The theme of the project is “Baby Mouse Nest” - Technology lesson. The theme of the project is “Baby Mouse Nest” - Lesson technology Little Mouse description

The tiny mouse (lat. Micromys minutus) is rightfully considered not only the smallest rodent in the world, but also one of the smallest mammals on Earth. Only shrews can compete in size.

This rodent easily fits in the palm of a child, because the body length of adult male mice does not exceed 70 mm, and the tail is 65 mm. This “giant” weighs only 7-10 grams. Females are smaller than males.

This kind superior to its peers not only in size but also dexterity. The little mouse has an absolutely wonderful tail, it very mobile, able to twine around stems and thin branches.

It differs from mice of other species in its blunt muzzle, small ears and eyes, semi-grasping tail covered with hair, and tenacious hind legs.

Unlike other mice, the little one is more often active during the day.

The color of the coat is variable and comes in two colors: the upper body and tail are yellow-brown-red, the belly and legs are completely white, however, there are also darker or lighter, redder or browner, grayish or yellowish; the belly is not particularly different from the upper part. Young animals have a slightly different build than older ones, and a completely different body color, namely, a much grayer color on the back. The northern and western subspecies are darker and redder in color.

The little mouse has long been a mystery to zoologists. Pallas discovered it in Siberia, described it exactly and drew it quite well, but after him almost every naturalist who came across it passed it off as a new species, and everyone considered himself right.

Only through continuous observations did the irrefutable truth become clear that our little one is actually distributed from Siberia through all of Russia, Hungary, Poland and Germany to France, England and Italy, and only in exceptional cases is it not found in some areas. It lives on all plains where agriculture flourishes, but it is not always found in fields, but mainly in swamps, reeds and reeds. In Siberia and in the steppes at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains it is very common; in Russia, England, and Holstein it is often found. But in other European countries it can sometimes be found in abundance.

(The baby lives throughout the temperate zone of Eurasia, prefers meadows in the south of the forest zone, forest-steppe, along the corresponding altitudinal zones it penetrates into the mountains of southern Eurasia to northern India and Vietnam, in the Caucasus it is found up to 2200 m.)

In the summer you can meet this cute little animal in the grain fields, and in the winter in huge numbers under stacks, as well as in barns, where they end up along with the grain. If she winters in an open field, then, although she spends part of the cold time in hibernation, she never falls into complete torpor and therefore in the summer she prepares supplies in her burrows so that she can feed on them in times of need. She eats the same thing as all other mice: bread and seeds of all kinds of herbs and trees, as well as all kinds of small insects.

In its movements, the little mouse differs from all other species of this family. Despite her small size, she runs unusually fast and climbs with the greatest perfection and dexterity. Hanging on the thinnest branches of bushes and on the stems of grass, which are so thin that together with her they bend towards the ground, she runs upward along them, and almost as quickly runs through the trees, and with particular dexterity she clings on with her pretty little tail. She is also equally good at swimming and diving. This way she can live everywhere.

But she shows her greatest perfection in another respect. She is an artist, of which there are few among mammals, an artist who can compete with the most gifted birds, because she builds a nest that surpasses the beauty of the nests of all other mammals. She displays her pretty structure in such a unique way, as if she had adopted this art from a bird. Depending on the nature of the area, the nest is either built on 20-30 sedge leaves, the tops of which are split and intertwined so that they surround the building on all sides, or it hangs at a height of 0.5-1 meters from the ground freely on the branches of a bush, on a reed stalk and the like, so that it appears to be hanging in the air. In appearance, it most closely resembles a blunt egg, for example, a very round goose egg, which is approximately equal in size. (The nest has a diameter from 60 to 130 mm. In winter, the animals move into burrows; in agricultural landscapes they prefer haystacks. stacks. sometimes barns.)

