There is this cute mouse near my house I feed, she disappears a few days sometimes, is it ok if I put flour to see her footsteps general direction where she might go? If I build a mini house with food nearby will she stay? Any advice for her safety?
There is this cute mouse near my house I feed, she disappears a few days sometimes, is it ok if I put flour to see her footsteps general direction where she might go? If I build a mini house with food nearby will she stay? Any advice for her safety?
What?
Get a cat. They like to adopt mice.
I don’t think you understand the purpose of this sub.
Well it’s for the men’s advice and men always build stuff so they’d be most knowledgeable for this situation, or probably many men that have done this before
Ok, so. You can build a little house. A one inch hole for a door, then a corner, then the main room. Put some shredded rags in there. You can put the roof on hinges, with a latch. That way you can open it and put some food in from time to time. A ball of peanut butter rolled with birdseed. Use thin plywood, paint it with exterior grade paint, and use finishing nails.
A mouse gives birth to up to 14 mice every 20 days. If this is a female and it settles in/around your house, in 20 days you will have 15 mice. In six months they reach sexual maturity and if half of those are female, you will have 8\*14+16=122+16=138 mice!
One hundred and thirty eight mice! from one mouse!
So go get yourself a hamster. In a cage.
Or just capture the mouse
You could also do the glue and popsicle stick route, but still need to paint it or it will rot.
Minnie Mouse?
Thank you for this lovely post, it is one of the more interesting in weeks.
To echo another couple of posters, you absolutely can do this and it will be adorable and then you will have 40 mice disrespecting your garden and eating your cereal, and that’s less adorable.
I would suggest a humane trap and then keeping it in a cage in the house, perhaps. Where it can’t breed like a mogwai.
You can put down flour to see her footsteps, but she probably has already found a home that she likes and has built a nest there. That’s why she comes to you for food and then goes back to her home, rather than sticking around at your place. You might consider putting out a shallow dish filled with water for her to drink from. And you might also consider putting out pieces of dead grass, bits of cotton, shreds of paper, and other things she can use to build (or beef up) her nest.
As far as her safety, just do what you can to make it difficult for predators (cats, dogs, foxes, snakes, and birds of prey) to attack her while she’s eating and drinking.
And for your safety, don’t try to touch her at all. You mean well, but she doesn’t know that and wil probably bite you. Mice can carry hantavirus and other viruses.
I know they are cute…. but you do NOT want to feed mice around your property.
They reproduce like CRAZY if they have enough food.
two months from now and it wont be 1 mouse, but 30.
Don’t encourage the rodents.