We have just passed through another mouse surge. These things start out by my
finding droppings on top of the refrigerator (the little buggers climb up the
mouse ladder/cooling fins on the back). I use a live trap and deport them to 
the vecinity of the back woodpile. I catch about one mouse per day (sometimes
none, other days 2 if I remember to reset the trap) for about 7 or 8 days and
then nothing. No mice. No mouse shit. The cats stop sitting in front of the
refrigerator. And I usually forget about it until I find droppings again, 
usually weeks or months later. What all of this is leading up to is that I
suspect that a pregnant mouse gets into the house or two mice get in and make
more mice. What I'm curious about is how to determine how old a mouse is. Do 
any of you nature lovers know how to tell (without cutting it in half and
counting the rings)? Popcorn (with her vast mouse breeding experience) may be
my best bet. Anyone else?

34 responses total.

Try sno@ais.org.  He's a licensed exterminator.  He could probably give
you a couple of hints on how they're getting in, too.

What color are the mice you catch?  The solid gray ones are the
House Mouse.  They're European immigrants (south Asian, originally)
and are fantastically prolific breeders.  The young are ready to
 breed after only a month or two.  The can have up to eight litters
per year and up to twelve infants per litter.  A House Mouse you
catch in a trap is likely to be of breeding age.  The bicolored
mice, brownish above and white underneath, are the native Deer Mouse
or White-Footed Mouse (used to be classed together as the same species,
but different now, I think).  These are outdoorsy types.  If you find
one in your house, it's likely to be a lone explorer.  The juveniles
are slate gray, but once again if you've caught one in a trap it's
probably an adult.  

The instinct of cats to hunt and kill mice continally amazes me.
Our cat Dexter is now 18 years old.  His previous owners had him
declawed in 1974.  But he caught and killed a Deer Mouse in our basement
just three days ago.  Cats' patience in waiting for a mouse to make
the one fatal mistake, as you've observed, is awesome.  Nothing
distracts them.

In reference to "how do they get in?" I used to live on an acreage in
Iowa.  Every Fall the mice would start trying to get into the house.
Most of them did, and I spent a lot of time trapping them (no way would
I use D-Con in the house...).  One day I was in the basement doing some
prints in my photo lab and I heard a scratching noise.  I looked up and
just noticed a mouse running by one of the basement windows on its hind
legs, scratching along the perimeter of the house, apparently looking
for some crack or other opening into which to enter.  The darn things
will find almost any possible crack, crevice, whatever in the outer
shell of your house (around ground level, unless they have some way to
climb higher).  After spending some time investigating, I found that
most mice were entering through an attached garage (they had chewed
holes in base plates after worming their way between some aluminum
siding and some rigid insulation).  From the garage, the mice were
making their way into the house via the kitchen, which shared a wall
with the garage.  I tried a couple things.  First, I stuffed all the
holes up with steel wool (but I figured the mice would eventually chew
new holes); second, I did put D-Con in the garage (it actually stopped
most mice in the garage, before they had a chance to find the path to
the kitchen); last, I trapped the hell out of the kitchen and the
basement.  At one point I was getting over 60 mice per month, but after
setting up the buffer in the garage, it dropped back drastically.  Live
trapping may be fine for the conscience, but the darn mice will just
turn around and come right back.  There are zillions of mice outside
your house (especially if you live in the country).  I don't feel like
I endangered the species one iota, but I certainly cut back the population
in the immediate vicinity of my house, and protected my investment in
food and other assorted belongings that mice love to nibble on.

I am confused as to your implied contention that you can "own" food.
 
Is not Mother Earth here with us in balanced nature?
 
Fence off your "property"...  protect "your" food...
 
Hmmm....

Obviously craig has never had his twinkies munched by mice...no
confusion, I own my food.  Try stealing it sometime and see where
you end up.  I *will* prosecute.  And I *will defend my family.

Don't mind him...He had a pocket protector surgicaly implanted in
his chest. So he'd never be out of form.

RE #5
 
You will defend your family from what?
 
Mice are not eating your family, yet your family is responsible for
murdering mice.  Seems hypocritical to me.

Got any small children?

   A friend of mine had problem with mice, and was sold an untrasonic
device which repleded them all.  It apparently drives dogs nuts too,
so it has some drawbacks.  But it did do the job, and apparently kept
them away.  It was placed under a front porch if I remember right.