Its outer shell always consists of completely split leaves of reed or sedge, the stems of which form the base of the entire structure. The little one takes each leaf with its teeth into its mouth and passes it several times between the sharp, needle-like ends, until it divides each individual leaf into six, eight or ten parts, as if several separate fibers, then all this is unusually carefully twisted and intertwined with each other. friend. The interior is lined with films of reeds, the down of some marsh plants, fluffy catkins of willows and flower clusters of all kinds. A small hole leads into the nest on the side, and if you feel the inside of the nest through it, it turns out to be uniformly smooth, both at the top and at the bottom, extremely soft and tender to the touch. Its individual components are so tightly connected and intertwined that the nest actually acquires greater strength. If you compare the less adapted tools of mice with the skillful beak of building birds, then you will have to look at their construction not without surprise, and the work of a small mouse will be ranked higher than the buildings of many birds. Each nest is always built mainly from the leaves of the plant on which it is located. A necessary consequence of this is the fact that the outside of the nest is almost or completely the same color as the bush itself on which it hangs. The baby mouse uses each of its works of art only during childbirth, which lasts only a short time, thus the cubs always leave the nest before the leaves surrounding it have time to wither and, as a result, take on a different color from the nest.

During the period from April to September, the female brings 2-3 litters, 5-9 (sometimes up to 13) cubs in each. A separate above-ground nest is built for each brood. Pregnancy lasts at least 17-18 days, if it is combined with lactation - up to 21 days. Mice are born naked, blind and deaf, weighing 0.7-1 g, but grow and develop very quickly. They mature in 8-10 days, leave the nest by 15-16 days, and reach sexual maturity by 35-45 days. Young animals of the first litter reproduce already in the year of birth.

Life expectancy in nature is very short, a maximum of 16-18 months, while most individuals live only 6 months. In captivity they live up to 3 years.

Old mothers always build their nests with greater skill than young ones, but even the latter already show a desire to achieve the skill of the old ones. Already in the first year, the cubs build rather intricate nests for themselves and rest in them. They remain in their magnificent cradle until they become sighted. The old female covers them warmly every time, or, better said, closes the entrance to the nest when she has to leave it to bring herself food. Meanwhile, she has already gotten together again with a male of her breed and is already pregnant again, while she still needs to feed her cubs with milk. Then, as soon as they are old enough to somehow feed themselves, the old female leaves them to their own devices, serving as their leader and adviser for at most a few days.

If one is fortunate enough to be nearby just at the time when the old female brings out her young for the first time, he will have the opportunity to enjoy one of the most attractive family scenes in the life of mammals.

All this activity can be observed with greater convenience if you take the entire nest home and place it in a cage with fine wire mesh. Baby mice are easy to keep if you give them hemp, oats, pears, sweet apples, meat and house flies, and with their pleasant disposition they reward a thousand times the labors of the person who cares for them. Young mice very soon become tame, but shy as they grow up, if they are not handled especially often and diligently. When the time comes when they hide in their shelters in the wild, they become very restless and try in every possible way to escape, just as migratory birds do when the time of departure approaches. In March they also show a special desire to leave the cage. In general, they soon get used to the new living conditions, cheerfully set about building their skillful nests, take leaves and pull them through their mouths with their paws to split them, put them in order and intertwine them with each other - in a word, they try to get along as best as possible.

The basis of nutrition for baby mice is seeds, in summer also insects and vegetative parts of plants. They make small food reserves for the winter. The baby is very gluttonous, eating about 5 g of food per day, which is only slightly less than its weight.

Baby mice are weakly social, meeting in pairs only during the breeding season or in large groups (up to 5,000 individuals) in winter, when rodents accumulate in stacks and granaries. With the onset of warm weather, adults become aggressive towards each other; males in captivity fight fiercely.

It feeds mainly on seeds of cereals, legumes, broad-leaved trees, and fruits. In summer it readily eats insects and their larvae. Apparently he doesn't stock up. Mice settling near fields and granaries eat grains of cereals, oats, millet, corn, sunflowers and other cultivated plants.

Peculiarities:

They do not hibernate.

Enemies in nature are birds of prey and animals.

In some areas, the baby mouse causes some damage to crops.

The baby mouse is sensitive to overheating and avoids direct sunlight.

Populations appear to be subject to 3-year fluctuations.

The baby mouse is a natural carrier of pathogens of tick-borne encephalitis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, tularemia and leptospirosis.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animals
Type: Chordates
Class: Mammals
Squad: Rodents
Family: Mouse
Genus: Baby mice (Micromys Dehne, 1841)
View

The tiny mouse (lat. Micromys minutus) is rightfully considered not only the smallest rodent in the world, but also one of the smallest mammals on Earth. Only shrews can compete in size.

