Why usually a mouse is used in experiments?

Why usually a mouse is used in experiments?

The most experimented animals are mice. There are several reasons why this is so.

Mice (mus musculus) and rats (rattus norvegicus) are small and hardy animals. Therefore, care and feeding conditions suitable for a large number of animals can be provided more easily and at lower cost. Sexual maturation takes place in about 2 months. Pregnancy is 21 days. They give birth to 12-14 puppies in one abdomen.

They are both the most practical and the most economical options in studies where a large number of animals are required. When trying to work with 20 subjects, is mouse or rat preferred or elephant? The selection of the two animal animals varies depending on the purpose of the experiment.

Some other animals frequently used as experimental animals:
Guinea Pig – cavia porcellus
Rabbit – oryctolagus cuniculus
Chimpanzee – pan troglodytes
Fruit fly – drosophila melanogaster


In addition, many molecular mechanisms of mice are quite similar to humans and even a large part is the same. Common points at the gene and protein levels are one of the reasons why mice and rats are chosen as model organisms. You choose the organism you will use according to the experiment you will make and design your experiment. Of course, let’s try this and the production is not 100 mice. There is no chance to arbitrarily flex the life you take or the damage you inflict on the creature. For these experiments, you must go through a serious ethical committee stage.


The experiment is usually started with the mouse. This continues until the product has made a certain improvement. It is much cheaper to produce the mouse, feed it and throw it away when the experiment is over. When it comes to good results, it comes to monkeys. Since the drug is already in good condition, much less monkeys will be eliminated, and this is solved.

As the unconscious human bodies will be produced and used in the future, the suffering that we bring to the animals will decrease significantly. We are waiting for those days.

Source: eksisozluk.com