It’s my understanding that some diseases in wild animals cause strange behavior, e.g. rabies. I just saw a mouse out back that was acting oddly. I was walking around back to the cellar and as I began to take the first step down off the back patio, I saw a mouse sitting there on the cobblestone path. It didn’t move. I said, “Hey!” and it didn’t move. I moved around, trying to look imposing, and it didn’t move. I thought that maybe it was dead, although that would be really strange since it was in a standard live-mouse position. (From my limited mouse experience.) So then I bend over and look more closely, and I see that it is breathing (heavily?) and shaking. So I grab a tall (3’) piece of grass and poke at it. It doesn’t move. It just breathes and shakes. So I swat at it lightly with the long grass and it moves a few steps. I harrass it a little more and it runs for about one foot and then stops, sits, and shakes.
I’m thinking that:[ul][li]My dad would want me to kill it. But it is cute, and there ain’t no way that I’m gonna be left cleaning that thing off my shoe.[]It should be running off, scared shitless by the giant monster swatting it with a 60’ tree branch.[]This seems really odd. Could it be sick? Should I call animal control? Would they want to know about a strangely behaving mouse?How am I gonna keep this little bastard in place?[/ul][/li]So I stand there for a minute making up my mind, and I decide that I’ll up-end a bucket over the little guy. It takes me a couple minutes to find the bucket, and by the time I return, he’s gone.
So, I ask you, was this mouse behaving strangely and in a manner that should cause me some concern? If so, is this the sort of strange behavior that the Authorities should know about?
Please, no Terrorist Mouse Jokes. Unless it’s a really good one.
Defense mechanisms vary widely throughout the animal world. For the very smallest of animals, freezing can sometimes pay off as an avoidance strategy. Many larger (mouse hunting) animals have poor eyesight. Movement can often trigger a prey response much quicker than remaining motionless. Notice how your cat expresses little interest in a motionless toy. Now wiggle that same toy intermittently, so as to give it rodent-like movements, and watch your kitty get all crazy on it.
…and I thought this was a computer problem - I was all set to tell the OP to clean the gunk off his mouseball or change the batteries in his cordless mouse, as appropriate.
The mouse is (according to my limited experience) dying from the common mouse poison Warfin (Spelling?).
This stuff is commonly used as mousebait and kills by (wait you really don;t want to know this.) (really) …
By causing the blood-clotting mechanism to fail. It is therefore a slow-acting posion and so even the most supsious rodent will get a leathal dose before he realizes it. Anywho, it seem the blood leaks into their little mosy eyeball, making their world go black. When they can’t see, the move into the light and then stop moving entirely.
I find them waiting outside my bedroom door some mornings.
You should have killed it with a stick and put it in a plastic bag. The mouse is very likely ill with a disease of some sort. Maybe hanta virus, and now you’re going to die becase you did not dispatch bit quickly and it pooped it’s hanta virus stuff everywhere.
Since I first heard this, I’ve wondered why rodents are not rabies-carriers. In the case of mice, I imagine that if anything bites a mouse it will probably kill it, anyway. Other than that, is there a reason why?