COUNTRY

Victoria is in the grips of a mouse plague, with tens of thousands of the rodents running rampant in numbers not seen in decades.

Towns in the Mallee and Wimmera regions have been swamped with mice, which are damaging grain stores and delaying crop planting.

Hordes of the pests have infested paddocks, homes and shops in farming heartland towns such as Ouyen, about 100km south of Mildura.

Ouyen farmer Melissa Morrish said “plague” was the only word to describe the situation.

“In all my 38 years I’ve never seen a mouse plague like this,” she said.

Mrs Morrish captured the scale of the problem when she filmed a “sea” of mice flooding a local road in front of her car.

“Everyone’s talking about it. They’re right through the township and there are huge numbers throughout the district,” she said.