Baby rat or House Mouse?

[dickybird]

look very much like rats to me! my cats regularly bring these in from the chicken coups next door. a mouse tail is quite fine and smooth whilst the rats is thicker,courser and has courser hairs. also its probably a bit too early for mi
ce moving ind--i find they start coming in once the weather gets colder.

[beeflysmith]

Thanks everyone for your replies - as I said earlier, I always thought they were baby rats. My wife won't be convinced though, she is still basing her theory on the fact that the weight given for a weaned baby rat is ~40g which is at least 10g heavier than adult mice (wood or house) and that the rodents we've caught have at heaviest been 30g and the last one was 20g. It is still quite surprising to me that there isn't some web site (if there is I haven't found it!) which shows photos, measurements and comparisons of these species, side by side so you can see the subtle differences. Even a pest control officer said they were mice when we e-mailed him the photos! (Extra point there for my wife!!)
So thanks again everyone, if you manage to find that elusive web site I'd love to know.

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by beeflysmith

Thanks everyone for your replies - as I said earlier, I always thought they were baby rats. My wife won't be convinced though, she is still basing her theory on the fact that the weight given for a weaned baby rat is ~40g which is at least 10g heavier than adult mice (wood or house) and that the rodents we've caught have at heaviest been 30g and the last one was 20g. It is still quite surprising to me that there isn't some web site (if there is I haven't found it!) which shows photos, measurements and comparisons of these species, side by side so you can see the subtle differences. Even a pest control officer said they were mice when we e-mailed him the photos! (Extra point there for my wife!!)
So thanks again everyone, if you manage to find that elusive web site I'd love to know.

To me the differences are black and white. How good are you scales? These ARE brown rats. Any figure of weaning size in a book is an average, you get larger and smaller individuals in any population which may be the reason for you below average sizes. Also even when they are not fully weaned they will take some solids especially towards the time of weaning.

[shirl]

I agree, average weights are just that ,nature doesn't always follow the text book definitions as dogghound says, there are lots of variations. I have brown rats, wood mice and house mice in my garden and they still look like brown rats to me.

Shirl

[Lance Morgan]

It's a young rat. I get lot's of 'em courtesy of my cat 'sooty'
He catches them near the river. Some of the bigger one's bite back . Soot's got an abscess from a bite on his back. He only brings back the little ones now.

[thunder]

And the clincher in the first photograph was the size of the hind foot - so no points at all to your PCO! As has been said before - these are young Brown Rats, without a shadow of a doubt.

henrya

[shirl]

This is a good site for data and information about rodents and other species

Muridae - Rats, mice, voles, gerbils etc. (Family)

Shirl