Mice can be dangerous and destructive. They may seem harmless because of their size, but they reproduce quickly and prolifically, and their destructive potential compounds with each new generation that is produced.  You may be aware that mice reproduce quickly, but you may not realize exactly how quickly or what that means for your home. Once you find out how quickly an infestation can grow, you’ll realize how important it is to call for mice removal in Waukesha as soon as you are aware that there is a problem.

Do Mice Hibernate?

Mice do not hibernate. They remain active all winter long, which means that they continue to reproduce throughout the winter.

How Long Do Mice Live?

In the wild, a mouse’s life expectancy is about one year. However, mice in your home are shielded from their usual predators. As a result, their life expectancy is doubled or even tripled. That means that mice in a home can produce up to three times the litters that they would have in a normal lifetime.

How Often Do Mice Reproduce?

Mice are pregnant for less than a month. Their gestation period is 21 days at most, meaning that mice give birth about three weeks after conception. Once they give birth, female mice are ready to conceive again right away. As a result, a female mouse can produce between five and ten litters per year.

How Fast Do Mice Multiply?

On average, mouse litters contain about six to eight babies, also called pups, but can have up to 14. This means that a single female mouse can produce between 32 to 56 pups every year on the low end of the scale. If she lives three years, that is 96 to 168 baby mice per year, and even that is a conservative estimate.

If those numbers don’t sound too bad, keep in mind that it presumes that the original mother mouse is the only one reproducing, but that probably isn’t the case. Each new generation of mouse babies is able to reproduce at the age of six weeks. Out of the approximately 60 mice that the original mother mouse produces in a year, approximately half are female. If each of those female mice has 10 litters, then at the end of the year there may be 5,082 new mice descended from the original pairing. According to one calculation, one breeding pair of mice in the home could lead to an infestation of five million by the end of the year, but that presumes that the mice do not die of anything but natural causes.

Why Are Mice Dangerous?

Mice are not particularly aggressive and are unlikely to bite unless handled roughly. However, they can spread diseases to humans through their urine and feces. Some of these, such as hantavirus, Lyme disease, and leptospirosis, can be potentially deadly.

In addition to the risk of spreading disease, mice can do extensive property damage. As rodents, they have ever-growing front teeth and have to keep gnawing on hard objects to keep them at a manageable length. Mice can chew on things such as furniture, leaving behind tooth marks, as well as ceiling beams or floor joists, which may compromise structural integrity. One of the most dangerous things that mice can chew on is electrical wiring, which poses a fire risk.

How Can You Prevent an Infestation?

The best things you can do to prevent an infestation are to keep your home clean and uncluttered so that mice do not have a reason to hang around and to identify and seal off entry points around your home, so they don’t have a way in. Mice removal in Waukesha is easier when their numbers are still small, so contact Skedaddle at the first sign of an infestation.