Green mouse droppings

Did you know that mice can produce 150 droppings per day? That’s a lot of running to the bathroom. Well, maybe you don’t want to hear this or maybe you know it already. Mice poop almost anywhere they are. Running across your dish strainer, in your silverware drawers or running up a wall it just doesn’t seem to matter.

The intestinal tract of a human is about 30 feet on average and while the house mouse’s is proportionally similar their bowel activity is far greater than ours. The metabolism of a mouse is very active and they defecate almost constantly. It never ceases to amaze me just where I find mouse droppings and how many.

Quite often we get concerned customers who call and say they’ve found green or red ‘turds’ in their homes. “This has to be some sort of exotic animal or maybe a roach from Madagascar they exclaim, it can’t be the common house mouse”. Convinced they have some rare or abnormal creature they are eager for a pest control professionals help.

Within minutes your friendly pest control technicians narrows down the answer and has the proof in his hands that came from behind your refrigerator or under the sink. It’s a box of D-Con or some other mouse bait and the feed pellets are a nice emerald green. It’s easy to see that a mouse (or two) has been eating there because they have left some fine powdery crumbs behind and perhaps gnawed on the box itself. Usually there isn’t any droppings in the box contrary to their habit of ‘going # 2 anywhere anytime.’ Mice are generally a clean animal as far as personal hygiene they just don’t care much for yours. D-Con bait is usually green in color while the other most widely used color is red. So if you are seeing these colorered droppings you know that those mice have eaten your baits.

It’s difficult to say that red or green droppings mean the mouse has gotten a lethal dose or not from the baits since food passes through their systems so quickly. What you can surmise however is that they have accepted the bait (which is usually not a problem) and if they haven’t got enough already, they’ll be back for more.

In most situations we are happy to see the decorated mouse fecal matter because we know that we may be near the end of the infestation. One thing that demoralizes PCO’s everywhere however is where we find these baits. It’s one thing to have your target pest get into your lethal box of rodenticides but it’s a whole different matter when your puppy or other non intended animal finds a box of brightly colored bait in the open and fills his belly.

While green poo is a great sign for a mouse infestation, it’s a horrible thought when man’s best friend produces these brightly colored signs of death.