Jane Judge's Mice

Thank you Elegran. I can confirm that their pee does indeed smell awful and in fact it is the first sign that they have taken up residence again in the garage. Horrid little blighters.

we have plenty of owls, buzzards and red kites

the buzzard is hell bent on winding up the corvids though. You could watch him all day. He goes over to where they must nest/sit in the trees and the corvids noisily chase him off and he lands in the field over the road for a bit, sits on the telephone pole and then waits until they have all settled back in the trees and flies over again, then they chase him off again

Parsley If their pee smells awful, they are house mice. Fieldmouse pee is nowhere near as revolting.

I think your thread title sounds like a book JaneJudge!

Once the cold weather comes they will want to get in. Keep the doors closed when you go in and out and make sure there are no cracks - they only need to be the size of a pencil. Owls, cats, and foxes will be hunting them.

There must have been a nest of pygmy shrews in a garden we were sitting in not long ago because their cat found it.
The cat was shut indoors but not before two shrews had been demolished.

they are very cute

Yes, I was sorry to see them, they must have been a family. I've found dead ones occasionally, caught by cat, who doesn't eat them, though will demolish a mouse, leaving only a tiny bit of innards.
Only good thing is that there must be a reasonable population of pygmy shrews where I live.

Oh Farmor

If your house is reasonably well sealed, and you keep doors closed, I'd leave them alone and enjoy watching their antics. Looks like they have a cosy nest so hopefully won't want to move.
This morning I was sorting bottles and jars to bring to bottle bank- left in box outside kitchen. There was something in the bottom of a jar and I realised there were 3 dead pygmy shrews. Not sure how/why they got in jar- there was some water in it, they may have drowned.

a mutant hamster

Oh gosh at hoovering with them all in there Parsley, I bet they wondered what on earth was going on! ???

It was a shock Jane as I had used it to vacuum the garage before I opened it up. ??

Oops, a giant mutant hamster!

I was reminded of this thread as I had a dream last night that the hole got bigger and they were in fact guinea pigs..
Ah, sweet ?

I did think the one without a tail was a mutant hamster.

I don't know Parsley. Was it a shock to find them all in Henry?

I was reminded of this thread as I had a dream last night that the hole got bigger and they were in fact guinea pigs..

There are still only 3 of them from what I can tell and they are still busy. They haven't grown so they aren't rats

I find the occasional mouse nest in the garage. Twice in the Henry vacuum cleaner, once in a fishing bag and OH was most annoyed to find one in his winter golfing mitts. The smell of mouse pee is awful. If we are lucky, the nest is empty but the Henry one was full of teenage youngsters. I put it in the garden to let them fend for themselves. I like to think of them as field mice but they are nesting indoors so they can’t be, can they?

It looks like that last one is the one without the tail!

They look like field mice to me, as they have lighter bellies and large back feet. House mice are a uniform colour all over and smaller back feet.

You will have to zoom in, it is to the left of the hole with its feet sticking out the back! My daughter has moved an armchair so she can watch them out of the window

they are white underneath and have a dark stripe down the centre of their backs. Can you see? As I said, they are really fast! I presume they'll hibernate?

I had a baby rat in my bedroom a few years back.
I think that it came in through the cat flap, and came upstairs.
It was in there all night, climbing up the curtains and all manner of stuff.
The dog and the cat went absolutely ? ?
Neither of them could catch it.
In the end DH killed it with a plastic shovel while I was at work.
I cried

JaneJudge, Callistemon - from the photographs they are definitely NOT baby rats.

Baby rats wouldn't be that small anyway when becoming independent.

Listen to the folk who have experience of such wildlife.

Two dogs and a cat and we still occasionally get mice. My husband uses a humane trap and lets them go in the field across the road.

How big are they, JaneJudge?
Are you sure they're mice and not baby rats?

We had one which tunnelled from a neighbour's garden into ours and it had to be dealt with pronto.

I don't want to worry you but they could be emerging from a nest.

My daughter’s pussy cat caught his first ever mouse today but the silly animal let it go because it ‘played dead’. He lost interest so it got up and ran for it. Clever little beastie. My sil put it outside.