BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 02 Feb 13 - 05:03 AM

LOL gnu, might be a great alternative!
Genie, I'm glad I'm not the only one with this dilemma. I know full well we can't live with beasties in the house, but I just hate killing things. Like your calico pussycat, my three are real terrors. They view all wildlife as so many toys for their amusement. My neighbours on both sides are real country people born and bred and they think I'm bonkers for worrying about killing vermin. But I've travelled the world and watched wildlife closely, including African snakes, scorpions and weird and wonderful insects. I've never wished to kill any of them, just loved observing in wonder.
Now, here is my dark secret... I cannot abide...SPIDERS! And(hanging head in deep shame) I get my husband to kill them immediately while I have a hysterical panic in the next room. Oh dear, God will punish me.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Genie
Date: 02 Feb 13 - 03:46 AM

I hate to kill the sweet little furry rodents too. I've lived in the same house since 1980 and never seen any mice here until about 3 years ago. My cats would sometimes make presents of dead ones, but about 3 yr. ago, I rescued a couple of voles (pretty sure they were voles, not mice) who were being tortuosly toyed with by my calico kitty, and I got a terrarium for them to live in. It was fun watching them romp on their wheel, etc.
But one day, when I was cleaning their living space, one escaped. (The other died rather unexpectedly when I was away for about a week, despite my having left enough water and, I think, enough food for that time.
I've always wondered if the infestation I've seen over the past 2-3 years has stemmed from that one vole/mouse— the one I rescued from my housemoggie several years ago.
As much as I empathize wi' th' eee, sleekit cow'rin' tim'rous beasties, there's come a point where it has to be me (able to breathe and not be ill) v. them.
i've tried some "humane" traps - only to find a wee mousie dead within, probably having bit the dust after days of dehydration - and some snap traps, which probably in most cases (sad to say, maybe not all) dispatched the wee furry beastie forthwith.
If I can find a feasible way to spare the wee cow'rin' tim'rous beasties yet maintain liveable premises within my own house, I'm very much open to such information.
But for now, I'm afraid I must go with one of the less Idealistic solutions
I really wish that were not so.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnu
Date: 01 Feb 13 - 11:18 PM

Budweiser?

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 01 Feb 13 - 01:06 PM

I take your point Dave, but I imagine an owl eating a mouse, for example, might be affected. And I've seen some pretty huge rats here in the sticks! They could have enough of the stuff in 'em to make a cat seriously ill. But as leeneia says, cats are a real scourge for wildlife, and I'm very ashamed to be the owner of three exterminators. I'd never keep them from going out though. By the way, didn't I read recently of a new drug for thinning the blood instead of Warfarin?

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Feb 13 - 09:51 AM

Eliza, as to poisoning mice and other animals eating the corpses,
think of the relative size of a dead mouse and the foraging cat.

Then think of the way mouse and rat poison works. It's warfarin (or maybe coumadin; I forget which is generic and which is the trademark name for human medicine).

The warfarin/coumadin slows blood clotting, and the mouse/rat dies of internal bleeding.

I don't know whether the warfarin/coumadin degrades in the rodent's metabolizing it. If it does, presumably it will have a lower level of effectiveness to the cat or dog which eats the cadaver. And even if it does not degrade and the cat or dog gets the full effect of what killed the mouse, that dose that killed the tiny mouse would have a much lower effect on the larger animal. Still might kill the scavenging cat/dog, but less likely, methinks.

By orders of my cardiologist, I take what I like to call "rat poison" (warfarin) every night before I go to bed.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Jan 13 - 12:18 PM

Keep your cats in your house. We are losing way, way too many beautiful birds to cats.

Outdoor cats get diseases and parasites. (Tape-worm eggs around the house, anyone?) They also get hit by cars and ravaged by dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Jan 13 - 06:04 PM

cata are the answer... as long as you also wish to free yourself from the presence of birds and the occasional butterfly.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Janie
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 07:31 PM

You don't want to hear my mouse and rat infestation stories. Heck, I don't even want to remember them!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Charmion
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 06:36 PM

I was in Baden from 1977 to 1979, gnu. Was your Bro in the 3rd (Mechanized) Commando of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, or perhaps the 3rd Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment?

