What Do Field Mice Eat & Why It Matters

Introduction

At SayNoPest, one of the most common questions we receive is about what do field mice eat. And knowing their diet will help you take the first step in getting rid of these unwanted visitors from your home and garden. If you want to know exactly how to protect your home from these pests, you first need to know what do field mice eat in detail.

Field Mice

Most field mice live only several months to a year; however, they never stop searching for food and shelter during that time.

Food consumption plays a big role in life-sustaining endeavors. As opportunistic feeders, field mice consume whatever is at their disposal, thus they quickly adjust to changes in the natural environment. This indicates that eating habits of field mice can be different depending on the season as well as the location.

It is obvious that their characteristic of food searching often make them go into places like gardens, sheds, and even homes, especially when foods become scarce outside.

Life Cycle of a Field Mice

• The life of a field mouse is a road of rapid growth and reproduction.
  A female, in a period of 20 to 25 days, carries a pregnancy and then gives birth to a litter that can have from 2 to 11 pups.
• Two weeks after birth, the opening of eyes and ears, and the appearance of fur begin.
• At three to four weeks of age, they quit sucking and enter the stage of eating solid foods and learn the basic of foraging from their mother.
  Field mice are able to reproduce very quickly and do so after their sexual maturity, which is typically reached somewhere between five to eight weeks.
• This rapid growth permits them to reproduce throughout the year, occurring multiple times.
  A solitary female is able to give several litters in a year thereby resulting in a population explosion provided the food is abundant.
• After they have become adult, field mice continue their relentless search for food, make their nests, and protect their territory from other mice.
  Their short life-span implies that they have to find food and shelter every day that they can hide from predators.

What Do Field Mice Eat?

The answer to what do field mice eat is pretty simple!

• Seeds and Grains- Field mice are mostly herbivores, however, they have no preference. Their diet is mainly includes seeds, grains and green plants such as grass, clover and leaves.
• These foods give them the necessary nutrients and moisture, particularly in the warm season when the vegetation is plentiful.
• Fruits and Berries- They change their diet to fruits, berries, mushrooms, and even insects when there is no plant food.
• Nuts- In general, animals living in the wild are not picky eaters, they will eat whatever they find, including nuts of different kinds, such as acorns, hazelnuts, beech nuts, as well as the occasional insect or invertebrate.

Among other reasons, their great adaptability explains why field mice diet may vary with seasons-

• At the time of spring and summer, these rodents have a feast of both fresh greens and insects.
• And during the winter, after collecting and storing seeds and nuts in fall, they can hibernate or not but they will have food.
• Besides that, the field mice have been known to be destructive as they can drive birds away if they raid their feeders.
• At the same time, they gather and store food in the vicinity of their nests.
  Of course, this action will give them the security of a food supply in the time of scarcity. But this may lead to over-eating so that there will be a shortage of the stored food.
• Additionally, their omnivorous nature makes them a never-ending problem to the farmers and the homeowners.

Conclusion:

Knowing what do field mice eat is a major factor in keeping them from invading your house or the garden. On top of that, their easily available diet and high reproduction rate make them extremely difficult to handle. Knowing what do field mice eat allows you to make use of this information in order to be one step ahead of the rodents take food away from them, close up your home tightly, and don’t risk your health.

Be Cautious!