Field mouse (lat.Apodemus agrarius) - a small animal with a brown or dark gray back color and a grayish abdomen. Voley have relatively large ears, and along the back stretches a dark strip. The body in the mouse is up to 15 cm, and the tail along the length is the same as the body, or slightly longer.
Field mice settle in large colonies, the area of one hole reaches 10 square meters. m, it has 44 exits, up to 10 nests and about 20 food storages. For a month the male throws out almost 60 kg of ground soil.
Despite external harmlessness, this animalIt gives a lot of trouble to a person and his neighbors from the animal world. The field mouse is the enemy of bumblebees who live on the clover field, because it destroys their nests by eating honey and larvae.
Habitat
The field mouse is distributed in Ukraine, on the European part of the former territory of the USSR, and also occurs in the south of Siberia, in the east of Kazakhstan and the Far East.
Polesie and the Carpathians, the coasts of the Azov and Blackseas, except for arid areas of prisivash steppes, - places where the voles feels very comfortable. In small forests, mainly in shelterbelts and perelesitsah, there are as many as forest mice.
Spreading west to the Carpathians, the voles are more oftenall gather on the treated fields or elevations, rising above sea level to a height of up to 1350 m. In the places that they chose for their residence, field mice most often settle in places with high humidity. These are overgrown meadows and fields covered with weeds in the cultivated areas. Field mouse willingly settles in vineyards, gardens, on the fringes of dense foliage plantations, in river valleys.
The burrows do not dig up the voles, butlong enough, they are easily settled between the roots of bushes and trees. In the cold season, the field mice accumulate in the straw stacks and hide under fallen leaves in the gardens and perelesitsah. Sometimes they get into housing and economic buildings and into granaries. The field mouse is active for a whole day, but most often it can be found at night. In winter hibernation voles does not lie, during the whole year it is awake.
Field Mice Feeding
Almost the entire year the voles eat green leavesand stems, as well as seeds of wild grasses, various berries and grain during the ripening of the loaves. Often in their diet there are small insects, larvae and invertebrates.
Reproduction
The period of active reproduction is spring.To exclude children, the field mouse usually arranges at a shallow depth (somewhere 20 cm, occasionally deeper) the chamber for the nest, which is well covered with dry grass and chopped straw. Several outlets lead to the surface from the nest chamber. Quite often, mice also arrange semi-subterranean nests between stones, under heaps of straw and in other shelters.
During the year, field mice happen tofour litters, each with five to eight cubs. The duration of the pregnancy is 22 days with a break between the litters about two months in a warm time. Mice are born completely helpless, naked, blind. At the same time, they grow quite actively and develop, they quickly become covered with downy, and at the age of ten they are difficult to distinguish from adults. Three-week-old mice are already independently involved in the search for food. After two and a half months, the young field mouse begins to multiply.
Harm
Gnawing bark, green shoots in forest plantations and onFruit trees, field mice cause significant harm to horticulture and forestry, and in years that are favorable for reproduction, so many are made that it is difficult to assess the losses to crops (rye, wheat, corn and others), green shoots and mature grains.
In nature, field mice have many enemies: they are hunted by foxes, weasels, ferrets and birds of prey, most often owls.