This rodent easily fits in the palm of a child, because the body length of adult male mice does not exceed 70 mm, and the tail is 65 mm. This “giant” weighs only 7-10 grams. Females are smaller than males.

This kind superior to its peers not only in size but also dexterity. The little mouse has an absolutely wonderful tail, it very mobile, able to twine around stems and thin branches.

It differs from mice of other species in its blunt muzzle, small ears and eyes, semi-grasping tail covered with hair, and tenacious hind legs.

Unlike other mice, the little one is more often active during the day.

The color of the coat is variable and comes in two colors: the upper body and tail are yellow-brown-red, the belly and legs are completely white, however, there are also darker or lighter, redder or browner, grayish or yellowish; the belly is not particularly different from the upper part. Young animals have a slightly different build than older ones, and a completely different body color, namely, a much grayer color on the back. The northern and western subspecies are darker and redder in color.

The little mouse has long been a mystery to zoologists. Pallas discovered it in Siberia, described it exactly and drew it quite well, but after him almost every naturalist who came across it passed it off as a new species, and everyone considered himself right.

Only through continuous observations did the irrefutable truth become clear that our little one is actually distributed from Siberia through all of Russia, Hungary, Poland and Germany to France, England and Italy, and only in exceptional cases is it not found in some areas. It lives on all plains where agriculture flourishes, but it is not always found in fields, but mainly in swamps, reeds and reeds. In Siberia and in the steppes at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains it is very common; in Russia, England, and Holstein it is often found. But in other European countries it can sometimes be found in abundance.

(The baby lives throughout the temperate zone of Eurasia, prefers meadows in the south of the forest zone, forest-steppe, along the corresponding altitudinal zones it penetrates into the mountains of southern Eurasia to northern India and Vietnam, in the Caucasus it is found up to 2200 m.)

In the summer you can meet this cute little animal in the grain fields, and in the winter in huge numbers under stacks, as well as in barns, where they end up along with the grain. If she winters in an open field, then, although she spends part of the cold time in hibernation, she never falls into complete torpor and therefore in the summer she prepares supplies in her burrows so that she can feed on them in times of need. She eats the same thing as all other mice: bread and seeds of all kinds of herbs and trees, as well as all kinds of small insects.

In its movements, the little mouse differs from all other species of this family. Despite her small size, she runs unusually fast and climbs with the greatest perfection and dexterity. Hanging on the thinnest branches of bushes and on the stems of grass, which are so thin that together with her they bend towards the ground, she runs upward along them, and almost as quickly runs through the trees, and with particular dexterity she clings on with her pretty little tail. She is also equally good at swimming and diving. This way she can live everywhere.

But she shows her greatest perfection in another respect. She is an artist, of which there are few among mammals, an artist who can compete with the most gifted birds, because she builds a nest that surpasses the beauty of the nests of all other mammals. She displays her pretty structure in such a unique way, as if she had adopted this art from a bird. Depending on the nature of the area, the nest is either built on 20-30 sedge leaves, the tops of which are split and intertwined so that they surround the building on all sides, or it hangs at a height of 0.5-1 meters from the ground freely on the branches of a bush, on a reed stalk and the like, so that it appears to be hanging in the air. In appearance, it most closely resembles a blunt egg, for example, a very round goose egg, which is approximately equal in size. (The nest has a diameter from 60 to 130 mm. In winter, the animals move into burrows; in agricultural landscapes they prefer haystacks. stacks. sometimes barns.)

Its outer shell always consists of completely split leaves of reed or sedge, the stems of which form the base of the entire structure. The little one takes each leaf with its teeth into its mouth and passes it several times between the sharp, needle-like ends, until it divides each individual leaf into six, eight or ten parts, as if several separate fibers, then all this is unusually carefully twisted and intertwined with each other. friend. The interior is lined with films of reeds, the down of some marsh plants, fluffy catkins of willows and flower clusters of all kinds. A small hole leads into the nest on the side, and if you feel the inside of the nest through it, it turns out to be uniformly smooth, both at the top and at the bottom, extremely soft and tender to the touch. Its individual components are so tightly connected and intertwined that the nest actually acquires greater strength. If you compare the less adapted tools of mice with the skillful beak of building birds, then you will have to look at their construction not without surprise, and the work of a small mouse will be ranked higher than the buildings of many birds. Each nest is always built mainly from the leaves of the plant on which it is located. A necessary consequence of this is the fact that the outside of the nest is almost or completely the same color as the bush itself on which it hangs. The baby mouse uses each of its works of art only during childbirth, which lasts only a short time, thus the cubs always leave the nest before the leaves surrounding it have time to wither and, as a result, take on a different color from the nest.

