Wood mice - friend or foe?

[Deirdre vdM]

I have a family of what I'm pretty sure are woodmice judging from the large ears and eyes, and round bottoms - too cute for words. They're living about a meter away from my dining room patio door in the hedge. I'm concerned they might migrate indoors as the weather becomes cooler - should I be worried about this or are they harmless, sweet mice that prefer to stay outdoors?

[Hedgehoggy]

My parents have had generations of Wood mice living under their patio (approx one foot away from their house) for years and years, and they’ve never ventured into their house – maybe because there are no gaps for them to gain entry to their house anyway. My mother frequently puts out crushed peanuts for them too!!

Welcome to Wab too!

[aeshna5]

If there is an entrance + it can be tiny, there's a good chance they may enter where it will be warmer, drier + safe from predators (unles you have a cat).

We regularly had them coming in especially in the winter + used a humane trap to catch them + relocate them- at least a mile away or they may well just come back.

Have to say when I did see one in the garden I always enjoyed watching it.

[vole-woman]

I suspect most people have wood mice living near their house, they just don't know it. We have some in our greenhouse and they've never been a bother (except for eating my son's wellington, an umbrella and a picnic blanket).

[CharlieCreek]

We have them in the secure garden, they tend to have a good feast on the dry hedgehog food as told by the droppings around the bowls. One also nested in one of the hedgehog homes.

Sometimes when out in the dark with the red filtered torch looking out for the resident disabled hogs I freeze one on a log in the beam of the torch.

Something I haven't seen before happened a couple of days ago. One of our hogs in at the moment and who is rather restless and who isn't thriving had a try out in the secure garden late in the evening. He foraged around and then really went to town scraping behind the feeding station.

After a couple of minutes he came out with something. This something turned out to be one of the mice which he then proceeded to crunch up and eat over several minutes. I knew that the hogs would take chicks that had fallen out of a nest and eggs and that they might scavenge on dead animals at times but this totally took me by surprise.

I out of sheer interest in the behaviour took a video on my mobile phone (the only thing to hand at the time). It is I suppose a little gruesome to some but as it was the hogs behaviour I find it fascinating and maybe not what people may expect from that cute ambling visitor to their gardens. From the condition (initially) of the mouse and the time spent digging and scuffling I am presuming that the mouse was asleep and not dead when the hog found it.

The video is on the website on the news page (recent news page, 27th Oct) for any that may find it interesting. Sorry to those who may hate to see a mouse eaten.

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

We regularly had them coming in especially in the winter + used a humane trap to catch them + relocate them- at least a mile away or they may well just come back..

Very true.
I once had occasion to remove a Wood Mouse from my cottage using a Lonworth Trap. I took it about a hundred yards away into the local church-yard, let it out of the trap and to my utter disbelief, I watched it as it ran straight back into the cottage via the open front door!
Dorts.