’s sleeping cycles if we understand the needs of our pets so we can definitely keep ourselves are them happy.

--

--