Deer mice urinate and defecate in their nests and will build a new nest when the current one becomes too foul. These mice feed on a variety of foods but particularly like seeds and nuts and will cache large amounts near their indoor nests. Favorite indoor nest sites are drawers and storage cabinets in garages, items stored in attics, upholstered furniture, wall voids and corner sill plates in basements and crawls. Deer mice are good climbers and use vines and tree limbs to reach attics or upper levels. Deer mice are active year-round, mostly at night, and can damage garden crops. Outdoors, deer mice will nest around the roots of trees, under boards or logs, in stumps or woodpiles, in animal burrows or bird nests, in sheds or in abandoned vehicles or equipment. The two mice are about the same size, but the deer mouse has larger, prominent eyes and larger, thinner ears than the house mouse. The mostly gray house mouse has a mostly naked tail. Most notably, the deer mouse has a two-tone coloration, usually a tawny brown (sometimes gray) on its back with a pronounced dividing line between its white belly, with white feet and white on the bottom of its hairy tail. Because the deer mouse and the house mouse are similar, we’ll concentrate on how their differences. The deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus, is hard to tell apart from the closely related white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus, and the term “deer mouse” is often used for both. It is found throughout most of Canada and the U.S. The deer mouse first became widely known because of its role in the transmission of hantavirus and as a reservoir for Lyme disease, but it has become an important indoor mouse pest in many areas of the United States. Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Techletter, a biweekly training letter for PMPs from Pinto & Associates.
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