Mouse or rat? How to tell which one you have
A young rat can pass for a mouse. The head and feet, the tail and what they leave behind settle it, and the answer changes where to look and how they are getting in.
How big each one is
Adult length, tail included, to scale
Side by side
Droppings are the easiest thing to find and compare: the droppings identifier draws each one to scale.
Why it matters which one it is
A mouse seldom goes more than about 9 metres from its nest, so the nest is usually close to where you saw it. A rat can travel 30 to 150 metres a night, so the way in can be well away from where it turned up.
Rats notice new things and avoid them, roof rats most of all, so a trap or anything new put down on their route may be passed by at first. Mice climb well, so shelves and the tops of cabinets count as much as the floor.
Either way the gaps get sealed: anything wider than 6 mm, around pipes, cables and vents, with coarse steel wool, wire screen, sheet metal or concrete. More in how to get rid of rats and mice, or book a visit through rodent and rat removal. We cover Pampanga, Bulacan, Bataan, Tarlac and Olongapo. In Tagalog, rat is daga and mouse is bubuwit.
Sources
- University of California IPM, House mouse
- University of California IPM, Rats
- Cornell University IPM, Mouse and rat biology and behavior
Droppings sizes are the ones on our droppings identifier, from the same sources.
Tell us what you have found
Send the pest, the town and roughly how long it has been going on. That is enough for us to say what the treatment would involve and what it depends on.