A summer ago, we had a rather large small rodent infestation, and in our barn you could hear them scampering everywhere and squeaking in the walls like crazy. To make matters worse, we had insulated the barn walls (finding out the hard way why farmers don't do that) and the mice were happily chewing off bits of it to cart away to use to build their nests. Everywhere we looked we could see mice darting here and there, eating the grain reserved for the ducks and getting fat on their free ride.
So we started setting traps, and at first we only had about three traps to set. So we baited them and waited, and before we knew it we had caught three mice. Our original three traps were re-set and re-baited, and immediately we had caught three more. After spending practically an entire day doing nothing but catching mice, we finally went out and bought more traps. Eventually we had about eight of them loaded and waiting. All we heard out there in the barn all day long was, snap, snap, snap.
We had so many mice that the ducks were actually catching and eating them. Ducks are probably the most humane mouse eaters I've ever seen, as they swallow them whole. (After crushing them with their powerful bills.) A chicken on the other hand will catch a mouse, tear it to shreds and play with the remains for four days. They would play with them longer than that, but after about four days there isn't much left to play with. And no matter how many we caught with our traps, they just kept coming. We started counting them after a while and within a weekend's time we had captured over one hundred mice, not counting the ones that had fed the ducks.
Mice, as we all know, reproduce rather quickly but I suppose they have to considering the amount of predation that follows their poor little short lives. They only live about three years to begin with and then they only reach that ripe old age if they're lucky enough to avoid getting eaten. It seems that virtually everything eats mice, including snakes, owls, hawks, eagles, chickens, and ducks. That, of course, is not the exhaustive list of creatures that enjoy eating mice, that list would go on and on. The fact is, if mice didn't invade us in great numbers they probably would not exist at all. Truthfully, the great mouse invasion of that one summer never actually ended.
Mice are as determined as they are prolific and will just keep coming, no matter the threat. So, the mice still inhabit the barn, still snitch the grain from the birds, and are still getting fat as little roly-poly mice can get. Some of them are even becoming tame enough to approach us as if we were willing to support them for the rest of their little rodent lives. In a way, I guess we are, because we have had to face the fact that we will never completely rid ourselves of them. So even if the mice are here to stay, (and they are cute little buggers) we will probably always, as a society, attempt unsuccessfully, to live mouse free lives. This means that the great mouse invasion will go on and on until the end of time. Now all we need to do is build that better mouse trap and we'll be all set.