During the period from April to September, the female brings 2-3 litters, 5-9 (sometimes up to 13) cubs in each. A separate above-ground nest is built for each brood. Pregnancy lasts at least 17-18 days, if it is combined with lactation - up to 21 days. Mice are born naked, blind and deaf, weighing 0.7-1 g, but grow and develop very quickly. They mature in 8-10 days, leave the nest by 15-16 days, and reach sexual maturity by 35-45 days. Young animals of the first litter reproduce already in the year of birth.

Life expectancy in nature is very short, a maximum of 16-18 months, while most individuals live only 6 months. In captivity they live up to 3 years.

Old mothers always build their nests with greater skill than young ones, but even the latter already show a desire to achieve the skill of the old ones. Already in the first year, the cubs build rather intricate nests for themselves and rest in them. They remain in their magnificent cradle until they become sighted. The old female covers them warmly every time, or, better said, closes the entrance to the nest when she has to leave it to bring herself food. Meanwhile, she has already gotten together again with a male of her breed and is already pregnant again, while she still needs to feed her cubs with milk. Then, as soon as they are old enough to somehow feed themselves, the old female leaves them to their own devices, serving as their leader and adviser for at most a few days.

If one is fortunate enough to be nearby just at the time when the old female brings out her young for the first time, he will have the opportunity to enjoy one of the most attractive family scenes in the life of mammals.

All this activity can be observed with greater convenience if you take the entire nest home and place it in a cage with fine wire mesh. Baby mice are easy to keep if you give them hemp, oats, pears, sweet apples, meat and house flies, and with their pleasant disposition they reward a thousand times the labors of the person who cares for them. Young mice very soon become tame, but shy as they grow up, if they are not handled especially often and diligently. When the time comes when they hide in their shelters in the wild, they become very restless and try in every possible way to escape, just as migratory birds do when the time of departure approaches. In March they also show a special desire to leave the cage. In general, they soon get used to the new living conditions, cheerfully set about building their skillful nests, take leaves and pull them through their mouths with their paws to split them, put them in order and intertwine them with each other - in a word, they try to get along as best as possible.

The basis of nutrition for baby mice is seeds, in summer also insects and vegetative parts of plants. They make small food reserves for the winter. The baby is very gluttonous, eating about 5 g of food per day, which is only slightly less than its weight.

Baby mice are weakly social, meeting in pairs only during the breeding season or in large groups (up to 5,000 individuals) in winter, when rodents accumulate in stacks and granaries. With the onset of warm weather, adults become aggressive towards each other; males in captivity fight fiercely.

It feeds mainly on seeds of cereals, legumes, broad-leaved trees, and fruits. In summer it readily eats insects and their larvae. Apparently he doesn't stock up. Mice settling near fields and granaries eat grains of cereals, oats, millet, corn, sunflowers and other cultivated plants.

Peculiarities:

They do not hibernate.

Enemies in nature are birds of prey and animals.

In some areas, the baby mouse causes some damage to crops.

The baby mouse is sensitive to overheating and avoids direct sunlight.

Populations appear to be subject to 3-year fluctuations.

The baby mouse is a natural carrier of pathogens of tick-borne encephalitis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, tularemia and leptospirosis.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animals
Type: Chordates
Class: Mammals
Squad: Rodents
Family: Mouse
Genus: Baby mice (Micromys Dehne, 1841)
View

Species: Micromys minutus Pallas = Little Mouse

Before you have certain mice in your house, you should know some of their characteristics. And besides, if you want to keep animals as interesting and pleasant pets that you intend to watch, it is not recommended to have white mice, since the habits of these animals are well studied and are of interest only to a novice naturalist. At the same time, white mice, despite their relatively tiny size, smell monstrously if not properly cared for, which is a significant obstacle to keeping them indoors.

