What to do with mice you catch alive? :/
Every Fall/Winter it's the same thing.
Timmy and his friends come to our house and start to cause havoc.
Bianca and I keep all the food in plastic boxes but for some reason, they like it here.
I do think mice are cute animals but not when they become a pest.
I tried pretty much everything to get rid of them (except for getting a cat..which is something I'm considering).
Poison does the trick, although I'm not a big fan.
They say it should be painless but more than once I have found a mouse randomly on the floor unable to move but still alive and looking miserable.
To speed up the inevitable I take them outside and kill them but you know...not great.
I also use the old skool traps that slam shut. Pretty painless when they hit the right spot but when they don't....again not great.
This year we are having surprisingly good results with this 'friendly' trap.
The perfect bait this year is brown bread with peanut butter.
This morning I caught 3 in the same box. That's impressive in more ways than I would like.
Problem is, now what?
I take them to the park and release them there but I don't even know if that's smart.
Will they become someone else's problem eventually or is it basically a death sentence because they can't survive in the wild anyway?
I even read HERE that mice can find there way back to your house if you release them to close and they advise to always kill them instead.
Though one really...anyone got some advice?
If you like cats, you should really consider getting one. They're pretty fun creatures and they keep your yard mouse free. You wouldn't believe how fast a cat can make a mouse disappear. Couple of chomps and a grown mouse is completely gone. The mouse population in our backyard is finished.
I am not a huge fan of cats, although I probably will become attached to one if we ever make that decision. I have never seen a cat eat a mouse..I'll take your word for it :)
I saw ours do it once in the summer of 2018. One bite and the front end of a mouse disappeared. I carried the back end to the compost on a shovel. Should've taken a photo but it would've been a bit too graphic to publish here. :)
How about a decent sized snake. I personally would not want one, but I know many do eat mice :)
Yea , I'll suggest cats too if you're a fan. They're natural terminators of rodents and do a very clean job with them..lol
Also, Mice are a delicacy to some people over here and when these people eat a cooked mice in their soup, they'll say, "That's great"
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Not sure if I ever want to EAT one....how do they prepare them? Can't be much meat on them.
Lol...these ones are pretty big and have a lot of meat as they've eaten quite alot. They are best prepared by grilling/ barbeque. It's sorta popular but I'm not a fan.
I had a huge rat infestation i my garden this summer. The rats came because i have rabbits that live outside in the summer and when i fed my rabbits the rats ate their food.
It was a bit cute when sometimes I would go over to their cage and there were a few rats eating out of the bowl together with the rabbits.
We first started with normal rat traps but there were so many that we didn't notice a difference. Rats are smart and only the babies got smacked by the traps. The adults would just flick their tail at thr bait.
Then we startet using poison and it worked really well but it was a bit sad when i saw some rats looking like they were drunk.
But i haven't seen any rats in a few months now. Probably because it's winter and the ground is covered in snow.
I saw a YouTube video about a poison that does not hurt the rats, but i don't know if it works on mice.
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Place near starving owl nesting sites
lol!
We have had the same problem on and off.
We have two kids who make a lot of snack/food mess so the mice are attracted to that - but we’ve since made a huge effort to meticulously clean up everything and we have filled up all the possible known access points too. They’ve 99% gone.
The snap traps we have are very effective in attractive them - and it kills them swiftly. We tried humane traps but never caught a single one!
Hope you get to make more waves in tackling the problem.
Great to see you posting about this @exyle - I’m always slightly embarrassed talking about the problem.
But it’s good (not good, but y’know) to see others talking about how they deal with the situation.
Glad you got rid of yours! I hope to get to the same result someday.
It's not great having mice and I guess it's not the proudest topic to talk about but I'm pretty open about these things and sometimes you pick up some good tips on Steem.
I agree with the cat suggestion. I was not a cat person, but the universe gifted us a little black kitten on our porch one rainy night after we moved in. He is an outside kitty and he is the reason why we have not had any rodent problems even though we live in a log cabin in the woods. I watched him take down 4 in a day with very little effort. Plus, just the smell of a cat around your property can deter rodents. Best of luck 🌱
You inspired a post - thanks @exyle 🌱
A quick check shows me mice have strong homing instincts and can be back in the vicinty of your home within 24 hours (others can take up to two weeks). The tests were done on distances of 600-1200m. My inclination would be to release them in open ground ... a bit further than 1200 away. House mice are a public health risk as they carry diseases - your local council or authority may have a web page about pest control and what to do. The cat sounds like a good option, although they can also leave you small gifts of mauled birds and rodents.
Stick with the humane trap and release them 2km away from your home. Simple, effective and you will feel much better from it...
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@exyle You can get plugins off the internet that are supposed to emit a sound the mice can hear. Snap traps work really well. If you catch any by the foot just drop the whole thing in a bucket of water. If I sound cruel, we were on 22 and counting. Finally they don't like the smell of peppermint oil so we have placed drops of that by the garage door (entry point) and haven't seen one since. very big crossed fingers. Good luck.
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