Yesterday evening I accidentally uncovered a mouse nest. Oops. having found the babies, I recovered them with the nest material and put a box over them (as protection) with a big enough hole for the mother to get in.

Mind I didn't touch it bare handed, I used a small shovel to move the nest material back.

Will the mother return or will I have dead baby mice in a day?

Well, hopefully, you won't have to go through this process..

Caring for orphans

Oh no, there is no way I'm going to lick baby mice !

I ran a search and basically learned all that - its either how to raise them or how to kill them

I assume mom has returned, I did a look see and the nest has been reshaped - the 'pups' barely have hair, their eyes are closed and they don't appear able to do much in the way of shaping the nest.

LOL! That's something I want to see. David, the mouse mother. Too bad you can't get high licking mice.

I once wrote a short story in a similar vein

Miss Mousey


Snap traps are cruel, but when he saw a live trap wouldn't catch her, and food stored in the basement was being eaten each night, he saw no recourse.

He would climb down the stairs and check it each morning. Two, three, four days, with no success. But the fifth day the trap was not there. He surveyed the basement floor, and as he surmised, Miss Mousey had been caught, but only by a leg.

He did not have the heart to kill her. So he put on leather gloves, picked her and the trap up, and placed them in a shoe box. Out the door he went, through the back yard, and down the alley. Three houses away, he opened the shoe box, took out the trap and Miss Mousey, and lifted the destructive bar.

Miss Mousey was still alive, but had lost her left front leg to the trap. He gently placed her on the grass, saying, "Find another house to inhabit, but stay away from mine."

Miss Mousey lied there in shock, barely breathing. Pain wracking her small body.
He went back to his home; too many things to do to worry about the fate of Miss Mousey.

But what he did not know was that Miss Mousey had babies to feed. And as she slowly regained consciousness, her thoughts turned to them. Slowly, torturously she began her trek back to the house. Hours passed as she dragged her wounded body along.

He was in the back yard, watering his plants, when he happened to spy a small brown figure willing itself through the grass. His eyes widened in disbelief, as he witnessed Miss Mousey's colossal struggle to return. The scene caused him to chuckle, and then to laugh, and soon he was convulsed holding his stomach.

And then, a sledge hammer hit his chest, his eyes widened again, as he fell to earth, his mind in darkness.

Miss Mousey found the entrance in the foundation of the house. And her babies were fed that night.