Rat & Mice Information

Mus musculus Linnaeus

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

• Body length 5 to 9 inches; tail 2.3 to 3.9 inches; and weight 0.6 – 0.8 ounce.
• Grayish brown hair on top, relatively large ears, and a dusky-scaly, nearly hairless tail.
• The hair on its bottom is only slightly lighter than the hair on its top, and it has non-grooved incisors.

DISTRIBUTION:

• Mice spread to Europe from Asia and appeared in the 16^th century in the New World as immigrants on the ships of explorers.
• The house mouse appeared in North America sometime in the 17^th century, and has been very effective at increasing their populations.
• House mouse subspecies can now be found across the world.

HABITAT:

• Each mouse makes their own nest, but will share burrows with other individuals within the colony.
• The house mouse can co-habit with humans, living under large appliances or inside the walls of homes.
• Underground burrows, which some subspecies equip with storage rooms.
• The house mouse does not stray far from cover, with the best habitats offering copious amounts of food, water and places to hide.
• Their home ranges vary, from 10 feet for some indoor mice, to more than two miles for some outsiders.

BEHAVIOR: 

• The house mouse is a social species and lives in groups with others, and aggressive males have hierarchical ranks and tend to dominate colonies.
• Each group lives in a territory bound by scent markers, and animals within the colony have their own nests.
• Mice will groom each other and display both aggressive and submissive postures.

FEEDING ECOLOGY:

• House mice eat up to 10 percent of their body weight daily and feed up to 20 times each day.
• Common foods consumed are grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, insects, and have been known to eat glue, paste, and even soap.
• Eating moist food or seed diet of 12 % protein, they can live without water.
• The house mouse has been known to feed on caterpillars, larvae, flightless moths and earthworms.

REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY:

• Mice can reproduce copiously.
• Breed throughout the year, litters of 3 to 12 offspring about 5 to 10 times annually.
• Gestation takes three weeks.
• The young mice are born hairless and their eyes are closed.
• Young are weaned from mther by 21 days, female mice will  begin to reproduce in their second month of life, and they can live to be six years old.

Common names:  English: Mouse; French: Souris domestique; German: Hausmaus; Spanish; Ratón común.

Rat and Mice Inspection tips

Doing a thorough and complete inspection of your structure will help you use the right products for your specific needs and help you be successful in your rodent control solutions.

• Identifying specific rodents and their populations.
• Inspecting infested buildings and surrounding areas.
• Excluding rodents from buildings.
• Determining sanitation concerns that maybe providing rodents with food, water and shelter.
• Recommending control solutions specific to the rodents and their infestation site(s).
• Implementing control measures tailored to the site, i.e., sensitive locations, such as food plants, schools or hospitals.
• Evaluating results and making necessary improvements to the control program as the IPM program evolves.

How to inspect your home or structure:

Rodents are very predictable and you need to start by inspecting the area for obvious infestation clues. 

·        Are you seeing droppings of rodents and where?

·        Are you hearing sounds of activity and at what time?

·        You need to look high and low for all possible entry and access points.

·        Look for runways, nests, feeding area, water supplies, vents and other openings, burrows, harborage areas, pipe outlets and holes and cracks in your structure.

• Check all dark areas in a structure with a flashlight.

Common signs to look for during inspection:

• Runways:   Rat and mice create paths between feeding and their harborage areas. Rodents memorize their territory through kinesthetic (muscle) memory and use the same paths over and over again. They prefer to move along objects, so that they are in constant contact with some type of object, walls, furniture, cabinets and studs.   Identifying their movement will help you place bait, traps and glue boards in the most obvious locations.
• Droppings:   Rodent Droppings and urine are left wherever rodents travel or rest, and they especially can be found in corners. Use our rodent identification chart to identify dropping size to help determine type of rodent present.
• Odor:  Rodents will leave distinctive, musky odor be present.
• Urine: Rodent urine is visible under black light.
• Gnaw Marks: Fresh gnaw marks are light and will darken over time. Scratch-like marks, approximately 1/16 inch, are made by mice. Clear 1/8 inch gnaw marks are made by rats.
• Rub Marks: Rodents leave rub marks from body oil, grease and dirt along runways. New rub marks will smear. Old rub marks are darker and may flake off.
• Tracks:  Footprints and tail drags may be seen in dusty locations. To view difficult to see tracks, shine a strong flashlight at a low angle across the dust. A non-toxic tracking powder, such as a mason’s line chalk, placed on a suspected rodent trail, and re-inspected the following day, also may assist in identifying tracks.
• House pets, cats and dogs, can become agitated when they hear mice and rats gnawing, digging, and running and fighting.

While this al may seen time consuming performing a thorough inspection is a key step in any successful rodent IPM program.  Taking the time to do it right will help determine the best mode of treatment and in the long run will help you save time and money.

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