Catching a mouse!

I know I have more than one.  I don't mind but just want them out of here!!  So far peanut butter has not worked.....

I could cohabit with a mouse/mice if only they wouldn't scratch. Dumb little things. They could have it so nice if they just learnted stealth techniques.

So far peanut butter has not worked.....

meow

what about that rodent poison stuff you can get? it makes them thirsty so they go ouside.  I am not sure where you get it from though, but it does work, we had mice at my work and that is what the pest control guys used.

If peanut butter isn't working in the humane trap, it's probably the trap. Try it in the old-fashioned snap-trap. Yes, it's death...but in most cases, it's a quick, clean death (at least for him...it can be a bit nasty for you). That's next best, honestly. Those glue traps are just evil. In fact, I thought I read they were about to be outlawed...and in the UK, not the US. That's death via several days of terror and starvation. Mice may be vermin, but they're clever little boogers and fully able to appreciate the experience.

Bob, you old heathen, those little verminy brown mice were often kept as pets, and sometimes still are.  Here are instructions on taming wild mice from the early 19th C, though plenty of modern sources can be found via Google. Fancy rats and mice are just a few generations bred up from that. The practice of breeding and exhibiting show rats (yes, really) was started by Queen Victoria's ratcatcher, and rat and mouse breeding has been a popular hobby ever since. Among geeks, I mean. It's been years, so I think my other half may have forgiven me dragging him to a rat show at the London and Southern Counties Mouse and Rat Club. (No, I was not an exhibit).

That said, mice in the house simply have to go. They're destructive and unhealthy houseguests. We haven't had luck with the humane traps (though I want to try again when I'm there in residence), so I allow Himself to use the snap traps. It's a far nicer death than mice can expect in the wild.

We used poison against rats when I was a kid, but the results weren't always satisfactory.

Yeah I'm thinking it's the traps as well. I think the next step is now the snapping ones...I agree about the glue ones, they're horrid.  My friend who was just staying with us said she thought she heard that the mice try to rip themselves out of them and sometimes pull their limbs off!  Yuck.  Anyway I will have to be the one to dispose of the mice if/when they get caught.  DH will say that if I want to use those snapping traps, then I have to be responsible for the clean up.   

Get the poison, honestly. There is no clean up because they go outside to die.

Here are instructions on taming wild mice from the early 19th C, though plenty of modern sources can be found via Google. Fancy rats and mice are just a few generations bred up from that. The practice of breeding and exhibiting show rats (yes, really) was started by Queen Victoria's ratcatcher, and rat and mouse breeding has been a popular hobby ever since. Among geeks, I mean. It's been years, so I think my other half may have forgiven me dragging him to a rat show at the London and Southern Counties Mouse and Rat Club. (No, I was not an exhibit).

Stoatula, are you a rodentologist or merely a rodentophile?? I was wondering, what with the stoats, weasels, mice and rats! Yes, I know stoats and weasels are technically mustelids, but they still have that evil rodenty pointy face!

Yeah, yeah...you got Travolta as an avatar, and you have the gall to remark on MY evil face?

Just a garden variety rat-hugger, me. I grew up on a sort of farm (more like big unproductive piece of land). My mother was good with animals, so people were always sticking us with exotic pets they couldn't handle. Monkeys and raccoons and stuff. It was fun. I'm especially fond of mustelids (I'm so getting a ferret once we settle), but rodents of various kinds seem to intersect my life improbably often.

I'm very fond mice, but you (geetak) mustn't feel guilty for getting rid of them, no matter how you have to do it! They chew and pee and have babies in your sock drawer and generally make bad houseguests.

Yeah, yeah...you got Travolta as an avatar, and you have the gall to remark on MY evil face?

What? Where?

Hee! I love ferrets, too, so good for you for getting one! A friend of mine has two chinchillas that she's particularly partial to! But ... mice? That's a different story. Yes, geetak -- get rid of 'em!

Bob, you old heathen,

Oi! Less of the old, I resemble that remark.

Just to let people know, I could not get the normal mouse trap in Burma, the only kind of snapper was a thing that looked like a bear trap. It had big snarly teeth and an even bigger spring! and I didn't fancy that coming down on my foot in the middle of the night (I don't like the idea of pee all over the floor and I kinda think any thought of bladder control would go right out the window). I suspect they were for rats or stoats  (they were made in Australia). I didn't fancy poison because you don't really know what you are getting in these faraway places. And like I said we tried the glue but that really made me feel sick because no living creature should die like that. Also glue does not discriminate against which animal it traps.

In the end I just gave up and learned to talk to them. Along with the birds, snakes and gekos that adopted us.

I suspect they were for rats or stoats  (they were made in Australia).

Stoats, I bet. In the late 19th Century, the Chief Rabbit Inspector (!) of New Zealand deliberately imported a shipment of stoats to help keep the rabbits down. The stoats, being given to exotic tastes, went immediately for the kiwis (by which I mean the small, flightless bird, not the denizens of NZ). They've been fighting a losing battle against weasel kind ever since.

I think Australia is still weasel-free (one of the few spots on earth that is so), but they would've found a ready market next door for all the big, ugly traps they could possibly manufacture. Stoats breed fast.

OK well I briefed DH today on the discussion and he agrees - have to get the poison and/or the traps!  DH is a tree hugger type so not excited about putting poison in the kitchen.  But it looks like that's the next step....eeek I am not looking forward to it but as belindaloo and Stoatula said, it must be done...

 

sorry to say but I had terrible luck with the poison---they do not always go outside to find water before they die! The smell of dead mice in your walls is nice pleasant!

poison perhaps not only mice? and if they don't make it outside... will you hear them scratching? ...they will die slowly either inside or out

if you are not opposed to killing them, then as stoatula said snap is normal quick and relatively painless (note relative to other methods, not that it is painless). I do know if someone was gonna kill me I would take a broken neck over taking days of agonising pain anytime.

I would trap em and be done.

Has anyone ever heard of any such thing on the market that zaps them like the fly zappers?

Has any one ever seen how the farmers hang, or used to hang, dead mice on fences arounf the field? Is that really going to deter a mouse from entering the field?

I'm going to bring up the electronic sound thing I bought again...it is humane!!  And doesn't kill anything!!!  And we haven't seen the mouse again in 9 months!  Homebase has 'em!