The Adventures of Fuzzy Field Mouse

Can humans help animals?

Many humans show kindness toward animals--even small animals such as field mice. Watch this video and listen to the story about Fuzzy Field Mouse and a kind farmer.

The Adventures of Fuzzy Field Mouse
by Sara Bolton

Today I am going to tell you about the adventure one fuzzy little field mouse had during her first spring.

Fuzzy was born in the pasture near the goat barn and, unlike most of her brothers and sisters, she was still alive. You see, most mice in that pasture fall prey to the fierce claws and sharp teeth of Mint, the goat barn cat.

It was early spring. The bluebonnets were blooming, and the grass was greening up nicely. The live oaks’ leaves had been blown to the ground and their mustard-colored flowers were all that showed against their dark trunks.

Fuzzy had been feeling anxious lately. She felt very much like finding a safe place to build a nest. Because Mint was such a very fine mouser, this would be a very difficult task. For weeks, Fuzzy spent from sundown till sunup looking for her safe place. You see, her fuzzy little body was becoming rounder and rounder, and soon she would fill her nest with tiny pink mouse babies.

One night, she scaled the cracked tire of the old horse trailer where the Bolton family stored hay and feed for the goats. From the underside of the trailer, she dug and dug with her delicate claws until she had tunneled her way through the ancient cracked oats and rotten alfalfa that filled the gaps between the floorboards. She surfaced, covered with specks of alfalfa, through an almost perfectly round tunnel. She had found a perfect spot to build her nest. And so she began to shred old feed sacks and build her soft warm nest inside them.

Female field mouse suckling young in underground nest

Since baby field mice are born with almost no fur, her nest needed to be especially cozy. When her nest was complete, she began the business of filling it with her tiny pink field mouse babies.

There were five in all. We know this because one day, Daddy discovered them. He had gone to clean the trailer out so he could haul the old buck off to auction. When he moved the hay and then the stack of old feed sacks, he saw Fuzzy’s cozy nest filled with the newborn field mouse babies.

Fuzzy was not home, because the moment she had heard the rusty trailer doors creak open, she had become frightened and had run off to watch her babies from a safe corner.

Daddy, having a heart as soft as vanilla pudding, got a shovel and moved the nest to the safety of a pallet, which lay alongside the trailer. He needed to use the trailer, but he was willing to share it with Fuzzy and her family. He worried for Fuzzy and the babies, and hoped that Fuzzy would return.

When Daddy came back with the trailer,, he got the shovel and gently put Fuzzy’s nest back where she had built it in the trailer, and covered it with the sacks so that it was just as Fuzzy had left it.

Well, what do you think happened?

The next time Daddy went to get some hay, he saw five fuzzy field mice scatter!

I think Mint, the cat may be getting old.