Oh no! Don’t stop reporting on your little mice. I am enjoying it. Especially the thought of them running around in the little wheel!
Mouse Infestation
Shinita
#42
Yep, it’s interesting 
I even told my sleeping SO (well he was sleeping on my bean bag next to me as every evening, he should handle such things then) about the mice and the wheel…
It’s a serious mouse infestation! I only met a single mouse here but then the cats came so no wonder it never got serious (probably the walls matter too, these are bricks and I would notice armies of mice in the house). I only very rarely and shortly lived in a house without cats. I like cats. I like mice too, it’s hard sometimes. One day I wish to keep rats. Faaaaar from the cats. Somehow. Rats are fun and smart and pretty with their cutie-pie paws.
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#43
Awww, you guys! 
Okay, if you insist!!! 
We actually got two on Thursday night and one last night - that’s 13 total. Totally infested, but I have never seen a mouse in this house. I hear them, but haven’t seen them. Luckily, since we are carnivore, there’s really nothing in the kitchen of interest to them, so no evidence of them there - or anywhere, in our living area. We’ll just keep trapping them until they go dark. Glad we’re getting ahead of them before the babies have babies!
I go in and talk to them every day in their cage. They stop on their wheel and listen to me. Like @Shinita said, they have the cutest little hands!!! And ears and whiskers! Nature is such a gift.
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#44
This is what the mice have done to our plastic trim for our garage doors. This was perfectly flat when we had it redone.
They eat through the plastic to get into the garage, and then into the house.
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#45
I think they do this to file their teeth. We have wooden siding and they have chewed one piece down to the bare wood. I have no idea where they are getting in. That would solve a lot of our problems. If this continues, I’ll call an exterminator in the spring to examine the house and determine the entry point(s).
PaulL
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing)
#46
Rats and mice get in through remarkably small holes. I don’t know about mice, but the rib cage of a rat is sort of hinged, allowing it to squeeze through a very tight constriction.
In a couple of different houses, I used to have problems with either mice or rats. The mice seemed to come into the warm house as the outdoor temperature dropped. In one place, I never did find the holes by which they were entering. In my last apartment, the landlord was not diligent about finding and blocking the entry holes, but I was able to find where the wild rats were getting from between the walls into my apartment and seal those, but unfortunately not until after the wild rats injured a couple of my beautiful, sweet girls.
It also helps to keep the food in an inaccessible location, such as inside the fridge or in elevated kitchen cupboards with no way to get to them by climbing. I worked in a warehouse where a co-worker kept chocolate in a metal candy tin in her bottom desk drawer, but the metal of the tin was no match for the mice’s teeth.
Rat and mouse incisors never stop growing, requiring them to gnaw all the time to keep them ground down. (It also helps keep them very sharp.) The word “rodent” is in fact, derived from rodere, the Latin word for “gnaw”.
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#47
I went to the bottle and can return place one time and there was a mouse in an empty two-liter bottle of pop! That hole is so tiny!
Didn’t know that!!!
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#48
Supposedly, things like steel wool, and wire mesh can prevent mice from getting in. We have not used this, though I often thought about using it.
Something like this, for instance:
They recommend sealing holes larger than half a centimeter, which is tiny.
There is also spray foam you can buy with anti-mice/insect materials added. We have a can but have not used it.
Shinita
#49
A mouse is tiny. What you see is a mouse with FUR, it makes it bigger, cats are the same…
(I still don’t know how a stinkbug entered my bathroom ceiling lamp when it has only a tiny gap as far as I know…)
Octopuses (I googled and it seems that is the correct plural? sad. I liked octopi 
it’s so positively insane to me that some nouns in English have weird, not English plural, Hungarians convert nearly everything to our ways, we never would use accents our language hasn’t - and we have many, maybe 9? - and we like to have words with very obvious pronunciation)… Erm. So octopuses are wonderful at going through tiny holes too, I think where their eye goes through, they go too? There are some fun videos about that.
But about mice and other rodents too. It’s not always easy, in one video the mouse wasn’t so cooperative and some slightly bigger shrew went through on the smallest holes…? But if a mouse is determined, it’s hard to stop them, I suppose. Obviously there are ways but mice may be way more tricky than we think.
