By HOLLY RAMER

STRATHAM, NH (AP) — A group of mice is called a nest, but what do you call 1,000 of them at an animal shelter?

“Crippling,” said Lisa Dennison, executive director of the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is scrambling to care for a massive influx of people. rapidly reproducing rodents.

It all started on Monday when a man arrived saying he wanted to abandon 150 mice. But then he clarified: 150 containers of mice, not individual creatures. He had 73 mice with him that day, and by Friday morning, about 450 had been transferred to the shelter. About 500 more were on the way.

Lined up nose to tail, they would stretch over more than a football field. There are enough to give a mouse to every member of the United States Congress and the 424 members of the New Hampshire Legislature combined. And the total increases thanks to a little basic biology. Female mice are sexually mature at around six weeks of age, gestation lasts around 20 days and can mate again 24 hours later.

“Even in the short time we’ve had them, a lot of these mice have given birth,” Dennison said. “It’s an exponential problem that continues to grow.”

Part of the shelter’s cat pavilion has been transformed into a mouse hospital and hotel, with dozens of containers lined up on the floor, resting on several tables and stacked on shelves. Just registering each mouse in the shelter database is a chore, let alone providing food, water and bedding.

That’s a lot of work for a facility that has taken in a maximum of 125 animals in one day.

“It happens when you take a large number, but even when we took in 54 goats or 39 cats, I mean, those are still large numbers, but much more manageable as you can imagine than hundreds and hundreds mouse,” Dennison said.

Other shelters have agreed to take some of the mice, and some are being sent to foster homes as the shelter seeks food donations. About a dozen mice were ready for adoption Friday after being named by shelter staff and volunteers. Doug, Darrell, Dude and Representative were waiting for their house in one tank. Others were given candy-inspired names – Butterfinger, Junior Mint and Milk Dud, to name a few.

Elisha Murray heard about the shelter’s plight through local news and decided to adopt four females named Kelly, Dee, Maxine and Eleven, despite telling her children last week: “No more rodents.” .

“We’ve always had small rodents as pets – rats, mice, hamsters, all nine in total – so I thought I could help,” she said. “We already have the whole setup, everything I need at home, so I was like, what the hell.”

Originally published: November 15, 2024 at 4:19 p.m. CST