I found a couple of mice who had recently had a quite a few babies. They were extremely tiny and there were dozens of them. I was at a loss, because I knew these baby mice would grow into quite a hoard that could destroy everything in the house if I didn't keep them under control. I didn't want to kill them and was trying to figure out how to handle them.
I also had several cats who had just had some kittens. I was trying to manage to keep the cats and mice apart from each other, so the cats wouldn't kill the baby mice. I put the mother mice and their babies into a box until I could find a better container to hold them.
I went off to look for a container that I knew the mice couldn't chew through. When I came back I found one of my cats had gotten into the box and appeared to be mauling some of the baby mice. I took the cat away and then carefully checked over the baby mice. All of them were okay, but one of them was in bad shape, and I knew it wasn't going to make it. Looking at it closer, there wasn't any sign of bite marks. It seemed the cat really didn't try to eat it as much as try to help it by licking it. I also found one of her kittens cuddling with all the mice.
It dawned on me that she was actually trying to mother all of the baby mice as if they were her own! The mother mice were also very accepting of the cat. I was still very careful with the mother mice, but they seemed to be quite calm and accepting of the new situation.
.JPG)