The squirrel has a very strong jaw structure with a set of twenty two teeth. It can crack open even the hardest nut shell. The squirrel’s front teeth are extremely sharp. They grow continuously throughout their lives. To keep these teeth sharp and clean, the squirrel will chew off a small branch from a tree everyday.

Gray squirrels will mate in the late winter or early spring. This mating ritual and copulation takes between 44 and 46 days. The males will chase each other through the trees jumping from branch to branch and the female will watch and then choose the male she believes is the strongest. After the copulation, the male will return to its territory, leaving the female to raise the litter. There are normally four to six born in the litter. The female squirrel will nurse the babies for first ten weeks.

California Ground Squirrels have mixed gray, light brown and dusky fur giving the upper coat a mottled appearance. A band of slightly darker fur, flecked with light gray, extends from the head over the middle of the back. Gray fur forms a cape over the sides of the head and shoulders. California Ground Squirrel is around thirteen inches long and have four front teeth used for cutting and grinding. 

They eat a variety of seeds, fruits, acorns, roots, mushrooms, and insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars.

California Ground Squirrels live in burrows. Squirrel makes its burrow in the ground pushing large hills of dirt and rock onto nearby shrubs and vines destroying them. There are three types of burrows that Ground Squirrels make. Hiding burrows, created for emergency purposes, nesting burrows are created for females to deliver and raise her litter, and hibernating burrows are used to store food for the winter. Unlike the gophers ground Squirrel doesn’t leave any dirt around the entrance. They take the dirt created from the burrowing and pat it down tight with their heads and feet. The burrows of Ground Squirrels are about the diameter of a 50-cent piece.

Hibernation for Ground Squirrels usually last five to six months in the winter but they wake up once a week for about twelve to twenty hours. If the weather doesn’t get real cold in the winter, these squirrels will skip hibernation. Female adult Ground Squirrels usually deliver seven to eight babies, right after hibernation. 

California Ground Squirrels are vigilant and ready to sound an alarm if danger is perceived. If they are frightened, a squirrel often makes long leaps and emits a sharp, metallic alarm cry several times in rapid sequence. The squirrel may pause near its burrow and clink or it may drop down into its tunnel system.

Ground squirrels can harbor diseases harmful to humans, particularly when squirrel populations are dense. A major concern is bubonic plague transmitted to humans by fleas carried on the squirrels.

Pocket gophers are usually not seen because they spend most of their lives underground. They are active at dawn and dusk, and some are nocturnal, and they do not hibernate.

These animals forage, look for food, through the ground, burrowing, or digging, a set of complex tunnels. Pocket gophers are able to tunnel as much as 200 to 300 feet in a single night.

Pocket gophers generally dig two kinds of tunnels. One type of tunnel is long, winding, and shallow. They use this type to get food from above. The second type of tunnel is deeper. They use these tunnels for shelter, for nests, food storage, and fecal, waste, deposits. The tunnels are usually marked above ground by small mounds of earth. When not in use, these animals plug up burrow entrances with dirt. Pocket gophers can run backward in their burrows almost as fast as they can run forward. Burrows may be used by the same animal for several years and spread over an acre of ground.

Pocket gophers are extremely unsocial unless mating time. Pocket gophers typically breed only once per year and gestation, pregnancy, ranges from eighteen to more than thirty days. Litter size varies from one to ten offspring. Until they are five weeks old the babies' eyes and ears are sealed shut. Offspring stay with the mother in the burrow for one to two months, and then each sets off to burrow its own system of tunnels.

There are two types of cotton tail rabbits; New England cottontail and the eastern cottontail. They look similar but about half of the eastern cottontails show a white, star-like shape on the forehead. New England cottontail weighs between 1.64 to 2.94 lbs and eastern cottontails weigh 1.8 to 2.95 lbs.

In summer, cottontails eat mostly grasses and herbs, crops such as peas, beans, and lettuce. In winter, they feed on bark, twigs, and buds of shrubs and young trees.
Rabbits will also eat their own fecal pellets to increase their level of vitamins and minerals.

The cottontails breed from March through early fall. Females scratch out a slight slump in the ground in an area of dense grass for camouflage cover with fur and dry grass. The gestation period is about 28 days. There are usually two to four litters per year with about three to eight young per litter. Young rabbits are born blind, naked, and helpless but grow rapidly. They are weaned and totally independent at four to five weeks.

Cottontails have sharp sight and hearing. When they sense danger the animal will usually freeze in place until it has passed, but they will flush readily if approached too closely. Rabbits normally move slowly in short hops or jumps, but when frightened they can speed up to 18 miles per hour over a short distance. They will thump the ground with their hind feet regularly as a means of communication. When playing, breeding, or fighting they often make low purring, growling, or grunting sounds. If captured by a predator, the animal may produce a loud, shrill scream.

Deer mice are small rodents, about 5 to 8 inches long. They are called deer mice because their fur colors resemble deer: dark on the back and white on the legs and underside. The tail is also dark on top and white underneath.

