What Do Mice Eat? What Could Be Attracting Them in Your Home?
What do mice eat and what things attract mice in your home? These are some questions that you might have mind if you are dealing with a mouse problem. Depending on the climate where mice are located, they can be omnivores or be strict herbivores. Most of these rodents have a lot of potential food sources that are readily available around their habitat.
Omnivores
Some mice are technically omnivores. Mice eat a wide range of substances. Common species of this rodent such as wood mice can eat vegetation that includes fruits, seeds, mushrooms, flower buds, as well as other edible fungi.
Apart from plant life, mice can also make a meal out of different insects and other common pests like crickets, worms, and centipedes. Mice can also eat snails.
Herbivores
Mice eat mostly vegetation and will prefer seeds and local fruits that are in season. During winter or when fresh fruits or plants are not available, plant-eating mice will eat a local branch of trees, roots, tree bark, corn, oats, or root crops.
Baby Mice
Babies of mice just like other animals survive on their mother’s milk. As they mature, the baby rodents will start familiarizing themselves with fruit, grains, and corn. Until the baby mice reach their full growth, they will mix foods with their mother’s milk. And like any other animal, baby mice only rely on what their mothers bring to their nests.
Urban Mice
Though most mice live outside, many dwell within the suburban or city environment. These rodents are usually living in urban parks or among cars, homes, buildings, and other areas within the busy city.
Urban mice cannot be selective when it comes to their diet. These animals usually survive by scavenging through food scraps in garbage left by humans. On the other hand, they are also known to eat insects, seeds, and plants.
What are the Things that Mice Eat?
To better understand while these small animals choose certain foods instead of other foods you thought they love eating, you need to know their feeding habits first.
Mice are known to be curious creatures and would readily investigate any new items including any foods placed near their nesting area. Instead of consuming large quantities of food, they only consume food in a single feeding.
They will only consume various food at random and little by little. This is the reason why mice can damage or contaminate more items than they could consume.
There are various mouse favorite foods that you should know. You can make a list of these foods, they prefer peanut butter, but their favorite food is chocolate.
Any candy, especially the combination of peanut butter and chocolate is something that a mouse cannot resist. Other mouse food items that you should include in your list are pet food, cereal, and bird food.
Additional food items that mice love and attract mice are the following:
Sweet berries and fruits
Seed and grains
Any meat
Nuts
Dinner leftovers or food debris
Vegetation
If you are still wondering what mice eat in your house, keep in mind that they can eat anything they get easy access to. The fact that you have seen signs of these rodents in your house only means that there are food items that they can easily get their hand on.
Other kitchen treats that can attract mouse and can constitute as their food source include:
Cardboard boxes
Paper
Electrical wires
They tend to chew or gnaw on these food items since mice like to eat these as snacks.
Do House Mice Eat Food Scraps Inside Your Home?
House mice have already adapted to an urban setting. Unlike in agricultural settings, house mice eat anything they can find in trash cans or even debris from dirty dishes.
A house mouse may not be good at chewing through containers and bags to get its food, but a house mouse can still eat seeds and insects. When the food source is not present, keep in mind that they can survive for long periods even with less food.
Do Mice Eat Cheese or They Prefer Other Food?
Hungry mice will eat anything, which includes cheese. However, if there are other food sources available, certain types of mice will avoid the cheese especially those with a strong smell. So, it makes sense if they do not touch any cheese, you leave out in a trap you set up.
House mice or other rodents of the same kind would prefer vegetables, grains, and other sweet foods over dairy products. The misconception about mice eating this dairy product started centuries ago because the storage for these products is open cellars, which make it more accessible to mice and rats.
What Do Wild Mice Eat?
Wild mice search for food by foraging. While house mice may search for food inside your home, species of this rodent tend to spend their time visiting different feeding sites. They spend most of their active time in search of food.
Aside from damages, these rodents may also carry a wide range of diseases. Therefore, you should attain rodent control and get rid of mice as soon as you notice their presence on your property.
Looking for ways to control the presence of mice in your house? We recommend that you use any of the following products: