Do Mice Chew Wood? (3 Reasons/Solutions)

Spotted teeth marks on some furniture, window frames, or other wooden items in your home? Wondering if mice are to blame?

In this article, I’m taking a look at;

• Do mice chew wood?
• Why mice chew wood, and
• What you can do to stop them

Do Mice Chew Wood?

They do, yes. I’ve kept pet mice for years, so I know they chew on wood.

My parents have also been waging war on some local field mice for some time too, and they’ll also tell you they know mice chew wood.

But seeing my mice gnaw on some wood in their cage, and finding bite marks on furniture around the home are two very different things!

That’s part of the answer here too. There are a few reasons why mice bite, chew, and gnaw on wood as I’ll explain:

Why Do Mice Chew and Gnaw Wood?

Whether you’re giving bits of wood to your pet mice or finding chew marks on your stuff, it helps to know why they’re doing it.

They’re not doing it for the nutritional value, as obviously wood doesn’t have any. The main reasons mice chew and gnaw on wood are:

For nesting materials – Mice build nests to keep safe and to provide some shelter and warmth. To do this, they typically round up bits of wood like sticks and any bits they can bite off, and any other debris they can carry.

To gain access – When mice want to get somewhere, or if they think there is something behind an object they’ll always try to chew their way through. This is often the reason for door and window frames being chewed on.

To wear down their teeth – Mice only have one set of teeth during their life and they never stop growing. For this reason, mice continually gnaw on hard materials to wear their teeth down.

How to Stop Mice Chewing on Wood in Your Home

No one wants to find little teeth marks and evidence of chewing on wooden furniture and items in their homes. Just ask my parents!

If you’ve been finding bite marks, there are some things you can do to put a stop to it.

There are two ways to approach this;

Stop mice getting into your home – This is usually the end goal, right? No one wants mice coming into their homes. If house mice have been biting your stuff, they’ve also been pooping and damaging other stuff I bet.

Deter them from a specific area – If it’s not a huge problem or it’s somewhere like a garage or a shed, you could just deter the mice from the area. 

Related – How to keep mice out of your shed.

The latter is a bit simpler. You can try a home remedy like putting peppermint oil scented cotton wool balls near the stuff their biting. Or, as a more extreme measure, you can put traps.

If you can simply move the wooden furniture they’re biting too, even better.

Stopping mice from coming into your home at all involves more work and planning. It’s typically not that difficult though.

Most homeowners are able to resolve the problem by identifying and blocking all the entry points to the home. Then laying traps with some irresistible peanut butter to capture the mice.

If you’re dealing with a rodent infestation, however, you may have to call pest control. You’ll have to evaluate how bad your situation is and take the appropriate action.

In Summary

Mice do chew wood, yes. I’ve explained a few reasons why they chew and gnaw on wood, and what you can do to stop them.

Little bite marks on wood are one of the signs that you have mice coming into your home. Don’t ignore it, it’s not that hard to do something about it and it’ll stop the problem escalating or more damage being done.

Resources

Image credits – Images by sipa from Pixabay