Mouse or rat? Pic included

[mouseorrat]

Mouse or rat? Found it in the garden, about the size of a hamster

Looks like a rabbit to me.

@ChardonnaysDistantCousin

I would say it's a yellow necked mouse or a field mouse (not easy to tell them apart). Not a rat or vole, ears seem way too big, even for a young rat.

We need a vet!

Looks like a rat to me. We find them dead in the garden quite frequently, courtesy of our neighbour's cat.

None of the mice I've had in the house have been the size of a hamster.

It's so cute! Sad it died. :(

@bluesatinmanolos it is :( it's friend died too

As a long time rat owner and breeder I can say 100% that if the picture is clear and tail is furry then it is not a rat!

That's before you start looking closely at the set of the ears, shape of the eyes etc.

The one thing you can be sure of in ANY rat, wild or fancy, is that the tail is hairless, slightly scaled.

www.mammal.org.uk/species-hub/full-species-hub/discover-mammals/species-common-shrew/

When I read suggestions of shrew, I thought they were lots smaller, but on googling they can be up to 8cm plus tail; description and good picture in the article linked above.

Aww how sad he was a cutie

I wonder if that’s someones pet ,that’s escaped

Looks like a rat to me, we've had quite a few in the garden over the years, and they are cute!

Not a rat.

A mouse trap outside??

It looks squirrel with its fur missing from tail

A squirrel?! No. Not a squirrel. It's a field or yellow necked mouse. It's too small to be a degu (not that it would live in the UK anyway), and mice do have fur on the tails

mouse. Rats have smaller ears relative to head size.

That is 99.999% a squirell with a bare tail (happens for all kind of reasons). The facial structure and ears are squirell. Google image squirell with bare tail or something similar and images will tally up I'm sure.

Not sure why my autocorrect spells squirrel wrong sorry!

Squirrels have much chunkier legs though don't they?

It’s definitely not a rat. Rats don’t have furry tails like that-their tails are hairless.

I have extensive rodent experience thanks to my cats, but I am not sure what it is. It’s too big to be a shrew. The face is the wrong shape and the tail is longer than the tail of a vole. It’s face looks longer and it’s ears are a different shape to mouse ears.

I live in the countryside and I get a close up view of small mammals on a regular basis because I have cats who bring in every shade of rat, mouse, vole, shrew (plus rabbits and the occasional weasel and mole). To me that looks like a mouse. One of my cats had a phase of bringing in rats this autumn and that doesn't look like a rat to me.

I dont think it looks anything like a rat. The ears are a bit odd. I have fancy rats and dumbo rats and both ears are completely different to that one.

Just for show, my babies