That solution still assumes ownership of part of this Earth, however,
it is indeed a more humane way of resolving a fear of animals.

Don't think of it as ownership, think of it as staking out a territory.

In that case, the human in question should proceed to urinate in each
corner of the imaginary boundaries.

Not all animals do this.

Although it would probably be somewhat effective...

   It would likely keep humans away...

re a bunch of previous responses - these are deer mice and they're back - 
ownership or not, this is MY turf and I don't choose to share (I'm probably
a republican at heart since the mice don't get a hearing but DO get deported
to the woodpile, a goodly distance from the house, and not killed) - if I piss
in the kitchen, I get in trouble ...

Maybe they're seeking asylum from something in the woodpile?
Give them some weapons, maybe they could stage a coup.

OK, all deported rodents now get a surplus Lee-Enfield and 200 rounds of ammo.

No, they wouldn't be able to load or to squeeze the trigger.

Sure they would, if you made 'em small enough.

When the USA destroys someone else's country or just generally takes it
over, they make provisions for those people (like the Japanese).
 
Perhaps there is a fear that the mice are actually economically superior.

I think you've gone over the edge in this item, Craig.

I think the mice are using their advanced technology to control 
Craig's brain.

I mentioned no advanced technology... I mentioned an economic superiority.
 
You see, these mice do not base their general welfare on unnatural things
such as stocks, paper money with no gold (or even silver) standard, etc...
 
Mother Nature set up a beautiful world for all of us!  And look what we
do!  Destroy it!  You don't see mice destroying the whole world, do you?
 
We should learn from the animals what real happiness is.
It isnt a can of hairspray.

No, real happiness is eating peanut butter and shitting all over the top of the
refrigerator ...

...and getting preyed upon by just about anything bigger than yourself.

Survival, competition, challenge on a daily basis....
 
These are now "vacations" for the suburban man and woman....
Never realizing that when these scenarios were a lifetime that their
ancesters were living a full life.

The mice use mousse.

I had a mouse in the house in 1985, it used to come in through a small hole
in the baseboard (from the basement), which I know because plugging the hole
ended the mouse problem.  I am allergic to flea bites, and could not figure
out where the fleas were coming from (sudden appearance, no pets in the whole
house for at least a year, winter), until plugging the hole ended the bites.
(Another place fleas may have come from squirrels in the attic).  The only
other evidence was little piles of walnuts in the oven of the gas stove (must
have gone in through a burner or vent), with very neat little holes drilled
through them, and pieces of nibbled soap in there too.
        Last year a mouse got in from the baseement (different apartment and
house, next door though) and was gnawing on stored squashes, which I put in
a closed container, the nibbling stopped.  A couple of days later, upstairs,
I found a small grey-brown dead body in my sheepskin slipper.
        This year we found droppings and the husks of squash seeds under the
dish drainer, and started taking out the compost more often.  A few days
later, I found droppings etc. in a drawer.  I am closing the drawer tightly and
have put everything in sealed containers (metal or glass).  I figure it should
be warm enough by now for the mouse to go out to feed.  What else do they eat
besides people food and food wastes?  

Deer mice are also intermediate hosts for the lyme disease ticks.

We have an occasional house in the house, which I trap with a live
trap, and release outside. These come in through the attached garage when
we leave the door open. Last year one of my daughter's gerbils got loose
and disappeared into the woodwork through an open pipe cupboard. I put
a live trap in the cupboard, but never caught the gerbil - however caught
a deer mouse. Put that outside, and the next day I caught it again. I
kept this up a few more rounds, and finally gave up. I just hope it doesn't
chew wires. I'll look for an entry hole in the summer.

Jim suggests you think of some way to tag the mouse with something that will
leave a trail, to help find the entry hole.  Radioactive tracer?  (Now he
tells me he is just joking).  How can you be sure you are catching the same
mouse and not one of many siblings?
(....house in the house......).  Now Jim suggests a small radio transmitter
and two direction finders on either end of the house.....   And points out
that you need a large acorn crop to bring together the mice and deer.

They use radio transmitters for this purpose - even on bats. But I don't
have one. I used magic marker. I could dip its feet in ink, and look for
the footprints....

Put a bell around its neck ;-)

<giggle>

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