Forest mouse, what does it eat in the forest?

The wood mouse (Aroietis uralensis) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. Known as the dwarf mouse. Found in Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine .

It is about 90 mm long and is sometimes considered a pest.

What do they eat

These are, first of all, seed eaters of trees such as oak, beech, ash, linden, hawthorn, and plane tree. They eat young plants, weeds, buds, and moss. If there are a lot of seeds on the ground, they carry them into burrows for storage.

May eat small invertebrates such as snails, slugs , insects, arthropods, earthworms, caterpillars, centipedes, especially in late spring and early summer when plants are not available.

In the fall, they eat berries, fruits, mushrooms, roots, sweet corn, wheat, oats, and blackberries. In winter they can hunt bats.

Description and photo

These are medium sized mice. They are larger than the house mouse . Their body length is 7-10 cm , the tail is about the same length.

Her body weight ranges from 15 to 30 grams. The head is quite large in comparison with the body. She has a pointed muzzle with large eyes .

This type of mouse has very long ears , they can reach the eyes; with a body of 7-10 cm, the ears reach 2.2 cm.

The color is usually brown , but some individuals are yellow and even red. Young animals are dull in color, but over time their color becomes brighter.

Some individuals have a light spot on the chest. Such white spots are characteristic especially of individuals living in mountainous areas.

The peak behavior of wood mice is late evening, night and early morning . They do not hibernate in winter.

As mentioned above, there are many types of mice. You can find information about some of them on our website. Read all about the following: mole vole, yellow mole vole, steppe mole vole, voles: underground, dark, flat-skulled, narrow-skulled, Brazilian, red and red, housekeeper voles, gray vole and ground rat.

Behavior

Wood mice are active at night to avoid predation. Females may be more active during the day to collect sufficient food. While searching for food, noticeable objects such as leaves and branches are selected and distributed, which are used as landmarks during exploration.

Despite the name, they prefer hedges to forests. During the cold months, wood mice do not hibernate, but they can fall asleep and reduce physiological activity.

Females defend the nesting territory. The mouse squeals and emits ultrasonic signals during defense. Males emit ultrasound during copulation and until 24 days of age. Insensitive to red and infrared light, like badgers (they can be easily observed with a lamp covered in clear red plastic).

Find out more The danger from rat fleas and do hamsters have fleas

What harm causes and methods of control

The wood mouse adapts very easily to various biological conditions and can colonize fields with grain crops.

They cause enormous damage to farms , destroying winter and spring crops of cultural and industrial plants over large areas, primarily rye, oats and wheat.

REFERENCE: As calculations have shown, if at the end of spring 6 pairs of mice live on arable land, then by the end of autumn, under favorable conditions for rodents, their number can reach 7-8 thousand.

They spoil agricultural crops at all stages of plant growth: they eat sown grain in the ground, gnaw out young shoots, and spoil the stems and leaves of plants.

But most of all, ripe grains of cultivated crops are destroyed. One wood mouse eats an amount of grain equal to its own weight per day.

By digging holes in the ground, they damage the root system of plants . In gardens and nurseries, mice gnaw out trunks, shoots and roots of fruit trees and shrubs, spoil and destroy ovaries, and eat ripe berries and fruits .

The problem is also that these rodents are able to spread and reproduce over a vast area of cropland in a short period of time.

Mice build a complex system of burrows with a large number of passages and several storage facilities in which they store grains of oats, wheat, rye and barley for the winter.

IMPORTANT! Wood mice are carriers of dangerous diseases such as hemorrhagic fever and leptospirosis. Fleas carried by mice can pose a very serious threat to pets.

Methods of controlling wood mice can be divided into two methods: preventive measures and direct destruction.

Preventive measures include installing various repellers and building protective barriers .

In small farms, this means laying out plants whose smell repels rodents: garlic and black root, and installing mechanical and electronic repellers.

To kill mice in a small area, their holes are filled with a special repellent solution .

But in the event of a mass invasion of rodents, radical measures must be taken. Destroying a mouse population is not an easy task; it requires an integrated approach.

For large farms with huge cultivated areas, it is necessary to contact special companies and organizations that carry out mass deratization .

Main methods of deratization:

installation of ultrasonic repellers;
installation of mousetraps with bait;
glue-based traps;
scattering of poisoned grain;
pollination of centers of mass settlement of mice with pesticides.

To effectively exterminate rodents, all mice control measures must be used. Compliance with safety measures is also of great importance : measures to destroy mice should not harm the soil or human health.

IMPORTANT! Mice pose a major threat to harvested crops. Making their way to places where crops are stored, to warehouses with grain and flour, they destroy reserves, eating them and polluting them with waste from their vital activity.

Not only mice can cause significant damage to garden plots and vegetable gardens. We bring to your attention a series of materials about wild rats, shrews, bats, and moles. And also about insect pests: potato moths, bedbugs, Colorado beetles, chafers, mole crickets, ants, nematodes, spider mites, moths, locusts, slugs, armyworms, aphids, thrips and cicadas.