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnu
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 03:59 PM

Charmion... Baden-Söllingen... when were you there? I was born at 3-Wing, Zweibrucken. Bro served there later on and also at NATO HQ.

Your pheasant story minds me of a story involving a goose and a very drunk private in Bro's platoon in a fountain pond at a gasthaus. Not the same outcome.

As for what I call "cleaning a bird", it's simple and fast but I have never done it with anything bigger than a ruffed grouse so it may not apply at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 01:42 PM

I've always plucked, and drawn, straight away. But you're right, Will Fly, game should be 'well hung' (like men??) A colleague on the staff at the school where I taught went shooting every weekend during the season, and as his freezer was choc-a-bloc he kindly brought me his gamebag each Monday. I had gorgeous pigeon, rabbit and occasional pheasant, all of which I dealt with myself. I bless my mum, as it was she who'd taught me. I once went into Harvey's (a game butcher's in Norwich, no longer there) and asked for "Four rabbits' paws please." My cats loved to toss them about and played for hours with them. The guy looked at me for a long minute, then he said, "Ah. Laaarst of the big spenders eh?" He had the cheek to charge me twenty pence!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Charmion
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 11:15 AM

I learned to draw game from Frau Sophie, my landlady in Germany, who was born in 1900 and lived through two wars and the Depression supporting herself and her elderly parents, in their dotage, on the proceeds of her small-holding. She probably started renting rooms to military personnel during the Second World War, when the Luftwaffe built the fighter base that later became Canadian Forces Europe Detachment Baden-Söllingen.

Frau Sophie was a mistress of peasant cooking, a fact I realized when I poked my head into her kitchen once on a baking day. Her pastry was like linoleum but you could live for weeks on her bread alone, which she made in a matter-of-fact fashion that involved ferocious kneading and absolutely no wastage of flour or, indeed, anything else.

On my way home from work one day, a large hare bounded out of the ditch and brained himself on the front bumper of my car. I stopped -- it was quite a thump -- and picked up the body (it was quite dead). Plump, too; it was late summer. After a couple of days hanging in the byre, Frau Sophie showed me how to turn it into hasenpfeffer -- jugged hare. She also shared her sauerbraten recipe, which involved venison (probably poached) rather than beef.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 10:29 AM

Eliza, if you leave a brace of pheasants for a day or two, the skin and feathers will come off together - no need to pluck. I used to do this, then tear the birds open and apart to empty the crops and guts. Never used a knife. Then washed the parts in cold water and placed them in a nice deep pan with a bottle of red wine (opened of course), seasoning, carrots, leeks, onions - and anything else I fancied. Then popped 'em in the oven on a low heat for a long time.

Delicious! I remember going to my (then) local pub some years ago - Steve, the landlord, had been given a brace by a local drinker. Steve had put them in his fridge but couldn't face the drawing, so he offered them to me for free - and I grabbed them. He brought them out and I hung them over the back of a chair in the bar while I was finishing a pint. A couple of "foreigners" (strangers) walked in, saw the pheasants draped over the chair - and left with horrified faces...

My wife, when she was small, had a large, fierce black cat that used to nick hens from the next-door smallholding and bring them to the doorstep. Her Dad had to pay his neighbour for them!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 09:39 AM

Here in the sticks of Norfolk, the villages' Christmas Bingos often have a brace of pheasants as a prize, a male and a female tied together at the neck. Absolutely scrumptious, but the trouble is the young ones nowadays haven't a clue how to pluck and draw a bird. I often wish I'd had a film camera set up to record Smokey-Pokey, Murphy and Minty posting their rats and other victims through the catflap.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Charmion
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 08:14 AM

I would love to see a team of Siamese hauling a dead rat through a catflap. That would just make my day -- no, I tell a lie, that would make my year!

