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Should I encourage house mice into my garden?
Chris Mason
Posts: 159
I was at the top of my garden sorting through some tree branches and I could only hear two things, the rustling of the branches which was created by me, and the frantic and irritated sounding robbing hanging around me, knowing the Robbin was probably hungry I decided to put some nuts, suet and meal worms out but the Robbin left and I haven't seen him/her since. After the Robbin had buggered off I noticed the food disappearing (even though the food was no more than six feet directly ahead of me.... Confused I decided to stop what I was going and watch it until the perpetuate returned, and sure enough, it did. This isn't the first time I've seen these mice, I've seen them on two other occasions as as a result of their presence I've always taken the bird feeders in at night but I couldn't resist it and I let the mice take every scrap of food from the feeder (it was only a handful) Anyway, is it justifiable to encourage them? Or was I silly for doing so? I know they live in the log pile, directly around this log pile they have a lot of food, (hazels, blackberries, honeysuckle berries, elder berries, ivy 'berries' holly berries....)
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Hmmm.... throng think I'll put food out then, the log pile is very sheltered from the elements but I don't want the neighbors telling me off, that's a really nice story ha ha
I reckon they would be there whether you encouraged them or not.
I have several logs with ivy, hedge woundwort and lamium under my bird table and one morning putting the bird food out recently I noticed lots of little faces peeking out from under leaves and behind logs, very amusing
There is also a wood mouse that lives close to the house, it bounces back and forth in front of my patio doors collecting bits my hen has leftover. Keep hearing one of my cats hit the glass on the inside
We have mice in the garden, in a small stone wall that has a slop stone sink on top for birds water. They are always out getting food dropped from bird feeders.
Have lots of mice here, despite my lazy cat. In the countryside. But they have been a bit of a nuisance. It's been very dry and they've been eating my tomatoes in the GH and the birds have eaten outdoor ones. Then they found the larder. I've had to put lots of stuff which was in plastic bags into metal boxes.
When feeding birds this one comes out straight away as no fear what' so ever they are no problem
My cat tries to bring them in. Only 4 have made it inside but I have just picked them up by the tail and put outside again. She did catch one that when she let it go, jumped on her. I'm just waiting for her to bring a rat because that is one I will be leaving to the husband to deal with.
We're in the country too and we've got field mice, voles and shrews as well as house mice. Some live in the dry stone wall at the front but lots move into the 'garage' where we store the sheep feed in the winter. I have learned that it is best to go to the feed merchant more often rather than buy too many bags at once, as any not stored in the bins are chewed open and then they hold parties inside! You could pick up a 25 kilo sack one handed as it would be half empty!
They get into the house too - the stone walls have rubble infill and there are plenty of little gaps for mice, where beams or wires or pipes go through. I had to fill in a hole in the ceiling by the electricity meters (wire wool and polyfilla does the trick!) All my food stuffs are stored in boxes or tins - they won't stay where there is nothing to eat, but you have to be careful and not let down your guard. That includes not keeping bulbs in the dining room without keeping a look out and setting traps if necessary!
The problem with leaving out bird food is that you will attract the big boys, and rats will be hard to get rid of.
Rats will eat anything including fruit and berry,so if you have lots of birds it will be cleared during the day ,also being endangered are we all going to stop feeding our hedgehog visitors
No. Not unless you want to be over run with them. Gestation period 19 days ! Up to 10 litters per year. There's no such thing as "only a couple of mice".
They're highly likely to get into your house and believe me they will do a lot of damage. Particularly as we move into winter. They much prefer to be inside than outside. We had one get into our holiday cottage and we had to rewire it because it got into a tiny gap where the radiator pipe goes through the wooden floor and from there to wherever the heck it wanted! It ended up in the loft chewing cabling!
They also spread disease. Basically no different to a rat in terms of their potential for that. Some things just automatically come with them: they host tapeworm. They frequently carry salmonella and lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. Except mice, because of their size, are more easily able to access areas where you don't want them to go. They will squeeze under the gap in a door when it's closed! They pee and piss everywhere!
The best way to limit their population is to limit their food source.
We also trap and bait to ensure the population is kept under very tight control.