Not mice but moles… My aunt could stop them ruining her lawn only with some wire mesh in the soil…
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#51
Thanks for asking. We have caught and released 15 so far. I drive them to a nice field about a mile and a half from here that has a lot of underbrush and water. I will only release them in groups. I get very sad when I let them go and hope that they will be alright. It’s been quiet the last several days, although last night I did catch one (that No. 16). He is in the cage waiting for at least one other companion and for the weather to change. We got our first significant snowfall last night - probably eight inches - and I will wait until it thaws to release. Supposed to go into the 40s on Christmas and after. At some point, we are going to have to find out where they are coming in, although that seems kind of fruitless to me. I do know of one spot we can shore up, although I’m sure there are multiple others. We will just keep the traps out continually. I toyed with getting a dwarf hamster as I’ve had several in the past. (They are the best pets!) Can’t spare the cage, though! 
Happy Holidays!
robintemplin
(Robin)
#52
I would love to have a hamster too. Never had a dwarf. Just more cuteness, I am sure.
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#53
Honestly, they are the cutest, sweetest creatures. We’ve had three (they are solitary, so one at a time). They all were nice, but one was particularly hand tamed - Squeak. I would cup him in my fist for a half an hour at a time and feed him seeds. He was fine with it and me kissing him. What an angel.
Shinita
#54
I never was into hamsters and my SO says they can be aggressive…? He and his brother had zillion various critters, some odd spiky mouse, hamsters, chinchilla, degu, guinea pig.
I had a mouse once and I wish to have rats but I don’t know where I can get some. I googled and still no idea… And I need to build a wonderful house for them first. And somehow manage to keep them safe from the 2 cats…
Once I had a vole for a little time. We got it from the cat and put it into a terrarium with food and everything, seemed fine, made a tissue tunnel, bit me strong enough that I instinctively dropped poor thing (it wasn’t a big fall, maybe there was problem from the cat after all… or they are just so fragile) and it died a little later. I felt a bit guilty but without me it would have become cat food and I am me, I had to try to keep it (some people allegedly managed it) so…
So you say hamsters are nice? It’s so very hard to get almost any critters, I couldn’t even get a mouse again… I wanted 3 though so they could play even if one gets mad at another…? Maybe it doesn’t work that way but 3 sounds good. Be it mouse or rats. 3 girl rats, that must be great.
But hamsters are easy to find. Maybe even dwarf ones.
My SO has a photo, he is a kid there and there is his hamster with a walnut in its mouth. A way bigger walnut than its head.
I hope no one gets insulted that I refer to animals with an unknown gender as “it”. My world doesn’t have that huge pc and whatever sensitivity and I don’t think it bothers the animals and I know I don’t respect their tiny selves any less if I don’t use “they” or something.
Maybe there is already some neutral term for animals only. In this snowflake noun world, I wouldn’t be surprised.
(As my own language has no gendered nouns - I am so happy it’s the case… - and I care less about gender than the average person anyway, being an androgyne if I must to label myself, it’s a bit odd to me.)
PaulL
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing)
#55
It’s better to adopt from a rat rescue than to buy from a store that breeds rats as snake food. I know that there are rat rescues in Europe, but my information is years out of date. Rats are as loving as, and even more intelligent than, dogs, with the added advantages that they don’t bark and don’t need to be taken on walks.
If you do ever find the opportunity to take on a rat, get at least two, because they pine and grow depressed on their own. (Occasionally a rat will prefer to live alone, but this is rare.) And anyway, two rats are four times as much fun, and hardly cost more to feed.
One last bit of advice: only get rats of the same sex, or you will quickly be inundated with lots of little pups!
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#56
Dwarf hamsters are wonderful. I never much cared for the larger “teddy bear” hamsters. They’re kind of slow and lumbering, and not very cute to me. Dwarfs are just adorable and are very sweet, especially if you get them young and take them out at least once a day. Do you have pet stores where you are that sell live pets? Our stores here typically sell small rodents and parakeets, but not cats and dogs. They may host rescue organizations from time to time who will bring in adoptable cats and dogs.
gingersmommy
(Marianne)
#57
Got a Christmas mouse - on December 25! That makes 17 total. Now that we have a companion for the one in the cage, I will take them down the road and release.