Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Totally OT mouse

I need the input of smart minds

What would cause a mouse to suddenly die in the middle of my hard wood floor? DH had walked across the dining room spoke to me for a minute and turned around and there was a dead mouse just lying there right where DH had stood seconds before. No signs of trauma. We knew we had mice, but hadn't set out any poison. I am used to sharing a home with mice, but I am not used to them croaking in the middle of my floor for no reason.

Poison from a neighbor?

Do you have a cat? Cats can grab them by the neck and asphyxiate them or break their neck.

Old age?

Thanks for the ideas.

No cat. We do have guinea pigs; maybe the mouse saw one of them and had a heart attack!

It looked young. I would think that an old mouse would curl up in the wall boards somewhere to die not, as this one appears to have done, in mid-stride!

Poison is the only reasonable thought we have come up with. I haven't checked with the neighbors.

Maybe your DH stepped on it? I guess it would look smooshed then...

Leftover poison from previous residents?

LOL! DH is 200 lbs., the mouse about an ounce. Mouse looked plump and round. I think we can rule out the stepped-on theory!

Poison (whether from neighbors or previous residents) seems to be the main theory.

Since their nest is well behind some wall board in the kitchen, I am really hoping they weren't all poisoned. Rotting mouse is not my favorite aroma therapy scent and I don't want to take apart the kitchen looking for them. If they are all thoughtful enough to come into the middle of the room to die, I will be grateful!

Yeah, that is really odd; but think of the learning opportunity a full blown autopsy would present!!
Do you think it could have been on the ceiling/fixture of some sort and fallen ?

Stupid me! I already took the little corpse out to the dumpster so I missed out on the autopsy opportunity.

Light fixture was about 6 feet away. It would have had to be quite a flying leap (perhaps he was watching too much olympic diving!)

Oooo! Very clever! Columbo-esque

I guess that rules out my next idea...he sat on it and it fell off his pants as he was standing in the dining room talking to you.

There wasn't a little mouse-sized gun nearby, was there? Maybe the day-to-day stresses of being a modern-day mouse got to him and he commited suicide.

Or a sword? Maybe it was "hair"i-kari!

Enough dark humor and awful puns...I'd bet on poison, I'm afraid. That's usually what causes them to drop dead after a while.