What eats trapped mice?

[left field]

I set traps in a bunkie two weeks ago. When I checked, they were all sprung, but the only evidence of mice was a greasy pile of fur on and near the traps. Then I found a mouse alongside the wall with no trap nearby.

Attached pic is that mouse. He appears desiccated.  

The mice I catch in the main cabin are plump and lovely. What happened?

 

[turkeyfeathers]

A shrew Vicious little things.


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[genesee_mohican]

Flies and other insects can eat a mouse in a few days, leaving it in place like that. A mammal would take the mouse away from the trap site.   I hate mice and have to set traps quite often around my place.

 

[grampy]

5 minutes ago, turkeyfeathers said:

A shrew Vicious little things.


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Yup that was what I'd say too. 

Hors d'oeuvre's for a Squach would be my second choice.

[left field]

I was thinking either cannibalization or a weasel of some kind. Shrew would work and there is evidence of some small animal tunnelling outside. But would they literally suck the carcass dry? Maybe a shrew with insects coming in for the end. Freaky as hell. 

[genesee_mohican]

A shrew would eat the entire mouse or part of it. This mouse carcass is entirely intact. Definitely the work of flies and insects.

[RangerClay]

I've had voles eat dead mice in my traps.  Chew the heads off and take just the body.

[left field]

Maybe both. The ones in the traps were nothing but a greasy smear of fur. The intact one looks like he was eaten from the inside out. I pulled all the bed linens and disinfected.

As long as it's not hantavirus. I have a friend who was cleaning up some rat faeces at his place in the Bahamas and a week later he wasn't feeling well. Two weeks later he was dead from leptospirosis. 

[growalot]

Bot fly larvae? I saw a sickly field mouse in a plot walking one day...so I thought I'd end it's suffering by stomping on it's head...OMG I will NEVER do that again... I nearly ralphed, for what popped out the other end were 3 huge bot fly maggots...I have to tell you I do not know why that thing was alive. There was no way any organs could have fit in it's body with those NASTY things...I don't understand how they fit in him. ...

I agree to insects...beetles are ferocious as well...

[jjb4900]

 

[growalot]

I'm getting cremated!