I have a mouse that needs to be shown the door. Anyone have a hungry cat that needs a vacation?
Loan me your cat
Comments ... #
Try a humane trap.
posted by OhioKimono on Jan 31, 2010 at 01:22:31 am #
or an INhumane snap trap. They're cheap enough that if you catch something you can just pitch it trap and all. Use peanut butter for bait and you're all set.
I have a proven mouser but he's gainfully employed just now.
The most effective trap is glue paper. Bell Labs makes it. After the glue trap comes the old fashioned snap trap with peanut butter bait.
Bell Labs also makes a spinner trap that sort of works. It looks something like a hockey puck. The mouse goes in and the exits close, trapping the critter in the center. If you see the trap closed, add a label and send it to PETA.
2 cats at our place, but the "billy method" above always works faster.
posted by justareviewer on Jan 31, 2010 at 12:53:36 pm #
Don't get a glue trap, that is just mean. Snap traps are good, but can easily have a false snap. I have had the best luck with an electronic trap. Bait one end, mouse comes is and ZAP!. Just open the top and he falls in the trash.
Glue traps are the worst, and the messiest. Animals chew off their limbs, rip out their fur, and make alot of noise as they die over the span of a few days. It is not a fast death, but a long, messy, slow one.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 01, 2010 at 12:18:43 am #
sledgehammers, shotguns and gernades pretty much take care of most problems these days.
Years ago, when I had a mouse problem and two lazy cats, I bought a humane trap. I baited it with peanut butter and crackers, and caught the little buggers.
The trick is, when you let 'em go, you have to do it far from your house. Otherwise, they just come right back in. At the time, I was living in the Library Village, area, so I would drive the mice to Woodlawn Cemetery so they could live with the dead people.
We also found where they were getting into the house, and stuffed the hole with steel wool -- something mice can't chew through.
Free, DIY, humane trap... Seriously easy and worked for me when I lived out in the country. Good luck!
So, after you catch a mouse with a "humane" trap, what do you do with them, put them outside so they can come in again?
They're vermin, kill them.
With a humane trap, you take them a distance away such as to a nearby metropark or wooded area and let them go. People posted what to do several times over already.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 01, 2010 at 03:24:18 pm #
Then again, you can always take the little critter over to your enemy's house. 8-)
Just don't get caught releasing foreign animals in the Metroparks or you can get a ticket with a huge fine. It is also illegal to trap and relocate: skunks, raccoons, opossum,beaver, coyote, or fox. Those animals have to either be re-released on site, or euthanized
posted by lfrost2125 on Feb 01, 2010 at 04:44:52 pm #
Yeah, nobody complained about my letting the mice go in the cemetery. Somehow, I don't think the residents cared one way or the other.
If you didn't have the cemeteries permission no matter if anyone complained or not it was illegal.
posted by lfrost2125 on Feb 01, 2010 at 04:50:52 pm #
1501:31-15-03 Nuisance wild animal regulations.
Animals shall not be released on public or private property without the permission of the landowner. Except any raccoon, skunk, beaver, coyote, fox, or opossum that is trapped or taken shall be euthanized, or released on site.
posted by lfrost2125 on Feb 01, 2010 at 04:52:03 pm #
I stopped having any sympathy for mice once I found out how much they shit all over your kitchen when they invade at the start of winter.
One of the most inhumane traps is the sticky trap, as some have already commented on. They scream and take a long time to die. Only used it once. Never again. The most effective is the wood trap. It's quick.
Poison seems to take a while, too, and the mice are exposed to the environment - a cat or hawk could get to it and die.
"... hawk could get to it and die."
That is true. Raptors see an easy meal: a disoriented, poisoned mouse.
Like Ace_Face, I also use a battery-operated mouse trap box that zaps the mouse. Victor Electronic Mouse Trap. It's simple, clean, and quick. It's rated humane.
Also, dont trap and release animals into farm land, obvious reasons.
If you must kill, go humane with the zapper. Glue traps are terrible: mess, sounds, alot of suffering over the span of days.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 01, 2010 at 11:23:00 pm #
The toilet paper tube with peanut butter over the bucket worked. I now have a new pet. His name is Mike.
AWWW! PICS!
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 02, 2010 at 11:47:36 am #
He got away...
I used a five gallon paint bucket and some long tongs to examine my catch. I left the tongs hanging over the side of the bucket and that crafty Mike must have used them to climb out.
The trap is reset. The next test will be Mike's learning curve.
Bobo, you'll have to start your own blog now, "The adventures of catching Mike the Mouse." Too funny.
And so the saga begins! Keep us updates!
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 02, 2010 at 06:06:19 pm #
Updated....geez, Im having a 'special' day.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 02, 2010 at 06:06:36 pm #
He won this battle. Cleaver little bastard.
Man versus mouse.
I advocate the cat method first. Exercise and food for my feline and a pest free home for me. Kind of a win-win situation.
I don't like using poison because it's indiscriminate; anything that eats it dies. Still, if you are trying to enforce a scorched earth policy not much beats poison. The actual poison used for pest control hasn't changed much over the years. What has changed is the bait, which has shown significant improvement over the last five years.
Secondary poisoning is pretty much a thing of the past these days. A predator would have to eat several times its own weight in poisoned prey before feeling any ill effects at all. The rare exceptions to this involve individual allergies, much like a person's allergy to, say, penicillin or bee stings.
The trouble with using poison indoors is that the rodent will return to its nest before conclusively proving the efficacy of the poison. If the nest is inside a wall of the house, the dead and (now) decaying rodent will stink the place up.