Because they are protected from hunting (by humans) much of the year in Europe, pheasants can be remarkably dim. I remember pheasants strolling around in the grass on the airfield at Baden-Söllingen like ladies and gentlemen at a garden party. When a cock pheasant strutted right up to one of the Bofors guns of the airfield defence battery during an exercise, the soldiers of the gun detachment -- friends of mine -- caught it with a dustbin lid and a sack. It was delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 06:30 AM

Poison is effective ((and I concede necessary) but if other wildlife eats the corpses, I imagine they'll die too. I loved reading about other people's cats. It must be a big worry to have rabies endemic in one's country. We have no rabies here in UK, but I had a problem with deer ticks stuck to the cats. They stuck to me too and I had to have antibiotics to prevent Lyme disease (endemic to Norfolk and a few other areas of UK) I was very ashamed and sad when the Three Musketeers brought in a dead harvest mouse. They're not common and we treasure them here (Bright ginger with a white tummy) I also had many shrews, wood/field mice, moles, the odd pheasant (how they got that through the catflap I daren't imagine!) slow-worms and even a baby grass snake. Cats are real buggers for destroying wildlife and I hang my head in shame.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 03:38 AM

Lol! Ake!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:57 PM

I used to use spring traps, with spotty results.

Nowadays I use mouse poison from the grocery store, starting
with cold weather in the fall and running until late March. We
seldom have any mouse problems now.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Rumncoke
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:20 PM

OK - I confess that one wet and windy night I was cooking dinner and a poor young mouse tottered in though the meter cupboard, saturated and obviously chilled to the core.

I gave it several inches of cooked spaghetti - I even blew on it so it did not hurt its paws, as it sat looking at me awe struck. I left it to eat when the sensible thing would have been to kill it.

As it was Summer time I suspect that it went back outside once the weather improved, as it is usually when the weather turns cold that the mice come in and start to cause damage.

The traps I use are all metal and very powerful. All the mice they catch look most astonished.

I used to have a cat, before whom all rodents fled or died, so I never learned to use mouse proof storage. Now I have lost coats, jerseys, dried foods, books with real leather bindings, expensive fabrics - so from the first cool evenings of Autumn though to Groundhog day there is always a baited trap beside the cooker just waiting for the first mouse.....

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:10 PM

"Dirty, nasty, slitherin', beastie
Chewin' Will Fry's things so completely
Tonight he'll set out peanut butter,
And snap your neck and perhaps another's."

Merr McGonigall than Burns, ah'm afeart!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 03:24 PM

Cheucy was cooool. I stapled a piece of carpet to a screen door I made and taught her to grab it with her claws and shake the door (= knock) when she wanted in. One day, she "knocked" so violently I figured something was wrong and raced to the door. There she sat looking at me and let out this odd owwwrrrrr and looked at the pigeon she had pinned with the other paw, then looked back at me and made the same sound. I smiled and said, "Good GOIN Cheuce!" She made the same sound again, obviously very proud of herself. You should heard the noises she made when I took it away from her and tossed it on the roof where it managed to recover and fly away. She was pissed at me for days.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Charmion
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 01:27 PM

Emmeline was the daughter of the butcher's cat across the street, and a doughty huntress and fighter. When still quite a kitten, she tackled a large black-and-white tom who liked to come into our yard and sun himself on the outside sill of my sitting room window, and of course that's how she got her name. She also delighted in teasing Ingo, the watchdog, who spent much of her life on a long chain in the yard; Emmeline would settle down about six inches out of the dog's reach and solemnly wash herself in every possible corner while her nemesis howled with frustrated rage.

I worried about Emmeline's hunting habits, however, because rabies was endemic in our area and the local farmers would shoot on sight any dog or cat seen on its own more than 200 metres from a house. Emmeline came home once with a water rat that was darned near as big as herself, which she had to have caught near a pond or stream. The nearest watercourse to the village was a good 500 metres beyond the last house.

My mother had a cat named Noodnik whose mission in life was clearing the house of shrews, a common pest in Manotick. Shrews taste nasty, so she would slay them and place the corpses on the kitchen doorstep.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 01:02 PM

What a lovely name, Charmion, 'Emmeline Pankhurst'. Now my Siamese cats probably prevented any rodents colonising the house. But they were horribly cruel to any they caught out in the fields. They were seen by several neighbours carrying rats like two men with a stretcher, one at each end, while the third ( a very small cat) obligingly opened the catflap for them and pulled while they pushed it through. In Ivory Coast (my husband's origin) rats are a dreadful scourge. There's no removal of rubbish so it lies out in the street, infested by rats, mice and flies, just like medieval times in UK. They get into the houses (shacks) and the cess-cabins. You could get your bum bitten any time. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an outbreak of The Plague!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:10 AM

Yes, Rap, but would you share your living space with a Chimpanzee?