Deer mice live in den they created, abandoned burrows of other animals, beneath rocks, in stumps, in soil cracks, in debris, or in any other secluded areas. They build a cup-shaped nest of finely shredded plants and fur. They are nocturnal and active all year around.

Deer mice are omnivorous. In the summer they eat seeds, small fruits and berries, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, and an underground fungus called endogone. What is eaten will depend upon what is available.

Home range is the area an animal normally lives in. Their home range can be as small as a back yard or up to ten acres, depending upon the availability and competition for food. Within their home range, they usually travel along the most convenient routes, which can be the trails of other animals or trails they have created over time. Mice have even been known to trim the plants along their runways.

Deer mice are able to breed throughout the year, but most often breed in spring and early fall. Gestation is about three weeks and the litter size ranges from 1 to 9 babies with an average litter size of 4. Newborn mice are blind, deaf and have no hair except whiskers. Their skin is so transparent that you can actually see the milk flowing into them when they nurse during their first 24 hours. By the second day their skin gains color and is no longer transparent. Newborn deer mice nurse almost constantly and grow rapidly. By 4 days they will begin to have fur. In one week they will have doubled their weight. And in 2 weeks their eyes open and they begin to move around. At about 7 weeks the females are able to reproduce and at about 8 weeks the males are sexually mature.

Deer mice are the primary carriers of the hanta virus. The hanta virus pulmonary syndrome was first recognized in 1993 and, since that time, a total of 131 people have been reported to have contracted this illness in the United States and half of those died.

Woodrats are found in boreal woodlands and deserts. They prefer along cliffs, canyons, talus slopes, and open rocky fields. They are also found in abandoned buildings and mines.

These woodrat normally eat green vegetation such as leaves, needles, and shoots. But it will also consume twigs, fruits, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, and some animal matter. These rodents get all their water from their food, and they do not need to drink.

The breeding season is from January to September. The period of gestation is approximately 38 days and at least two and possibly three or more litters of two or three young each may be raised. At birth the young are helpless, weigh about 11 g, and are about twice the size of newborn house rats. The young ones have specially developed front teeth that permit them to grasp the nipples of the mother and to be dragged along behind her, skidding and bouncing along on their backs, when she leaves the nest. They grow rapidly; the ears open on the 13th to 15th day, the eyes open on the 15th to 19th day, and they are weaned when 62-72 days old. When the babies are about 6 months old they are almost identical to their elders.

There are 23 vole species in the United States but the most common ones are Prairie Vole, Mead Vole, Long Tailed Vole, Pine or Woodland Vole, Montana Vole, Oregon Vole, California Vole.

Vole Animal prefers areas with heavy ground cover of grasses, grass-like plants, or litter. They are active both day and night and throughout the year. Vole Animal eats a variety of plants and animals. They also forage on grasses, forbs, roots, bulbs, tubers, bark, snails, and insects. To find food, Vole Animal constructs tunnels and surface runways with many burrow openings. This complicated network of tunnels and burrows provide Voles with great shelter from the weather and protection from predators. Vole Animal store seeds and other plant matter in underground chambers as well.

Voles may breed throughout the year, but most commonly in spring and summer.
They can produce 3 to 12 litters per year with 3 to 5 being average, litters range in size from 1 to 11 young per litter. Gestation periods usually 21 days and young are weaned by the time they are 21 days old, and females are sexually mature within 40 days.

Roof rats have a slender body about 6 1/2 to 8 inches long. They weigh about 6 to 12 ounces. Their color varies from black to brownish-gray. Their underside varies from gray to white. Their nose and muzzle are pointed, their eyes are large and prominent and their ears are large and cover the eyes if bent forward. They have a hairless tail which has a uniform color and is longer than their head and body.

Roof rats’ average life span is 2 to 3 years. They are nocturnal. They have poor eyesight and are colorblind. They primarily see light, shadow and movement. They do have very developed senses of hearing, smell, touch and taste. Rats use high-frequency sounds, smell, touch and body postures to communicate with each other. Their hearing is ultrasonic.

Rats are omnivores. They eat seeds, fruit, grains, nuts, flowers, leaves, insects, birds, reptiles, fish, eggs and fungus. They consume about 1 ounce of food and drink about 1 ounce of water each day. Their strong teeth are able to chew through wood, copper, cinder block, aluminum, and uncured concrete.

Rats are very social and affectionate animals. They love being in the company of their own kind. They like playing together and love to sleep curled up together. They take care of the injured and sick rats in their group. When rats don't have companionship, they can become lonely, depressed, anxious and stressed.

Roof rats reach sexual maturity at 3 to 4 months of age. The litters of 5 to 8 pups are born after a gestation period of 21 to 23 days. A female roof rat can have 4 or 5 litters per year. 
Roof rats consume and destroy stored animal and human food, attack fruit crops, and take up residence in attics, hollow walls, and out-buildings. When they invade buildings they chew through wires, gnaw through plastic and lead water pipes, make holes in walls and cause other structural damage.