Mice in their natural habitat are omnivores that eat plants and insects. They love to eat all kinds of plants from root vegetables to flower heads. That means if you have a mouse problem in your yard then your vegetable or flower garden could be in some danger. Mice are a frustrating infestation. They are tiny, fast, they can live for years without water and they eat a third of their body weight a day which can be a lot of flowers to nibble on. This is a painful thing to experience because most people care more about their gardens than even their house. So if there are mice on your property you will have to figure out where they are nesting and get rid of them. There are many ways to do this.
This often happens in the winter. Mice will dig up your plants in the snow and then consume them rapidly to stay warm. They are also likely to try to get into your house and because they can compress their bodies tightly and squeeze through tiny cracks and holes it is nearly impossible to guarantee you have sealed up every entry point. This is why it is very important to make sure that any garden you set up should be far from the house. You should not have shrubs or bushes or flower beds up against the house as mice can use those areas to gain entry without being noticed. They also use overgrown grass to travel invisibly. So mow your lawn nice and short. This will help prevent mice from getting into your home. You may also want to inspect the outside of your home for possible entryways that could already exist. This involves an up-close inspection of anything a mouse could get into. Foundations gaps, wall vents and opening for plumbing. They can all allow mouse entry into the home.
If you have mice in your garden then you will need to trench and exclude the garden to prevent them from getting in. This can be done with steel mesh with fine enough holes that a mouse cannot squeeze through, which means smaller than a quarter of an inch. You will need to dig one foot by one-foot trench around the garden. You will then take strips of steel mesh and adhere them to the wooden frame of the garden and then lay it down into the soil one foot down and one foot out. This will stop all burrowing animals from getting in. You will then have to take steel mesh of the same kind and attach it to the top of the garden’s wooden frame. You should attach two large panels that are rounded so you can pull them apart and still have access to the garden. You can then pull the curtain of steel mesh back over the garden and tie it with twist ties.
If you have mice in your home there is a lot you can do to resolve it. The mice in your house will never leave on their own, they only know how to live in a human home and are no longer able to survive in the wild. They will use whatever means possible to enter your home and once inside will begin multiplying at a high rate. An infestation will form right under your nose but you may not realize it at first. Mice use rodent runways to travel behind furniture and walls. They have a path they can use from their nest to the kitchen and you have to find it. Once you find it you can set up snap traps or domestic rodenticide bait and they will eat that on their way to the kitchen or simply skip the kitchen entirely. This is a very effective way of killing them as the rodenticide desiccates them causing them to die in the walls with no chance of a smell or biological hazard.
