Couple adopt baby mouse after saving it from rubbish dump in Burgess Hill

Johnathan and Serena Hughes from Cuckfield discovered Mollie, a yellow necked wood mouse, on a visit to Burgess Hill amenity tip last October.

“My husband noticed a baby mouse which had fallen from someone’s rubbish, and was lying on the concrete pavement,” Serena said. “To save it from being trodden on, he scooped it up in a plastic flower pot, and brought it home with a view to releasing it in our garden.”

They decided to keep the mouse in their house overnight to overlook its recovery.

Johnathan added: “She was motionless, curled up like a sleeping dormouse and very vulnerable, we couldn’t just leave her there, we had to try to protect her.

“We didn’t really expect her to survive as she was so small and must have been in shock, we quite expected her to die overnight, but in the morning she looked bright and perky and was ready for breakfast.”

He telephoned a pet shop owner to seek advice, who suggested they should keep the mouse. “She had become quite tame and was used to a warm environment with regular meals,” Johnathan said.“We were told she would possibly not live long in the wild and that, because she was so healthy and contented, her life would be better if we kept her.”

The 51-year-old decided to take the advice and keep her.

“So we bought a large, luxury cage and we feed her a varied diet of seeds, meal worms, grapes and other cereals, she is a picture of health, and is happy to be hand fed and stroked,” he added.

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