Life cycle, how long they live

The wood mouse has a breeding season from March to October, when many matings occur between individuals of different sexes, leading to competition and fighting.

The gestation period of wood mice is 25–26 days, the female gives birth to five cubs, naked and blind. The pups become independent in about three weeks, and ready to reproduce in two months.

Lifespan – 18 – 20 months. Mortality is very high in the spring among those who spent the winter. In juveniles it increases in spring and summer after mating fights.

Effective baits for catching mice

Catching a mouse using a mousetrap is not difficult for a person, especially since the rodents described are omnivores. But in order to catch, say, a whole family of mice, the sooner the better, you need to make every effort, using the most effective baits for this process.

To create the best bait for catching mice, you will need the following products:

Lard, the smell of this food component, is very attractive to mice, especially when it comes to the smoked variety of the product being described. In order to lure a mouse into a mousetrap, it is enough to place a small piece of lard in it. Using this product, you can easily catch the entire family of rodents in the house;

In order to catch all the mice in the house, you need to properly install a mousetrap and select the right bait, using the foods that mice prefer to eat.

Presence indicators

The droppings of a forest mouse are larger than those of a common mouse (3 – 5 mm). The animal holds the seeds between its front paws to gnaw and leaves them behind. You can find teeth marks on the edges of holes drilled into hazelnuts.

Eats the peel of rose hips, neglects the flesh. Opens snail shells at the base. Makes blanks under upside-down trunks, in cracks, holes, and old bird nests.

Fingerprints: Rarely visible. It has 4 toes on the front paws and 5 on the hind paws (more than the house mouse, vole ).

The pest is very agile. Can make large jumps if pursued (up to 80 cm). Can climb trees. The wood mouse suffers from environmental pollution, especially if it lives on the outskirts of roads.

Feeding decorative pet rodents

Inexperienced owners of ornamental animals have the most common question about what mice eat, and whether they can be fed with scraps from the human table.

Compared to their free-living counterparts, the rhythm and living conditions of pets are noticeably different. Therefore, you cannot give the animal everything and expect it to be healthy. Food should be varied, balanced, contain the required amount of vitamins, microelements and not harm the animal’s body. This takes into account:

age of the rodent;
his weight;
view;
health status.

Full advice regarding the nutrition of a particular animal can be obtained from a veterinarian or breeder.

Ready-made feed

Buying special mixtures is convenient and profitable. Moreover, they contain everything that mice love to eat. Among the variety of foods offered in pet stores, it is difficult to choose the right one.

Feed

You need to know that they are divided into categories:

Super premium class. The highest quality product with a predominant content of wheat and animal proteins with low fat content.
Premium class. Less expensive food. It may not contain any components necessary for a rodent, but this is easily compensated for by feeding, which should be given once a week.
Economy class. The cheapest option, consisting mainly of not the most healthy grain crops.

When choosing food, you need to pay attention to the manufacturer (foreign manufacturers are considered the best) and the composition of the mixture. A combination of several types of grain, meat and vegetable additives would be ideal. The presence of food coloring is contraindicated. The packaging must be sealed from polyethylene or foil so that insects cannot get inside.

The female feeds newborn babies with milk. They do not require additional food until they are 3 weeks old. Then the granules are soaked in water in small quantities and placed in a cage, thereby teaching the mice to eat solid food. At the age of one month, they already switch to food for adults.

Natural diet

If for some reason you decide to keep your animal on natural products, then first of all you need to stock up on cereal grains. In the mixture, preference is given to wheat, adding oats, barley, rye, and millet.

By type of nutrition, the mouse is an omnivorous mammal, so animal proteins should be given once a week. For example, a piece of egg, boiled lean meat without salt and spices, fish. At the pet store you can buy dried freshwater crustaceans, which rodents love.

Peanuts, sunflower seeds, and walnuts are given with great caution. These are fatty foods that are bad for the health of mice. Their daily intake should be strictly limited.

Vegetables, fruits, and berries are given fresh or dried 2-3 times a week in small portions.

Brown bread crackers are offered to pets no more than 1–2 times a month, 1 piece at a time.

It is useful for the teeth to give the animals branches of coniferous trees, rowan, apple, and pear.

Occasionally, pets are fed low-fat cottage cheese; this is a good source of calcium.

Prohibited Products

Mice should absolutely not eat:

Everything that was fried was smoked and salted.
Sweets. These include sweets, chocolate, ice cream, cookies, pies, and cakes.
Any spices, as well as onions and garlic.
Citrus and exotic fruits.
Tomatoes.
Poisonous herbs.

Sometimes an animal may have an individual intolerance to a certain product, then the diet is adjusted.

How not to confuse a Pasyuk rat by its paw prints?

In order to protect your home from the encroachments of dangerous animals, it is worth studying their behavior, character and even habits. So let's play trackers. You can see many footprints on the snow surface. Due to their special anatomical structure, rat tracks can be identified without any problems among many others. And to do this, let’s look at the structure of the limbs.

The rat's paws are very tenacious, and unlike most other animals, they have five toes.