Therefore, the smallest representatives of this group - baby mice - are more suitable as pets for indoor living areas. Baby mice live well in cage conditions, and their secretions have almost no specific odor, while their habits are of considerable interest.

Little mice jump and climb well, it is very interesting to watch them. The animals willingly use the running wheel during the warm-up day, climb on the net and live in living corners until they are very old, which occurs at the age of three.

They keep baby mice in spacious rooms, so the cage should have the following dimensions: 80 x 80-100 x 30-40 cm. The walls of their house are a metal mesh with a mesh size of no more than 5 mm. Nets with a larger mesh are unsuitable, since animals easily penetrate through it and can be difficult to catch. Also, when cleaning the cage, you need to make sure that the animals do not escape through the hole for the tray.

Baby mice need tall herbaceous plants - baby mice make their cozy nests in them. The stalks of wheat, rye, barley or oats are most suitable for this. A layer of sand or peat is poured onto the floor of their home, on which moss is placed, which absorbs moisture well, and a little hay is placed in one of the corners for a ground shelter. Instead of long stems of cereals, thin branches of shrubs can be used to make nests, which are stuck into the ground placed in small pots.

It is better to place glass, earthenware or clay feeders, but not plastic. Baby mice eat a variety of cereals and grain feeds with the addition of pieces of carrots or fruits, and fresh greens are a must every day. It should be borne in mind that in addition to the grain mixture, these animals necessarily require animal food, which includes mealworms, hamarus, grasshoppers, and raw low-fat minced meat. Occasionally, their diet should be supplemented with cottage cheese and white bread soaked in milk.

Preferably automatic drinkers in the form of glass tubes with a spout extended to the side and a small hole at the top. The water-filled drinking bowl is tightly closed at the top with a stopper and hung outside the cage, letting its spout pass inside. Unboiled tap or well water is used to water mice. The water in the drinking bowl must be changed daily.

Unlike many small mammals, baby mice are never tame, although they do not bite. After the captured animals are put in a cage, they sit in a pile of hay on top of each other, keeping warm, and once they build a nest, they stay in it all day. They need to be kept at room temperature and given the opportunity to bask in the sun, since baby mice are heat-loving animals.

It is possible to achieve reproduction of the little ones only in cases where the cage is high enough, equipped with at least dry herbaceous plants or branches convenient for building nests, and, of course, when the animals receive material for construction - grass and plant fluff.

Ten days before giving birth, the female builds a brood nest. Pregnancy in babies, like in other mice, lasts about 20 days. Mice are born weighing approximately 1 g. During the summer, the animals give birth to two or three litters, most often six to eight cubs.

Although the pups are born naked, blind and deaf, they grow and develop very quickly. Only females take care of the cubs. Males do not touch the babies, so there is no need to remove them before the offspring appear.

The mother warms and feeds the cubs with milk. The babies begin to see the light by the age of two weeks, and after another week they begin to climb out of the nest and try solid food. At the age of 20-25 days, the babies become completely independent and need to be separated, since by this time the female is preparing for the next birth and will not tolerate her already adult cubs within the nest.

Newly born mice and their mothers often cannot be disturbed, since adults do not like this and can destroy their offspring. During the period of feeding the cubs, cleaning the cage should be limited to changing feeders and drinkers.

