Excerpt from Control of Destructive Mice

When born, meadow mice are pink and hairless, and their eyes and ears are closed. After a day or two, they commence to grow rapidly. The eyes and the pinna of the ears Open on the eighth day. The young mice begin to feed On vegetation about the ninth day and are weaned before they are 2 weeks old. They remain, however, with the mother several. Days longer and are likely to stay around the parental home until abandoned by their mother when they are about 3 weeks old. They attain adult size at about 2 months of age, but usually reach sexual maturity within 5 to 6 weeks.

According to Hamilton pine mice at birth are almost exactly like young meadow mice, except that they are somewhat duller in color on the back, which indicate-s the appearance of the first hair. By the seventh day the head and back are covered with lead-colored fur, and two days later the belly is well furred, but a little lighter in color. The young are crawling about actively by the ninth day, but they are very quiet in contrast to the noisy young meadow mice. The eyes of some open on the ninth day and by the fourteenth the eyes of all the young of the litter are open. On the sixteenth day the young mice begin to eat solid food and are generally weaned by the seventeenth. About the twenty-sixth day the chestnut color of the adult is first noticeable. The pine mice attain adult size. And color at about months of age. They are about 2 weeks longer than the meadow mice in reaching maturity.

Both meadow mice and pine mice are active throughout the year, although the former are more restricted ln movements during the winter and the latter are probably less in evidence during dry hot weather. The outstanding difference in the habits of these two mice is that the pine mouse is a burrowing animal, living and feeding very largely under ground, whereas the meadow mouse, although constructing shal low tunnels and nesting chambers under ground, feeds mostly on the surface. Usually the burrows of the pine mouse may be detected only through the occasional small openings reaching the surface of the ground, but the well known surface runways of the meadow mouse are clearly visible.

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