How Do Mice Survive the Winter? A Detailed Explanation of Rodent Overwintering Habits

Mice are among the mammals with the fastest reproduction and the strongest survival ability. There are about three thousand species of mice worldwide, and their tracks can be seen both indoors and in the wild. So how do mice survive the winter?

1. How mice survive the winter

Mice in the home do not hibernate and continue to move about and forage for food as usual in winter. Voles do not hibernate either, but in autumn they store large amounts of grain in their burrows to eat during the winter.

2. Mouse growth and reproduction

They have strong reproductive ability, good adaptability and a high survival rate, so their numbers grow very quickly. They can mate in all four seasons, with a gestation period of about 21 days, bearing 6 to 8 litters a year and 5 to 10 young per litter. The young mice then continue to breed. Once they reach 2 or 3 months of age, a single female mouse can increase the number of mice in its family by over a thousand! That is quite frightening.

Young mice mature early and have strong reproductive capacity, with a lifespan of 1 to 3 years. Newborn pups have no hair on their bodies, are pink all over, do not open their eyes, and have their ears stuck to the skin. They begin to crawl at one week and open their eyes at 12 days.

Apart from humans, mice are the fastest-reproducing and most successful of the mammals. Take a species of house mouse that often lives in human residential areas as an example: it can bear as many as eight litters a year, with four to seven young per litter. Besides consuming or contaminating food, mice like to gnaw, so the packaging materials or building equipment damaged by mouse bites are considerable. According to statistics, one quarter of fires in the United States with unknown causes may have been caused by mice biting through electrical wires.