• Recently, the best years of my youth came to mind - my student years, where such an incident occurred. I don’t know how it is now, but in those days we were sent to harvest potatoes - a wonderful time!
• Having collected all the potatoes that grew on the collective farms, everyone began their studies. And here again luck! As always happens with us, “unexpectedly” the first frosts struck, and the sugar beets remained sitting in the ground.
• For them it’s a disaster, for us it’s a happy time. We worked hard like Stakhanov, and for our hard work we were rewarded with a well-deserved day off.
• Where do you go in the village? Only to the forest. And we tramped in single file on a clear October day along the path into the forest. In October, real frost is rare, but small frosts are common. The earth is getting cold, flowing and standing waters are getting cold, losing the remnants of summer heat. Slowly we reached a small lake, in some places overgrown with reeds and more like a swamp.
• Probably in the summer there was a vibrant life here: crickets were chirping, various birds were chirping and frogs were croaking. And now it seemed that there was nothing alive left: everyone flew away, crawled away, galloped away and lay down on the bottom. And then a quiet voice, or rather a whisper, was heard: “Let’s all come here.”
• A minute later we were looking at the nest, where there were four little mice, the size of beans, blind, but already dressed in thick velvety fur.
• 
• And only many years later I came across an article from which I learned that the owner of a beautiful house and the mother of tiny babies was a baby mouse.
• It is at this time that, more often and more easily than in summer, you can find its nest, similar to a wicker grass ball, with living inhabitants.
• Special mention needs to be made about the nest.
• At first glance it looks like a bird's, but is made differently. It seems to be hanging on the leaves, but it is impossible to remove it, because... woven not on the plant, but from the plant.
• The little mouse is not a burrower, not a little mouse, and it hardly knows how to dig. In the summer, she scurries between land and aquatic grasses, on which, shortly before the appearance of offspring, she weaves her round house, the size of a large apple.

• round house

  
  round house
• With sharp teeth, she cuts the ends of green leaves of reed, cattail or corn (if in the field) into ribbons and twists them into a frame - a living continuation of the plant itself. Then he pulls dry or withered leaves into it and spreads them into narrow ribbons, from which the bottom, walls and roof are made. And for interior decoration he weaves threads-fibers from them.
• This creates a dense ball, built so skillfully that even after a long rain, the inside of the house is warm and dry.
• She can build such a nest even under a cabbage head. In the big world of rodents there are many masters in building homes, but the little mouse of the entire legion is, firstly, the smallest, and secondly, it is among the top ten most skilled builders.
• 
  
• Not only can her wicker house not be thrown off or shaken off by any wind, no elements will bring trouble to its inhabitants.
• The grass fibers are not glued together, the cracks are not sealed, but the roof does not leak. The engineering solution for this design couldn't be simpler - it's a dome.
• There are no drafts in the mouse's home, it is not hot in the July heat, and the cold cannot get in, despite the fact that there is no door.
• The thing is that the nest lasts only two weeks.
• Mice grow and develop so quickly that within one and a half to two months the cubs become adults.
• Having barely opened their eyes, they can already deftly climb the leaves and stems of grass. We can say that everyone perfectly has such abilities, but the little one has everything brought to perfection: the animal, like a bird, can stand on a swinging straw on its hind legs.
• And the mobile and tenacious tail is no worse than that of a monkey. A blind mouse, which still cannot crawl with an electric current, already has the tip of its tail curled around a straw or blade of grass.
• 
• The little mouse is an excellent swimmer. This is evidenced by its nests found on islands of swamps and lakes distant from the shore.
• Outwardly, our heroine looks like a teenage house mouse, but even smaller, more graceful and gentle. Small round ears and a neat muzzle with a pink nose give this mouse a cute and childish expression. The fur is short, thick, velvety and almost waterproof. The back and sides are brown, and the belly is always pure white.
• The tail is darker than the back and does not appear hairless. The incisors are thin, sharp and easily gnaw through a thick cabbage stalk, which you cannot immediately cut through with a thick knife.
• In captivity, the little ones get used to it instantly: they build nests, play, eat everything that is not offered, that they have not tried in nature.
• You can read more about domestic rodents.
• This is how it turns out in life.
• Then we stood near the nest for a short time and decided to go home so that the little mother could return to her tiny children.

Today we will tell you who the little mouse is. You will find a photo and description of this animal in this article. As the name suggests, this animal is very small. Moreover. The baby mouse is the smallest rodent in the forest. Perhaps, even among mammals, there is no one to compete with it in size. Only the shrew is smaller than it. How old is this agile animal? The weight of this mouse is only 7-10 g. We can say that it is almost weightless. Of course, for blades of grass, along which it moves very quickly thanks to its tenacious tail and hind legs, it will be noticeable.

