Do mice eat garden plants?

No, no ... this is a serious question. I went into my conservatory this morning to discover that Clematis 'Fragrant Oberon' - which had been doing rather well, for a tiny plant - had been completely stripped of all new growth. I looked around for tell-tale slime trails which might indicate that spring had come early for a fugitive mollusc - but no. For once, it wasn't snail damage. However, it did appear that a pesky rodent had managed to find a way in. It had chewed through my bags of bird seed, grabbed some choice grains and then made a nest under a pile of clean washing in order to banquet in peace. It left the husks - and one or two other things - as a calling-card. Presumably it fancied a bit of salad to go with its muesli. I can't think of another explanation.

 

The only greenstuff I've known them damage is the likes of runner beans and peas where they've eaten the seed remaining below the soil and killed the plant because they've eaten through the stem.

If you have seeds in that conservatory, mice will dig the ones they like out the pots & trays and sometimes cause further damage by burying them amongst smaller seeds you've sown, also destroying those.

 

More than likely was Clare. I found a neat row of holes in the greenhouse where a mouse had dug up all the peas i'd planted.

 

I did once read that they can live on more or less anything, including cardboard. So I suppose my poor plant would have seemed like luxury by comparison.

The last time I had this problem, I found that a mouse had managed to chew through a plastic pot in order to eat one of those jelly blobs of vegetable stock. There were neat little shards of plastic everywhere. My cat used to deal with issues like this. But he seems to have decided that he's retired from active service now. To be honest, he was getting a bit unreliable. He'd catch pilfering rodents, then fall asleep, leaving them to escape under the sofa.

 

We had quite a bad mouse problem when we moved into our house we heard them in the walls and loft, called the council who came out to deal with them,they had to come twice and put poison down each time the whole lot went!!!!! must have been hundreds of the little blighters he said they get in the cavities when you're building so are already there when you move in, started having problems again, God knows where they get in,so we bought a huge tub of poison from ebay stored it in the garage, the mice found it and chewed through the very thick plastic container and had been hiding the pink grain under a bit of carpet in there!!!!!! silly creatures obviously killed themselves in the process, luckily no problems lately we leave some poison in the loft just in case but its not been touched for over a year now.

 

They like nibbling seedling leaves and if there's any seed left visible they will eat that too but other then that

 

Apparently mice can get through a hole a quarter of an inch in diameter, Rat`s can get through a hole under an inch in diameter. This is because their skeletons are made of "gristle" rather than bone.

 

Ewww.

 

It is mind boggling really.

 

Ohh the meeces strike again got them here too .

 

My daughter had a mouse run across her lounge floor on Christmas day. She'd been wondering who had been nibbling at the Christmas tree chocolates, my one year old grand-daughter got the blame.

 

I've got one, or maybe more by now, in my compost bin and everytime I take the lid off to put my veg peelings in its sat there looking at me waiting for dinner:gaagh:, sure the local tabby and his mates'll sort them out.

 

I'm sure that the mouse which finds its way into my conservatory is the same one I see hanging from the bird feeder. It's just something about the attitude.

 

Hasta la vista, Mousie!

I've just found another scene of devastation in my conservatory. This time the damn thing has bitten all the heads off an indoor cyclamen and dragged them back to its nest. I'm not sure whether the intention was to eat them, or just do a bit of home decoration. An effete rodent - just what I need. Nothing effete about its doings, though. This weekend Mousie is so getting it.