Living with Lab Mice

Bullie was the most caring person in the group. Whenever someone else was ill, she would sit with her and comfort her. Bram and Wezel had the strongest friendship. There was just the two of them after their friends had died, and they did everything together: eating, sleeping, pottering about like an old married couple. They also took up nest-building and created beautiful flower-shaped nests for sleeping in. Bullie, Bram, and Wezel were three of the 25 ex-laboratory mice with whom I lived between 2020 and 2023. These mice were part of a pilot project for the adoption of small laboratory animals—mice and rats—set up by a coalition of Dutch animal advocacy organizations and Utrecht University, in the Netherlands. I am a philosopher who writes about the languages and political agency of nonhuman animals. When I adopted these mice, I looked forward to interacting with them and perhaps becoming friends. The mice soon made clear that they were not interested in that. Whenever I put my hand ... Read full article.