Cute creature

But if a tiny mouse is on a person’s hand, he will not feel its presence. It is distinguished from rodents that live in houses with an elongated muzzle not only by its small size, but also by its brighter color. Moreover, the belly is lighter than the reddish back. The color intensity varies and does not depend on the habitat. The little mouse, a photo of which can be found in this article, is a rather cute representative of its family.

be careful

It’s not for nothing that house rodents are feared, but these are happily kept at home as pets. Although this must be done with caution. If a mouse comes to the shelves of a pet store directly from its natural habitat, and was not born from responsible breeders, then it can be a carrier of dangerous diseases: tularemia, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis and lymphocytic choriomeningitis. Although the baby mouse is a rodent that harms agriculture, we would not want nature to lose one of its representatives. After all, each of them has its own significance for the world around us. Therefore, people are trying to preserve the population of these mice, which has begun to decline due to the fact that the landscape is often subject to changes under the influence of human factors.

Place of residence

Where does the little mouse live? This rodent prefers forests and forest-steppes. Moreover, it lives not only in Russia, but is also common in other territories of Eurasia. It can be found in Spain, Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Italy and even Japan. In our country, the baby mouse lives in the Caucasus, Primorye and Transbaikalia, Karelia and the Urals, near the Arctic Circle. It is interesting that representatives of this species are found both in river valleys and at an altitude of 200 meters above sea level. The main thing for them is that there is a lot of grass in which they can make their nest.

tiny house

These mice hide in bushes, among weeds and thickets. They do not like to be in the sun because their small bodies are very sensitive to overheating. Therefore, in search of food, the baby mouse moves, clinging to blades of grass, remaining in the shade, avoiding open areas. She builds her nest among grass or shrubs, preferring sedge and reeds, at a height of 40-100 cm. It reaches only 6-13 cm in diameter. The offspring of these rodents are born in this cozy nest. To make the kids comfortable, caring parents line the inside with some soft material.

All the best for children

The outer layer is usually woven from strong leaves to give the nest strength. Baby mice breed only in the warm season, when it is possible to raise offspring in hanging nests. Moreover, during the period from April to September, one mouse can have several litters. Pregnancy lasts 17-18 days. A separate nest is built for each one, in which 5 cubs fit perfectly. Newborns are naked, deaf and blind, but after 15 days they are ready to leave the nest. The lifespan of these mice is no more than one and a half years. Therefore, next spring the offspring themselves will be ready for procreation.

What's for lunch

In winter, baby mice do not hibernate. Since they do not stock up, they look for food under the snow or in human granaries. In winter, they often settle in or even live in houses. The usual food for these babies is grains: oats, corn, rice, sunflowers, millet and other grains of cultivated plants. They also eat legumes, fruits, and seeds of broad-leaved trees. In summer, the diet is supplemented with insects and their larvae.

If you decide to keep this rodent as a pet, first familiarize yourself with the rules for caring for it. In the wild, these animals do not live together, only during mating or under forced conditions, for example, they escape from frost in the same granary. But at home they can be housed in one cage, as long as it is spacious. The house is equipped with all kinds of toys, manholes, ropes, wheels so that the active animal can spend its energy. Food is poured into feeders. Baby mice feed in the same way as in nature: grains of corn, millet, sunflower, oats, plant seeds, and fruits. All this is not difficult to get in urban areas. It is also necessary to install a special drinking bowl for rodents in the cage. These animals are clean, although you still have to clean up after them. Their great advantage is that they do not have a strong odor. In good conditions, your pets will live much longer than in the wild. There are cases when these animals lived up to 5 years. On average, they please owners for 2-3 years.

What else is remarkable about the little mouse?

Interesting Facts:

• To weave a nest, she passes blades of grass and leaves through her teeth to produce fine fibers.
• The ball-shaped nest that the baby mouse weaves has no entrance. To get in or out, rodents push apart the blades of grass from which it is made with their paws.
• In winter, about 5,000 individuals were often found in granaries where these animals hide from the frost.
• A book by the famous writer Vitaly Bianchi, “Mouse Peak,” was written about the life of one of these little mice. This fairy tale, in a form accessible to children, tells about the life of one rodent. The author describes the difficult life in the wild, the dangers that await the baby, and his meeting with people.

In our article we talked about the life of an interesting animal. Despite its small size, it leads an active life, gives birth to offspring, tries to avoid dangers, and builds houses in the grass. It’s not for nothing that people noticed and tamed this cute, peace-loving animal.