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Charmion
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:07 AM

When I lived in the village of Hügelsheim in west Germany, I experienced the invasion of field mice that followed the harvest. When the fields were made ready for winter -- cleared, ploughed and fertilized (God how that stank) -- the cute little varmints all moved into the village. On 1 October, you have no mice. On 3 October, you have many, many mice. Plus the black beetles under the water heater and the occasional brown rat.

In the country, the obvious solution to this problem is a cat, and that is how Emmeline Pankhurst came into my life. A small brown tabby creature, Emmeline was death on paws, responsible not only for making off with dozens of the tiny vermin every week but also, in her spare time, for terrorizing my landlady's Alsatian dog and driving off all the neighbour cats who had become accustomed to visiting me.

How did I know how many mice she killed? By the wee trophies laid out each morning beside the stove.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 08:55 AM

i won't go out of my will to kill tories(or republicans) that would be less than humane - but i won't share my living space with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 08:25 AM

I won't go out of my way to kill them, that would be less than human. But I won't share my living space with them if I can possibly avoid it. Of course, I won't share it with roaches, silverfish, flies, wasps, skunks or other things either.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 04:22 AM

I agree with you all regarding infestations of vermin. They're a health risk and cause damage inside the house. But I was lucky in that the only mice and rats in my house were ones the cats had caught and brought in. Many were actually sweet little wood/field mice with very large ears. I never had any living in the house, just these one-off individuals. I even had a rat which I saw clinging to the grid at the back of the fridge. He'd climbed up there to escape the three feline monsters on the floor below. I wheeled the entire fridge towards the back door and gently waved a broom at him. He had the sense to jump down and scarper. But a neighbour had a real infestation of rats. They'd chewed through electrical wires, insulation boards, furniture, and the electrocuted ones absolutely stank as they decomposed. She had to get the vermin-control man to put down poison and within a couple of weeks they'd all gone. I'd have had to do the same in her position.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 12:04 AM

Yes, the hanta virus. There was a young woman in Kansas, the state next to me, who died because she contracted the hanta virus when taking a dead mouse out of trap. In our house, the trap and the mouse go straight into the trash.

Mouse traps are cheap.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 08:57 PM

They also contaminate food and can spread hanta virus in their droppings -- among other diseases. Yes, they're cute and all but if it comes down to the mouse or me it'll be me. No, I don't like to kill things (I actually have the heart of a hunter: you kill it, you eat it) but I regard this as a form of self-defense.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 08:41 PM

I fully understand your feelings, Eliza. They're lovely little creatures, and I am sorry to hurt them, but once they've decided to take up abode in one's house, they can cause a great deal of damage, and they reproduce like mad.

If you catch them live, you've got to take them a loong way off or they'll be back in a day or two. (I have caught some live and released them several miles away.) I've also had mice perish miserably from thirst/hunger inside live traps when I didn't find them soon enough! Not a nice death.

When I was faced with a major infestation, I decided that the logistics of live entrapment were just too much to deal with, and I turned to the old-fashioned traps.

Mice or rats make great pets, by the way, as long as they remain pets, and they don't become feral. They're intelligent, playful, and affectionate.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 08:13 PM

As Jed Clampett said, "There's critters and there's varmints."

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 05:25 PM

I just couldn't kill a mouse or a rat. They're so sweet and furry. One of the mice the cats brought in was cornered in my dining room. I managed to get the Three Musketeers out of the room and returned to the little chap. He was up on his hind legs facing me, trembling all over and looking me bravely in the eye, begging for his life. My heart turned over, such pleading and terror in his eyes! I succeeded eventually in popping a plastic mixing bowl over him and gently slid a tray under it, then I carried him far down the field and set him free. He looked dazed for a second, then scurried off into the undergrowth. I shed tears about him, he was so small, vulnerable and thought he was going to die. I know I could never have snuffed out his tiny life.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Ed T
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 03:20 PM

How to catch a mouse:

Mouse hunting

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 03:06 PM

Live trap em and sell em on eBay. Or post a sign for selling them to neighbouring/hood children for pets :

Pet Mice!!!
10€ with shots
10c wihout shots
30 day warranty

You'll make pennies!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 01:16 PM

sometimes the mouse is prepared

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 12:45 PM

A wee piece of bacon also works without fail. They love it.

