How It Works

Applications to find the Wild Kids opens = a search for 20 wildlife-mad Devon-based children aged 8–13

The final 20 lucky Wild Kids are confirmed and announced

Each Wild Kid raises funds, via the crowdfunder platform, towards their mice equipment

Mandatory training day for the Wild Kids, plus a parent or legal guardian, at Derek Gow’s Species Recovery Centre. At the end of the day, the Wild Kids will go home with all their equipment, plus their breeding pair of harvest mice

The Wild Kids will look after their harvest mice, carefully following our husbandry protocols. Daily care includes re-filling water and food, assessing behaviour and spot-cleaning tanks. NB the mice must never be handled, but they are very entertaining to watch

Each Wild Kid will have a male and female harvest mouse. Once the female starts getting aggressive this likely means she is pregnant and so the male needs to be caught using the humane trap, then transferred to the 2nd tank. More information will be provided on the training day.

The female will give birth to anywhere from 2 to 12 babies in the nest she’s made from straw. After about 10 days the babies will come out of the nest, often all together, in a line - a brilliant moment if you’re lucky enough to see it

The litter stays with Mum for about 3 weeks, slowly transitioning from mother’s milk to adult food (=seeds). The Wild Pets team will pick up the weaned litter and move them to the Species Recovery Centre, where they’ll be looked after until release day in September

When the juveniles have gone, the male is put back with the female. Across the spring and summer 2027 period, we hope each breeding pair will have 3 to 4 litters, though this does vary

By the end of summer, the Wild Kids will hopefully have bred 250+ mice. All the mice (original pairs + offspring) will be released into a suitable conservation site in Devon. This should be a wonderful day to which the Wild Kids - and the media - will be invited

The released mice will be supported by Derek Gow’s team to ensure the population establishes in their new habitat. This will include nest surveys and likely releases of additional “top-up” mice in spring and/or summer 2028

If year one is a success we hope to expand nationwide. Derek’s team are already carrying out trials to establish which other species could potentially be bred by Wild Kids - possibilities include common lizards, stag beetles, tree frogs and glow worms.