Mouse

Harvest mouse
//Micromys Minutus//

Size:
A harvest mouse's body and head is about 5-7 cm. Its tail is also about 5-7cm. The weight of an adult harvest mouse is about 6garms.
 * http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/harvest_mouse.html**

Diet:
Mice mainly eat seeds and insects and sometimes nector and fruit. http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/harvest_mouse.html

**Habitat:**
They live in areas of tall grasses such as cereal crops (particularly wheat and oats), roadside verges, hedgerows, reedbeds, dykes and salt-marshes.
 * http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/harvest_mouse.html**

Population:
They are the highest populated mammal other than humans and the one that can live in the most places. http://library.thinkquest.org/3882/mice.html

Lifespan:
Harvest mice can live up to 18 months in the wild but they usually only live 6 months. In captivitly they can live 5 years. http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/harvest_mouse.html

Range:
They are found in Europe and Asia, Japan and Korea. In Britain they are most common in the South and South-east but have been sighted in Cheshire, Wales, Yorkshire and even Edinburgh. Absent from Ireland.

Offspring:
A female breeds from May to October, often producing three litters a year. The female makes a nest, no bigger than the size of a tennis ball, for the babies to be born in.

The young are blind, naked and helpless to begin with - looking rather like little pink raisins! They grow very quickly, and by the eighth day they have grown grey-brown fur and opened their eyes. When they are 10 days old, the mother reduces their milk feed and supplements their diet with regurgitated seeds which she has chewed and swallowed. On the eleventh day they leave the nest and begin to explore, practising the skill of climbing grass stems. By 16 days of age they are completely independent. Their mother, who is usually pregnant again, abandons them, and looks for a new nesting site.

The young remain near the nest for a couple of days and then go off to search for territories of their own. Most baby harvest mice do not live for more than six weeks - eaten by one of their many predators. http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/animal_facts/harvest_mouse.html