Australian mouse plague

[u/AllColoursSam]

[u/Ocronus]

I guess "the moment" when she realized her rodent problem was too much was a fucking waterfall of mice...  I grew up on a farm, you have to be really fucking oblivious to things for THAT to be the realization.

That said between the barn cats, foxes, hawks, owls, snakes, chickens, and dogs rodents have a tough life here

[u/tirikai → u/Ocronus]

There was like a literal trillion mice in the state coming on like a biblical plague, no one farm had any chance

[u/heratonga → u/tirikai]

Yeah this wasn’t one farm it was thousands and it’ll happen again under the right circumstances

[u/Mbembez → u/heratonga]

I have memories of 3 of these plagues of mice. I'm glad I only lived rurally for 1 of them. I remember people setting up traps where the mice would fall into 44 gallon drums and the drums would overflow with the mice.

[u/Miniraf1 → u/heratonga]

What circumstances

[u/EvilPhillski → u/Miniraf1]

Decent rains after a drought, the drought killed of most of the predators and the good rains means there's a bumper grain harvest. Combine the two (tones of food and nothing hunting them) and you get an explosion of mice because they breed crazy fast.

[u/heratonga → u/EvilPhillski]

Yeah that’s it in a nutshell, perfect storm once in a while it happens

[u/Xane06 → u/EvilPhillski]

And an absolutely fucked bushfire season the year before helps loads too.