ECONNECTION
Muskrat Ramblin’s
by Karen Dusek

My dog, Buddy, and I were out on our daily run one morning this past summer when a rat-like animal with a long skinny tail darted out from the swamp to our right and came straight at us. My first thought was that it was rabid and I braced for a bite that would send either Buddy or I to the hospital, but at the last moment it veered and, just inches from our toes, scurried off the road to our left and slid into a small manmade pond. In the tiny ripples it left behind I could almost feel its relief at what I sensed was probably, in its mind anyway, a narrow escape.

I had seen numerous muskrats before this curious encounter, but always in the water, which is where they spend most of their time, unlike other members of the Cricetidae family (order Rodentia), which consists of voles, mice and rats. In human terms, we might think of them as mini beaver wannabes, since they often build lodges in the middle of waterways, where they live throughout the year. Or, if the soil is firm enough not to crumble, they may choose instead to make burrows in the banks of languid streams and ponds.

Muskrats are found pretty much throughout North America, except in Florida, Georgia, some locations in the western states and the far northern reaches of Canada. Wherever there are cattails, there are probably muskrats, since cattails are a favorite food and building material and grow in the types of places where muskrats prefer to be: namely, ponds, lakes, marshes and other slow-moving water bodies. You’re not likely to see muskrats in the winter in the north, however. Since exposure to the cold air can cause death from hypothermia, they generally remain underwater in their lodges or underground in their burrows until spring. Although somewhat solitary animals that may fiercely defend their territory from unfamiliar members of their own species during the warmer seasons, they sometimes forego this anti-social tendency in the cold months to join other adults in a den or lodge, perhaps to take advantage of the additional warmth of body heat. As the air temperature increases, so, too, does their inability to put up with such close encounters of their own kind and they begin to venture out on their own once again.

Muskrats may use the same lodges and burrows for many years. Some lodges are quite large, complex structures up to eight feet wide at the bottom and piled as high as six feet with cattails, other plant materials and mud. Numerous chambers and tunnels may be dug into the debris or there may be only one main chamber. They spread plant material for bedding in the chambers, changing it periodically to keep it clean.

Usually young muskrats build smaller lodges, often leaving them at the onset of colder weather for the more spacious homes of their elders, which started out small but were added onto over the years, not unlike the first homes of many humans. The same is true of bank burrows, which may include multiple chambers and tunnels as long as two football fields - quite an accomplishment for an animal about the size and weight of a pineapple.

Although muskrats have a number of similarities to beavers, which are also rodents but in the family Castoridae, they are about one-quarter the size (about one-foot) and have a long (eight to 10 inches), skinny tail that is often visible when they are swimming, unlike the broad flat tail of the beaver, which is usually held underwater when swimming. Like beavers, muskrats depend on water for their survival, not only as a location for their homes, but also as a source of food. Unlike the strictly vegetarian beavers, however, muskrats will sometimes eat crustaceans and shellfish, particularly mussels, in the winter if they get desperate; that is, if there are no plants available. Most of their food energy comes from cattails and bulrushes. They’ll devour just about every part of these plants - flowers excluded - from the roots to the leaves. They vary their diet with other aquatic plants such as arrowhead, pickerelweed and water lilies and, if there is an orchard or farm nearby may venture out overland to partake in such epicurean pleasures as apples, carrots, corn, clover and alfalfa.

If you are a keen observer, you may find a feeding station built by muskrats to hide them from hawks, eagles, raccoons, owls, foxes and other predators while they are eating. These are either built like a miniature lodge or may consist merely of a flat area built up with plant materials. The feeding areas are changed every few days - perhaps to confuse their enemies?

As with many wild animals, one of the muskrat’s worst enemies over the years has been humans. Both prized for their thick brown fur (also known as red seal, river mink, Russian otter and Hudson seal) and supposedly delicious meat (which also goes by the names marsh rabbit and Chesapeake terrapin) and maligned for their habit of building their lodges and dens in waterways also used by people, such as irrigation ditches around cranberry bogs, muskrats have had to dodge the teeth of steel traps in addition to the talons and teeth of wild predators. The danger of death by predation, as well as by disease, exposure and starvation, increases dramatically during floods, when their homes are destroyed and food is impossible to reach.

In the muskrat’s favor, however, is their ability to have two or three litters a year with four to six young in each litter. The female may be pregnant with one litter while still taking care of a previous litter. In the north, breeding takes places from late winter throughout the summer, but in warmer climates, it can go on all year long. This makes sense, since the babies are born pretty much helpless, with no hair for the first week and closed eyes for two weeks. They also depend on their mother’s milk to nourish them the first three weeks and on her body heat to keep them warm. She even pulls the plant material that covers the chamber floor over her babies when she goes outside to feed.

After only one month, the babies are able to leave home and their mother can attend to other chores, such as giving birth to the next litter. The earlier litter may be moved to another chamber in the lodge or may be kicked out altogether. But, if they do leave, they won’t go far - only about 100 yards or so (not unlike some teenage humans) - living in abandoned dens or lodges until they are about four months old, when they will each build a lodge or den for themselves.

If you are in muskrat territory, look in the mud for their five-toed tracks, which are very similar to those of a raccoon, but much smaller. The forefoot is about 1 ½ inches long and 1 ½ inches wide, while the partially webbed hind foot is 3 inches long and 2 inches wide, as opposed to the raccoon’s 2 ½ by 2 ¼ inch forefoot and 4 by 2 ¼ inch hind foot. Look also for their lodges and smaller feeding stations in ponds, lakes, slow-moving streams, marshes and swamps. If you are near a frozen lake or pond, you may also spot a small pile of plant material that may be covering a hole used by a muskrat as an escape hatch when foraging or as a breathing hole. (Muskrats can stay underwater for as long as 15 minutes before needing air.)

Scat is another sign of muskrats that is often easy to spot if you keep your eyes peeled. Look for small brown pellets about one-half inch long and 3/8 inch wide on rocks, logs and near the water’s edge. You may also smell a foul odor in these same areas. This is the “musk” part of “muskrat.” (earlier called a “musk cat”) produced by a gland near the anus.

If you see signs of muskrats and have a little patience, eventually you are bound to see one gliding easily through the water or maybe even building a lodge. While you may not be as impressed by their appearance as, say, that of a deer or fox, remember that this small rodent was revered by at least one Native American tribe for having the heart to dive deep into the water that covered the world and return with the mud that was made into the earth and its people when no one else could. It is also the animal that lent its name to more than one song that became an overnight sensation: “Muskrat Love” (by America and The Captain and Tenille) and “Muskrat Ramble” (by Dukes of Dixieland, Louis Armstrong, McGuire Sisters and others), although what the lyrics of either song have to do with muskrats is beyond me. (Can anyone out there enlighten me?)

As for why Buddy and I were almost run over by a muskrat “ramblin’ and scramblin’” (a line from “Muskrat Scramble”), it may have been a youngster leaving home and looking for some place to wile away the winter. As a matter of fact, a little winter’s nap sounds pretty good right about now. See you next month.

(For more information about muskrats and the wetlands they inhabit, see the Stokes Nature Guides Nature in Winter and Animal Tracking and Behavior, Michael J. Caduto’s Pond and Brook, and Janet Lyons’ and Sandra Jordon’s Walking the Wetlands.)

You may email Karen at karen@lakeshoreguardian.com.