Humane eh? ...

It all depends on your levels of diligence.

I lived in a house once that had mice and the issue of mouse traps was discussed. We agreed on "humane" traps as we didn't like the idea of bashing their heads in much either.

Well, the new traps arrived and we set them up with gusto and clear consciences. The design was a long box with a square cross section that bent in the middle. The door would be opened and the door end would be touching the floorkeeping the open door in place.

Bait was inserted right into the end of the ramp, beyond the bend, the mouse being required to run up the ramp into the closed end which was raised up off the floor.

When the mouse did so, the raised end came down onto the floor and thee door end rose up with the rsult that the door shut.


... anyway ...


We checked every half an hour, then on day 2 once or twice, then maybe once on day 4, but after that we pretty much lost interest - until about two or three weeks later whereupon we found that we had caught a mouse, but he had starved slowly to death anyway.

Next time I will be buying a humane one ... that kills the mouse instantly!