Surprise whilst gardening - 5 baby mice, dead mum - help!

[MoogDroog]

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Rodent/mouse sympathisers only please!

Just moved some old carpet from a raised bed, to find a dead mouse, but then noticed some movement to find 5 babies all huddled together in a nest of leaves.

Have put them in a Tupperware, with some of their nesting material - they are small, covered in fur, but eyes still closed. Realise they probably haven't got a lot of hope, but willing to try and help them. Any ideas? How can I get some liquid into them for starters? Muslin dipped in water?

Don't know if they're standard mice - live rurally, so guess they could be anything.

To be honest I would have been upset to have found them too. But I do think it's a pity you did, nature being cruel and all that.

My guess is try a sachet of cat milk you can buy from any supermarket. Whiskas do one. There's any irony. Offer it to them with a pippet.

If they survive, have you thought how you are going to keep them wild? Don't pet them they need a healthy fear of man so they can live in the wild.

I do sympathise. I had and probably still do have mice in the gargage. I couldn't put traps down. I just moved my guinea pigs into my house. Afterall it was the guinea pigs food that was attracting them.

We found a baby mouse that our cat had eaten his mum.

We fed him milk with melted butter and honey in, by dropper I think. (Sorry this was years ago). Then we kept him in old hamster cage with twigs instead of ladders. He was called charliemouse.

Then he escaped and the cat got him after all.

But the milk w extra fat and sugar definitely worked, we thought it would mimic high fat mother milk and the honey was for extra warmth and calories.