But the front legs deserve special attention:

4 elongated fingers;
the fifth is short and reduced. You can call it a stump;
there is something like a palm;
the fingers are not very far apart;
membranes can be seen.

The membranes only separate the phalanges. There is no fur on the lower part of the paws, but sometimes there is still a small fluff. The animals themselves are very strong. But their legs are muscular and strong, which allows them to develop great speed and jump long distances.

Normal step

If the rat has already settled in and explored the entire area, then it will move confidently. Without much effort or stopping. Her steps will differ depending on the terrain. Let's add to this the fact that after a rodent appears in a house, garden or other place, there is a complete expulsion of all other small animals. Therefore, her presence can only be observed in the singular.

By nature, rats are invaders and warriors. And also intelligent beings. If patterns in the form of an unfinished star are noticeable in the snow, rest assured that instead of one rat, there is a whole squad here. It will have a main individual who controls the entire process. The dominant rat does not hunt at all. Only occasionally comes out to explore and capture new territories. Her assistants will manage themselves, and in addition bring “gifts and offerings” to their main one in the form of food and delicacies.

Since the animals are larger than other domestic invaders, the prints left behind are clearly visible:

Front legs	Adult track size	2 cm by one and a half centimeters
Middle finger length	Reaches 1 cm, the rest are slightly smaller. There is always a dent in the middle from the tubercle
Claws	Can be seen clearly. Since they are sharp, they will be visible as small specks.
Hind legs	Size	In a sitting position, about 4 cm, but when moving, the mark becomes smaller and leaves 2-2.5 cm
Fingers	Five fingers are clearly visible. All elongated and widely spaced

Movement in an unfamiliar area and a familiar one - how to distinguish?

By the peculiarities of the rodent's movement, you can get ahead of who he is here: a guest or the owner. No matter how sad it may sound, but with the appearance of a rat in the house, it will begin to consider itself the master and diligently begin to survive all unwanted ones.

Thanks to different gaits, it is possible to calculate the following actions for a person:

intimidate;
destroy;
catch.

So, when closely spaced tracks are discovered, in which it is noticeable that the individual moved slowly, cautiously, and sometimes sat down, it is clear that it is a guest. I came to investigate the situation and the possible risks of my stay in this place. The tracks are arranged in pairs, evenly. As if in turns. In this case, the front paw is always one in front. The hind leg is also slightly extended. From this description it immediately becomes clear that the animal was sniffing and looking for danger. Still, there may be cats and dogs in a new place.

The tracks are arranged in pairs and evenly

To be convincing, we look at the second pair of legs that remain. The interval is approximately 5-8 cm. The front leg is also extended forward, possibly a mark from the seat, and the back pair also has an unevenness (one leg is extended back). Based on the width of the path left by the animal, we are completely convinced: it is similar to a thread, no deviations to the left or right, the maximum indentation in width is 2, 2.5 cm. This will depend on the size of the scout individual.

If there are jumps, the traces look like a ricochet. But the animal makes such leaps only in familiar areas. He knows that there are no special threats here. This means you can increase your movement speed.

Protection of the forest dormouse

Photo: Animal forest dormouse

The forest dormouse species is listed in the Red Book of several regions of Russia - Kursk, Oryol, Tambov and Lipetsk regions. This variety of dormouse is protected by the Vienna Convention at the international level. Forest dormice are also included in the IUCN Red List as a species requiring constant monitoring and observation.

The main factors for the disappearance of these animals are:

forestry activities, which every year increasingly destroy a huge number of forest dormouse refuges;
sanitary felling and clearing of old broad-leaved forests;
a significant reduction in the area of natural forest stands;
poor development of undergrowth;
bad harvest;
reduction in the number of old hollow trees.

Oksky Nature Reserve in the Ryazan region, in Belarus, the Berezinsky, Voronezh and Khopersky protected areas protect forest dormouse habitats and identify new ones for their conservation, prohibiting all types of forestry activities. The All-Russian State Forest Reserve and the Kharkiv State Nature Reserve protect the species and take measures to preserve natural forest biocenoses.

Fans of this type of animal are not recommended to catch forest dormouse and bring it home. It is better to take the baby in specialized stores. The first purchase for an animal should be a large cage. You should not allow her to wander around the house willfully, otherwise the forest dormouse will definitely escape through the first crack that comes along.

Varieties

There are more than 350 species of shrews. Only 25 of them are found in Russia. The most common types of long-nosed mice are:

Common shrew. It can reach 8 cm in length, while its weight does not exceed 160 g. The body is covered with soft brown fur. A nose with a blunt tip is clearly visible on the head. The length of the animal's tail is equal to the length of its body.
Tiny shrew. It got its name due to its very small size. Its weight is only 3 g, and its body length is 5 cm. The animal is recognized as the smallest representative of the mammal family. His nose is like a proboscis, and his short fur is gray-brown.
House shrew or long-tailed shrew. This mouse can often be found in the vegetable garden or garden. For the winter, she moves to cellars or basements of private houses. The body length of this long-nosed mouse is about 8 cm, and the tail is up to 5 cm.

Tiny shrew

What does a mouse eat in the forest, who eats a forest mouse