Purpose for introducing new mouse

If someone has experience in the area of introducing male mice to one
another, please read!

My Cow Mouse's mate died today, leaving cow mousie alone at almost a year
old. He is a healthy mouse, unlike his partner had been, and I know mice
live longest when with other mice... Plus I enjoy watching them interact.

He is (obviously) a boy mouse, and I would like to send in another male like
the arrangement was before... However, I figure Cow Mouse will just fight
another new boy mice, which will likely be much less than half his age to
begin with..
Is there any steps I can take besides introducing them in neutral
environments, perhaps incrementally? Like, should I wait until the new mouse
gets some age on him, or should I try to make sure he is a young one? Etc...
Any help appreciated.

VR

Van Random wrote:

<snip>

>any steps I can take besides introducing them
>in neutral environment [...]

Putting two stranger males together is always chancy;
the best results might come if the new & younger one
was raised with several other males and is the most
picked-on of the batch, or if the new one is just
barely weaned amd not yet sexually mature. (That's a
small time-window, and you'll probably need to obtain
the new guy from a breeder rather than a pet store.)
Either way, it's a gamble, and you might have to end up
putting a hardware-cloth partition in the cage, so they
can kinda interact but (with luck) avoid any serious
damage.

Don Fitch

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