Mouse Facts

• Mice travel over their entire territory daily, investigating each change or new object that may be placed there.
• Mice have poor vision, hence their activity patterns rely heavily on smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
• Mice use the long sensitive whiskers near the nose and hairs on the body as tactile sensors. The whiskers and hairs enable the mouse to travel in the dark, adjacent to walls in burrows.
• Mice also have an excellent sense of balance, enabling them to walk along telephone wires, ropes and similar thin objects.
• Mice are excellent jumpers, capable of leaping at least 12 inches vertically.
• Mice can jump against a flat vertical surface using it as a spring board to gain additional height.
• They can run up almost any vertical surface; wood, brick, weathered sheet metal, cables, etc.
• They can easily travel for some distance hanging upside down.
• Although they are good swimmers, mice tend to take to water only if left with no other alternative.
• Mice are basically nocturnal in nature.
• House mice breed throughout the year and can become pregnant within 48 hours of producing a litter.
• There are usually about 6 mice to a litter and females may produce as many as ten litters (about 50 young) per year.
• It takes 18 to 21 days for gestation, and 35 days for a mouse to mature. Most mice live anywhere from 15 to 18 months.
• They make their nests out of the same types of soft materials as rats, and as many as 3 females may use the same nest.
• They commonly nest in insulation in attics, also in stoves and under refrigerators.
• Mice do not travel far from their nest, about 12 to 20 feet.