For trapping, the glue trap works better than anything. The bait is included in the glue and the trap is automatically reused without the need for being manually reset. Just set out a glue trap and come back in a week or two to replace the trap. It may interest some of you to know that the vast majority of critters caught in a glue trap suffocate due to having the nose glued shut - a variant on the snap trap, which, contrary to popular myth, does not always break the critter's neck but instead condemns the critter to a slower death of suffocation, or an even slower death of dehydration.
The trouble with mice and 'humane' live traps is that if you catch more than one mouse the mice will immediately begin to fight. The smaller the enclosure, the more violent the fight. The victor devours the loser.
I have some expertise in this area, having spent two years working for Bell Labs in Madison, Wisconsin. Bell makes the better mousetrap, glue boards and rat poison. Bell also makes live traps which is how I learned about the inhumanity of live traps.
"Secondary poisoning is pretty much a thing of the past these days."
That's false. Raptors, especially eagles, succumb to lead poisoning by eating left-behind dead animals killed with lead shot.
May 2009 news story Poisons Found in Birds of Prey
The worst [rodenticides] contain anti-coagulant chemicals that, once ingested by a rodent, cause internal bleeding and eventual death. What’s less known about these deadly rodenticides is that they are potentially lethal to other animals, especially birds of prey, for which rats and mice are a steady meal.Nearly a dozen rodenticides have been named by the Environmental Protection Agency as posing “significant risks to wildlife, including birds, such as hawks and owls, and mammals, including raccoons, squirrels, skunks, deer, coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, and bobcats.” The poisons are also a danger to pets like house cats, which can eat infected mice and become sick, and dogs, which often eat the poison itself.
Yet few regulations exist that protect “non-target” animals against ingesting the poisons.
“These poisons are killing owls and hawks and pets, and no one is talking about it,” says Rebecca Dmytryk, founder of WildRescue, a non-profit animal emergency service based in Moss Landing. “Once an predator like an owl eats a rodent that is poisoned, it can stay in the owl for four to six weeks, and it builds up. The problem is that the birds can appear to be behaving normally until it’s too late.”
And since a rodent poisoned by rodenticide is often disoriented, it becomes easy prey for the birds—in fact, poisoned prey can make up a significant part of the birds’ diet.
Bobo, good luck! Looks like you are on your way to winning the war.
Mice and rats are community animals, they live in groups. Its rare that such animals will fight to the death and then in turn eat one another. Not to mention it is rare to catch two animals at once. If the two animals are caught together in the first place, odds are they were already friendly with one another and out looking for food with one anothers company.
Canniablism with animals happens usually as a result of starvation. That if you dont free them after a while, yea they will go crazy. That is why you should check your traps regularly.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 03, 2010 at 03:39:09 am #
Ive been having some mouse problems as well:
Monday - went to Home Depot and bought the elec trap that jr highlighted for $19.99.
Very simple to set up. Tuesday morning - no mice...Tuesday - home from work, one dead mousie. Dumped him out, reset the trap. Wednesday morning, another dead mousie...
Some times it takes a bit for the mice to find the trap, but these elec ones are great, and my wife- who is squeamish about the whole process had no problem with picking up the trap, knowing there was a dead mouse in it, walking over to the garbage can, opening the trap lid, and dumping the dead mouse...
We keep our dogs in the garage during the day, so that means snap traps are out, sticky traps are out, poison is out...
Great plan, Billy.
I get rid of vermin in my life the old fashioned way - .357 magnum
One day my cat was playing with a mouse for quite a while as my pet duck, Aflack, watched intently. Then she waddled over to the mouse, picked it up and threw her head back and swallowed it whole as if to say, "Now that's how it's done you stupid cat"!
Ducks are better mousers than cats.
Hey Bobo-
I'm glad my DIY mouse trap worked for you! And sorry to hear about Mike's escape. Have you recaptured him? Does he have a cage yet?
You know he's transcended from pest to pet when you gave him a name :P Keep us posted! It is a curious story.
That first experience with captivity must have freaked Mike out. The trap has been set and untouched for days.
I kinda miss my little buddy.
Bobo, maybe you should rent the movie Mouse Hunt. I was dealing with a pretty smart mouse that I just couldn't seem to catch when the movie came out. It seemed to eat the peanut butter bait just before the lever would go off on the wood trap. Christopher Walken's character made it pretty clear that you should not let the mouse see you set the trap. If Mike has already been in the trap, he'll steer clear of it.
Long story short.
Mike and his family quickly got out of hand. The amount of mouse poop in my pantry was way higher last week so I went down to the Andersons and bought four of the Victor electronic traps.
First day, Mike and three of his family confirmed dead.
Second day, two more confirmed kills.
The Victor traps work very well.
I'll miss Mike.
Thank you for being so kind as to use a humane trap.
posted by OhioKimono on Feb 23, 2010 at 04:35:28 pm #
The electronic mouse traps have killed eleven mice and now it's been quite for a week.
I that a typical number to kill off the group? Have they wised up? Moved out?
Rest assured that they have not moved out. Once they move in, they're in for the duration.
Eleven is pretty good. There may be one or two more, so I'd keep the traps set for another week just to make sure there aren't any more adult mice wandering around. No need to worry about the baby mice - when mama mouse succumbs to the trap, the babies will expire quietly in a few days.
I had focused the traps in the kitchen and pantry. Maybe it's time to zap a few in the garage and shed.
Our cat is 25lbs. The mouse can run around him and chant.
Maybe he could sit on your mouse with luck!
posted by Molsonator on Jan 30, 2010 at 11:40:19 pm #