Wounded Mouse Part 1

I'm currently house sitting and taking care of a garden and two cats. Kneeda is a mostly grey cat with splotches of orange. Oliver is an orange Manx. Apparently, a bunch of mice have decided to move in as well. The first night I realized this was when I saw one scurry across the floor and under the washing machine. I set the live trap (took me quite a while, too), but so far the cats are the only ones that have had any success catching them.

The second night after the first sighting, Oliver stood guard, trying to pounce on the little mouse tail that would, on rare occasions poke out from under the stove. Kneeda, in the mean time, had managed to catch one. She caught and released it several times, chasing it all over the house for half an hour. That must have been a funny scene; panicked mouse scrambling from hiding place to hiding place, cat stalking, chasing, and intercepting it, and then me bumbling along after the both of them, plastic bowl in hand, ready to rescue the rodent in case Kneeda succeeded in catching it. Finally, the mouse hid where neither I nor the cat could locate it.

Several days passed without a mouse sighting. However, they did steal a chocolate chip cookie. I found the third-to-last one had fallen under the grate of one of the burners on the stove and had been nibbled at all around the edges. Shortly after which it vanished entirely.


Today was more eventful on the rodent front. Around 6 pm, I was called away most insistently from my computer by Oliver, who had caught a mouse. Such an event is not uncommon for Oliver, who in two weeks time has also caught four lizards and two baby garter snakes (all of which were released unharmed back outside). I was able to pick up the mouse without much difficulty, since it was frozen to the spot in fear. I placed it in a small container with a couple socks temporarily, but when I went to take it outside again, I discovered a spot of blood on one of the socks. Luckily I remembered that there was a spare cage for rodents in the tool shed, so I placed the mouse in that while I figured out what to do about its wounds.

The internet wasn't giving me answers as quickly as I would have liked, and I was worried because I knew cats' saliva has a lot of bacteria. Plus, for all I knew, a little blood loss for a mouse could be cause for concern. So I called my mom. She told me to take some hydrogen peroxide and dilute it a lot with water, then dab it on the wounds with a Q-tip. Easier said than done. I tried taking the mouse out of the cage, but had to put it back because it almost escaped. I had a hard time even seeing where the wound was, but I did my best to clean where I thought it was. Hopefully I managed to disinfect something... The mouse promptly burrowed back into the socks.

After a little research and some scavenging around the house, I put some bird seed mix and a small amount of raw veggies in the food bowl for the mouse. The only thing I couldn't find was a water bottle for rodents. Instead I settled for a small cap of water. I made sure it was filled very shallowly, since a friend told me about how surprisingly little water it takes for mice to drown. These tasks complete, I covered the cage with my sweater to keep it dark and let the mouse rest for a few hours.

Checked in on my little ward just before midnight, and it was asleep in the seeds (good to know it found the food). Still breathing. We'll see how he/she is doing in the morning.