BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more

Subject: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Gulliver
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 01:44 PM

Another furry friend passed away (well, maybe not friend--he was raiding my larder!). I found him limp and cold this morning, a half-chewed morsel of bacon next to his shattered head in the trap.

In a way I feel guilty killing mice like this, depriving a little family somewhere of their breadwinner.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 01:53 PM

poor wee timrous beastie won't be bringing home the bacon then?

Well I have a whole set of 'humane' traps Don but the real skill is to be able to race them back home after you release them:)

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 02:49 PM

What I do is drive to the other side of a local lake with the captured mouse, and I drop him off by the outdoor cages at the wildlife sanctuary....there's a ton of spilled bird food around there for a mouse to eat. They never return.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 07:36 PM

errr .....is that sort of by the cages of the (I really like a mouse for supper) owl type birds LH?

Guess they ain't coming back!

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 07:42 PM

No, no owls. There are waterfowl and various forest and field birds, but no mouse eating types there.

I'm sure there is the odd owl around at night though.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Gulliver
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 10:24 PM

If you forward me your address, LH, I'll air-freight the next few live mice I catch for you to take to your mouse sanctuary. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 10:27 PM

"He's dead; I'm not. And that's the way I wanted it."

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 11:08 PM

You have to do it Gulliver. A couple of years ago I noticed a mouse in my house. I wasn't too worried about it - it seemed so tiny and innofensive. Every now and then I'd see him race along the sides of the room. Then I started seeing more mice, and finding unpleasant evidence that they'd gotten into the cupboards. They climbed onto my kitchen table at night and got into the bread. I saw one run under an armchair, lifted it up and there was a pile of mouse crap and bits of dog food they had stolen. It was horrible. I got some humane traps but the mice were too smart for them - I only caught one. Finally I went out and got the regular traps, and caught nine mice in one day. Haven't had a problem since.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 11:11 PM

Yes, they make a terrible mess in a house. They have to be dealt with ruthlessly and systematically until every last one is gone. And then you have to find out where they're getting in and block off all the opening(s) or the problem will be back soon enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 09:07 AM

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!

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 09:40 AM

When Robbie Burns did that he wrote odes....

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Bee
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 12:39 PM

Far fewer mice dare to move into my house when I have a cat. Sure, the brave or foolish ones that do meet a harsh end, but many more are saved from traps. When I went cat-less for a couple years, I had endless mouse invasions, and the distress of having to dispatch the little buggers myself - worst when the trap doesn't quite kill them.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 12:51 PM

Mice like to come out after dark, so they usually get caught at night. At the time of the great mouse war here in my house I always had a trap set in my bedroom at night...I have snack food in there, and the mice had discovered this and were coming in every night and scuttling around here and there which was driving me crazy. I even had one run across my face in the middle of the night one time.

So for a period of about 3 weeks the same trap would get tripped literally every second or third night...sometimes twice in a single night! I would hear a sudden loud SNAP!...followed by a brief flurry from the doomed mouse. I would get up, turn the light on, walk over and gaze at the sad remains, take them over to the toilet, and flush mister mouse down to a watery grave. Then reset and rebait the trap, wash my hands thoroughly, and try to go back to sleep.

I was glad when the mice finally stopped coming, and I found the hole where they were getting into the house and blocked it off. That one trap caught 16 mice during the campaign. Other traps set elsewhere in the house accounted for about 12 more of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 12:58 PM

When I was in Indiana we used the kill 'em traps. Caught one in such a way that he exsanguinated all over the place. Messy to clean up, but necessary.

Haven't had any out here yet, but I've been waging a Vole War. They don't come inside, though. I poison the little suckers' holes; most die underground. I'd live trap them and move them, but I'm really not into hantavirus (when I have to touch the l'il carcasses I wear disposable gloves).

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 01:00 PM

I've heard of moles, but what are voles?

Subject: RE: BS: Pitter patter of tiny feet is no more
From: Bee
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 01:17 PM

Little rodents of several species - some are bigger than mice. I had never seen one myself until last week, when Tommy brought in a larger-than-mouse brown rodent, which I first thought was a young rat. When I gave it a good look I noticed the shortish furred tail and tiny ears, googled vole (because that was the only rodent I could think of I hadn't previously seen) and identified it.