I had a huge mouse war here a couple years back, set traps all over the house, caught nearly 20 of them before they were all eradicated.

Every now and then a new one shows up and meets the same nasty fate.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 12:43 PM

Gnomad - that tee-shirt is sick, sick, sick! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 12:39 PM

This mouse is one of a line which come in at intervals. We have a small hole in the larder which we thought we'd stopped completely - but obviously not... Mice can get through amazingly tiny apertures.

The "Little Nipper" is very efficient - the trick is to get the spring held at the very edge so that the slightest movement of the bait triggers it. It's very powerful and kills instantly - I've seen it at work.

Over the years we've found that peanut butter seems to get good results. Cheese is no good - and chocolate's too good to waste on a mouse! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnomad
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 12:27 PM

Just be sure you aren't providing a mouse Leisure Centre.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 11:17 AM

The traditional ones aren't always fatal, the "catch and release" ones are, sometimes, and quit working for me. There IS a "better mousetrap" called "Jawz". It has a handle with a ratchet lock thing to set it, AND release it. No touching the dead mouse which easily drops out of the trap. It's good it has this, because I think it could easily break a finger. There is no thrashing.

Will, there is hardly ever just ONE mouse.

I like mice. I used to have pet mice. I don't plan on supporting a herd of free-range mice in my house, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 11:11 AM

I've always used humane traps in the past. My cats used to bring the poor things in alive then release them to play with. But I had proof that they came back for more. One of their victims had a very distinctive white mark on its back. It was caught several times in the humane trap. I always released it down the field ten minutes' walk away and the following morning, yes... "Hello again Mr White- Mark!" In this new house I haven't yet had any rodent problem. (Not yet... Wouldn't it be funny if it was Mr White-Mark again?)

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 11:08 AM

They can serve a useful purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: ranger1
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 10:38 AM

No, it's not always fatal. That's way my gran refuses to use snaptraps any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Rumncoke
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 10:33 AM

For bait I use 'Twix' - biscuit with a layer of caramel all chocolate coated - cut a small slice and stick the prongs of the tripper through the caramel layer with the biscuit underneath.

I think that an efficient trap which breaks the neck or smashes the skull is far more humane than any other sort - OK there might be a few seconds of thrashing, but the shock of impact must be fatal every time.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 09:55 AM

I agree with Kenny - Mars bars seem to be good bait. Cheese would appear to be popular myth.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 09:03 AM

Dirty, nasty, slitherin', beastie
Chewin' Will Fry's things so completely
Tonight he'll set out peanut butter,
And snap your neck and perhaps another's.

Sometimes the only way is not catch-and-release. My grandma used to catch them with the spring traps, dispose of the body, hold the trap over the stove burners to "kill the scent" and reset the trap. She said that after you caught two or three the "scent of death" would keep others away for a while. I dunno about that, but I once caught one which exsanguinated all over my kitchen floor.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: ranger1
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 07:55 AM

Peanut butter and oatmeal. They have a hard time resisting. I prefer catch-and-release myself, but it's not my cereal he's chowing down on.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 07:47 AM

Burns's mouse lived way out in the middle of a field. That made it easier to sympathize.

BTW, "Tae a Mouse" is one of the greatest poems in the more-or-less English language.

The switch in perspective at the end is killer.

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 07:39 AM

They are very partial to Mars bars
One chewed thro my plastic vinegar container
Keep setting your traps for at least a week, they have a "tell a friend"
system. In a musical sense its called "follow the dots"

Subject: RE: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: gnomad
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 07:36 AM

If the little ** has a peanut allergy (or has just got wise to your ways) then chocolate, works well. Cheese isn't as effective as the cartoons would have you think.

I suspect that Nutella would be very good, fortunately I haven't currently the conditions to check. My main problem would be keeping it just for its allotted purpose.

If you are into "catch and release" the same baits work well, but you need to remove the little blighters by a good mile or two, otherwise you are simply making them a bit more fit.

Subject: BS: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Jan 13 - 07:20 AM

...nibbling my carpet, shitting in the larder, chewing its way through plastic cereal boxes...

Tonight I shall prime the "Little Nipper" with peanut butter, set the spring catch oh so carefully - and SNAP the little bugger's neck before consigning it to the Darkest Deepest Pits of Burning Hell!!!

OK - it's just a mouse. So?