mice in rabbit house

Hi,

I have two rabbits living in a 8ft by 6ft rabbit house with a hutch ramps eta...I do have a couple of mice that I thought I'd got rid of and having thought I'd mouse-proofed the house they are back or never went away, are they a big health risk ? I keen to get them out as I don't want a family of mice setting up home, though it might be too late...I live in a country park so they are everywhere.

Hi. Mice aren't really a health risk, no. Rats are dangerous to rabbits and spread disease but mice don't really carry disease in the same way.

Its very hard to keep them out - you need very, very fine mesh and would need to make sure all holes were blocked up - baby mice can get into the tiniest of gaps!!

I regularly get mice in my rabbit shed - I make sure all food is in sealed containers so they can't access it but I don't really worry about it tbh...... But then I have pet mice which may skew my view of things! We've never had a major population explosion though - I think there are enough cats about to keep them down tbh!

Thanks for that, we have owls and the odd hawk to keep the local mouse population down which is unusual but a benefit of living in the country, plus the a couple of the other houses have pet cats which should help.

I though mice can be carriers of EC? Or their poop or something? Not sure though!

Aly&Poppy<3 said:

I though mice can be carriers of EC? Or their poop or something? Not sure though!

Click to expand...

Yes I'm sure there is something pretty bad that they carry xx

Aly&Poppy<3 said:

I though mice can be carriers of EC? Or their poop or something? Not sure though!

Click to expand...

I haven't heard of that - but my advice still stands. The only way to keep them out is to use very, very fine mesh (less than 10mm square) and to keep food inaccessible. In my set-up, there's no way I could block up every gap so I don't worry about it!

But am sure someone more knowledgeable will come along!

ETA: My bunnies will hopefully be moving indoors soon anyway - but would be interested to know about the EC. Shall go Google it for the time being!

Found a post in archives by Jacks-Jane - apparently they doo carry EC. Might be worth pm'ing her? x

ETA: http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?392054-Do-mice-pose-any-threat-to-rabbits

Hope this helps.

I once had the horrible experience of having found a dead mouse stuck in 2cm square weld mesh. It had got through to eat rabbit food and got stuck on its way out. My rabbit was indoors over night at the time and this was years ago. I had to pull the mouse corpse our with tongs - a horrible experience I would never want to repeat.

I'll try and remove the mice tomorrow, I think there are buried in under the hutch. They are pancur'd regualary but will look into moving them to a temporary home and then deep clean their house.

thanks for all the advice, the bunnies are now with a friend in their " holiday home", I'll evict the mice and do a deep clean.