Rats and Mice

How to tell if you have rats or mice

Obviously rats are much bigger than mice. The body of an adult mouse is only 3 or 4 inches long. And an adult rat can eight to ten inches long not including the tail. It gets harder though to tell the difference between an adult mouse and a juvenile rat. The eyes and ears of rats will seem smaller for their head than the eyes and ears of the mice. And the head of a mouse is narrower and more angular than a rats head. A juvenile rat will have chunkier features than a mouse, bigger feet, a stubbier muzzle. An adult mouse’s tail will be as long or longer than its body, while a juvenile rat will have a fatter tail that is shorter than its body length.

Although they are similar in appearance, rats and mice are completely different species and cannot interbreed. Rats in fact are predators of mice and mice display the same fear response to rat pheromones and urine as they do to cat urine.

Often the first evidence of a rodent infestation is they damage they cause in food preparation areas and in the droppings they leave behind. Mice droppings look like dark brown grains of rice while rat droppings can be close to an inch long.