Field mouse

[hvrlon]

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate part of the forum for my question, but I've just discovered a field mouse making its nest on my plot and wonder what it might start eating. Here's a (very cute) picture:

http://courgettes.wordpress.com/2007...ousey-visitor/

Has anyone else had a similar visitor/resident?

[Alice]

Hello hvrlon, welcome to the vine and thank you fot the mouse pic. Just gorgeous. I could pick it up and give it a kiss. But then - it hasn't been eating my peas.

[Hazel at the Hill]

...and welcome to the Vine!

Ahh - the circle of life! Cute mouse eats peas/beans. Rotton cat catches cute mouse. Gardener b*llocks cat for catching mouse and plants more seed. Cute mouse eats ......

Fortunately when my cats catch and bring home these cute critters I generally can retrieve and release (cue host of tales regarding less-than-nimble cat owner vs mouse-who-likes-the-idea-of-an-indoor-life)

I can forgive cute - but then I'm not having my crops munched!

[Madasafish]

I - or rather my trap - caught 5 in my greenhouse this year. I then blocked up the hole. They nibble seedlings at the base and ... timber!

A real pia.

Used my dalek as a kitchen until I blocked up the holes (s).

Live on one compost heap over winter..(OK.. no damage done).

Invade the house in spring : mouse trap job again.

[yoanbob]

eat eat eat, try a humane trap and moving it somwhere more mouse friendly

[poozie]

THese little fellows are actually quite lazy and friendly. when we were renovating our kitchen one used to come into our kitchen under our backdoor (we had no threshold at the time) and sit under a cupboard munching anything it could find. It got into a cupboard and started munching a cereal box but decided it was too much effort so gave up. It was incredibly loud, it wasn't bothered we were in same room.

Last year one came in through open door in the winter and made a home in my woolley hat and ate my seeds that i had in a shoebox. I have a Jack Russell dog who I think was a bit scared of him. Mouse is now in backyard and helps himself to my bird table. They do eat insects too.

I think they like an easy meal, so if you surrounded your peas with fine netting it might not bother with them.

Oh yes, they can be tamed, my mum has one in her garden that takes sunflower seeds from her hand.

[Flummery]

They will also eat ripe fruit - brambles, rasps etc. Well, you would, wouldn't you? We had a family of little field voles in our old garden and they would take birdseed from my daughter's hand. Aaah! One decided to gnaw down my white geranium phaeum - marched off with the big stalk over its shoulder. All I could see was the flowers disappearing one by one at a 45 degree angle.

[hvrlon]

Thanks, everyone.

Lazy, cheeky, friendly - oh dear!

Perhaps he'll be too lazy to bother with the beans, which are at the other end of the plot...(wishful thinking). There are plenty of currants plus other fruit near his nest, mostly netted.

My dad advised me to get a mouse trap asap; if I do, I'll take Yoanbob's suggestion and buy a humane one. It's easy to be ruthless with yucky pests like slugs but the 'cuteness' factor here is a major impediment, isn't it?

[Flummery]

Oh yes! That's how they make a living!

[Madasafish]

Cuteness does not come into it. I leave them alone IF they leave my plants alone.
Humane trap is imo a waste of time and is not humane: where do release them?
If far away, they will probably be killed pronto by a predator...or lave their young to die.

And if nearby, well waste of time.

(I'm sorry but reality is reality)

[hvrlon]

What my father actually told me was not to get a mousetrap but to "kill it".

If I hadn't encountered the mouse on such friendly terms I probably wouldn't have thought twice about using normal traps (I don't when it comes to house mice). Then again, if I hadn't encountered it I wouldn't have known it was there and would have attributed any crop damage to other pests.

I read on a website that field mice have very short lifespans anyway due to the large number of predators they have. There are so many foxes and cats in south London that I was amazed to see this one at all.

H