Mice In The Garden

[JonRB]

I have noticed a mouse in our back garden. It ran from under some old flags. My question is will i end up with them coming into the house. I ask this because i can't stand the thought of mice in my house they send a shudder up my spine !!! We have a corner of the garden where an old shed used to stand and it now has a mound of earth and some old bits of wood etc. I have just seen a mouse come from under there. What is my best action. I am thinking of buying a cat. Will buying a cat keep them at bay? Cheers.

[Cetti]

Have a look at the thumbnail chart below of British mammals Jon, then see which mouse is yours. A reasonably easy way of identification is the House Mouse is an unattractive grey while the pretty little Wood mouse is a reddish colour and behaves like a clockwork toy - and has large round ears that look too big for it's body.

 This is only my opinion. The House Mouse will have to be dealt with by Pest Control but the Wood Mouse who rarely (if ever) ventures  inside a house has so many predators and is such a joy to watch that I would leave it  well alone - as they rarely stay for any length of time anyway.

http://www.uksafari.com/woodmouse.htm

[Jules001]

you may find that if you get a cat, it will catch the mouse and bring it in the house as a gift for you!

[Cetti]

The first link was just for the Wood Mouse this is for the thumbnail pictures.

http://www.uksafari.com/mammals.htm

[chrisandbex]

I hava experienced this problem before and i thought just like you to get a cat so i did (miffy the cat ) but he just never caught them ,so i left them thinking they would go away but they breed ! So i ended up with a garden of horrid white mice ,so PLEASE TAKE MY ADVICE AND CALL PEST CONTROL !!!!!!

[Solarjunkie]

All pest control  will do is put down poison and charge you a fortune to do so.

Buy a Trip Trap from pet shops and other outlets, which catch the mouse humanely and easily in a little box. You can then identify it much more easily using Cetti's links. Then take each one away into the country and set him free in your new home - that way you do not have decomposing rodents stinking out your house & garden, which I can assure you is a terrible, long lasting, invading and pungent smell.

[Artful]

Where we live we've a number of outhouses (it's an old farm and the outhouses all communicate and my husband collects and keeps, collects and keeps, collects and keeps EVERYTHING (I'm sure others understand the problem!); there are also garages and workrooms under the house. Anyway this is to say mice are common which is why we started keeping cats and, by heavens! each one has done his job so well.

The only time one brought one into the house was Napo the first mog when we brought chickens and geese home to keep - did it once but never again. He'd eat all the mouse bar the head and would leave the head on the mat in the utility room - perhaps he wanted to make garlands for Xmas?

Willis the next every 2 or 3 days would leave a dead mouse for the dog in his basket (Beethoven would show me refusing to get into his basket until I took it out).

Todat Boots goes about his job quietly, hunting, catching and devouring where he catches.

Mice, voles, moles beware for our cats are Working Cats! But JonRB do not let them in the house: get a cat, preferably a farm cat where catching rodents will be inherent. Are there farms near you? If so go and make known to the owners that you're looking for a kitten, do they have any? They'll prob be more than happy to let you take it away!

[jake-the-peg]

I live in and old cottage and we do tend to get mice in both house mice and the occasional wood mouse - I'd try the cat solution but I'm very alergic to them so it'd be worse than the mice.

Having said that our nextdoor neighbours have just replaced their recently departed cat with a new one which has turned out to be a real hunter in a major way - I've not seen any mouse activity by our chicken coops for ages - but ther's been a succession of dead blackbirds!.

I think some cats seem to just be hunters whether it's how they were raised I don't know but if you get one I doubt it'll confine itself to chasing mice.

Personally I use humane traps when it gets too bad - not that I'm squemish just that I don't want my kids to come down to the result of spring traps and I don't like the idea of poisoned mice creeping under the floorboards to die.

I do agree about pest control though they'll just put down poison.

Now you could buy a snake they don't kill blackbirds nor present you with the bits :c)