Mice
May Look Cuddly, but They Breed Rapidly
By this time every year, throughout most of the U.S. and similar temperate zones, domestic mice and rats and some other local outdoors species will have already found the places they plan to spend the winter. There may not yet be enough for you to notice them, their droppings or other signs, but that could change quickly. They have most likely begun producing their next litters, and have found and laid down trails to the places where you keep the food and nesting materials they will need for the next several months. One morning soon, you may be surprised to find a hole chewed in your cereal box or rodent droppings on your kitchen counter, or even mouse hairs on your dishes.
The house mouse is the most common pest in and around human living and working places. They damage and destroy materials by gnawing, eating your food (especially cereal products or nuts), attacking decorations such as floral or “harvest/grain” arrangements. They can carry human diseases and ectoparasites that may bite people or pets. The house mouse has a head-plus-body length of about 2.5 to 3.5 inches, and is gray with dull white belly fur. An adult only weighs about an ounce, but they eat often (nibble) and leave their typical ‘calling card’ droppings at places where they sat down to feed for a little while. Mouse droppings are long and pointed compared to the larger, blunt droppings of rats.
Mice may look cuddly, but they breed rapidly. A house mouse can breed 35 days after it was born, and can have its own first litter of up to eight pups by the time it is 60 days old. Although they usually live only about a year, if all their offspring lived and reproduced at a similar rate, one pair of house mice could produce a population of more than 500 mice in one year.
Mice are good at climbing and jumping. They can jump about a foot straight up, and can jump down more than six feet without getting hurt. An adult mouse can squeeze through a crack or hole as small as 3/8-inch across and can quickly climb straight up an eight-foot wall of brick or wood paneling in less than half a minute. Even though one mouse doesn’t eat much, as their population grows, they can eat a surprising amount of food. They also damage food containers, and their droppings and urine droplets contaminate a lot more food than they eat. In a year, one mouse produces up to 18,000 droppings; and it will deposit hundreds of micro-droplets of urine every day as it marks its trails.
Mice can spread more than 20 kinds or organisms that can cause diseases for humans and pets. These include a variety of food poisoning bacteria like Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli, and others; tapeworms, mites, ticks, and rickettsial pox. Other rodents, which are widespread and may also come indoors for the winter such as deer mice, can carry and spread other disease organisms like hantavirus and plague.
If you see mice, or other rodents, or their signs such as droppings in your house or business, don’t panic. Don’t hurry to buy traps and poison baits and scatter them around helter skelter. The wisest thing to do is call a pest management professional. They can help determine what rodent(s) you may have, where they are, and the extent of any problem. They can help you plan and carry out an effective rodent control, exclusion and prevention program that will protect you, your family or customers, and your property.