I just saw something very sad and tragic, but shows you gotta have thick skin.
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I just saw something very sad and tragic, but shows you gotta have thick skin.
I have thick skin, let’s see it
So the last couple days, theres been a mouse running around my house. So I set up some mouse traps.
I finally caught it this morning, but it was still alive so I let it go outside. It was moving around funny. Its legs and tail were paralyzed.
Now you are probably thinking, wouldn't it be worse if it was killed? No, thats means there would be no suffering involved. Thats the reason you shoot a dog in the head if it has 8 broken bones. But hopefully the mouse only had numb nerves and not a broken spinal cord. I don't know anyone that makes mouse wheelchairs.
The mouse to it's other mice friends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B0sFtRTlx4
How did you catch it? With those traditional mousetraps?
Yes, they rarely completely kill them. But I hope the thing just has numb nerves. It was quite unpleasant seeing a paralyzed mouse trying to run away from me.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMatthews
Believe it or not, I've got something of a gooey heart when it comes to animals. I think traps are pretty cruel in general and I could never bring myself to deliberately harm or kill a rat or a mouse.
That being sad, I do see rodents as "lesser" animals who are pretty much put on the earth to die, so it doesn't really affect me too much to hear about them biting it. If the trap or poison didn't get them, a bird or a cat or a dog or a giant cockroach surely will.
So here's a couple "rodent in peril" stories! (Anyone who didn't like Yharnam's original story might just want to skip the rest of this post).
My grandma had a rat problem in her house, so she put a couple rat traps up in the attic, just inside the access in the garage ceiling. One night an especially large rat got caught in one of the traps, and it flopped and thrashed around so much it bounced the trap right through the open access door. Somehow, the pin of the trap mechanism got caught in the door frame, so it left the rat/trap combo dangling through the open door. When my grandma found it, the rat was quite dead ... but it had been drooling blood and gore down onto her car for a solid day or two.
I don't care who you are, that's kinda funny.
At my previous job, all the office people would snack all day and leave food everywhere, so of course this led to a rodent infestation. The office managers used the WORST kind of traps: those horrible glue pads. One morning I was in the office early and heard a commotion over by one of the desks. I found a struggling mouse stuck to one of the pads. He must have just gotten stuck, because so far only his feet were glued down. Eventually they get so exhausted from struggling that they lay down and get their entire bodies glued. I can't imagine what an awful, terrible death that is for the poor things.
Anyway, I grabbed a glove and started working on the little guy, trying to peel him off the pad as slowly and gingerly as I could. I was afraid I'd end up ripping his little feet off or pulling his limbs out of their sockets. But with a little patience and care, I managed to free him in one piece from the pad and let him go outside. Hopefully he warned his friends about coming into our office again.
I live in an old Victorian home and we get field mice in through the back garden that wonder into the house. Nothing can be done to stop them, trust me, I've tried. Anyways, the point of my post is I agree with MrMatthews - sticky traps are the worst type of trap.
I sussed they were using a hole in the back of the second floor cupboard as a way to travel around, so I layed one down there. Note I had tried other types of trap in the past and nothing worked, they would avoid them, but not the sticky one. It got one. And my god, it was the most saddest thing I've ever seen. I won't go into any more details, but I swore off using anymore after that.
My advice? Don't bother with traps. Get a cat. You won't stop them, but you can deter them. I have three and we still get the occasional mouse wonder in, but all my three cats scare them off (they've never caught one, but their presence and I guess their smell is all that is needed).
Our cats are completely useless. I once found a mouse in the bottom of a feed bucket, and I stuck a cat in it. The cat just looked at me like, "why'd you stick me in a bucket?"
For roof rats the best method would be those rattex poison pellets. They won't go for them right away as anything new in the environment they patrol will first be avoided. But after a couple days they'll chew down on the poison.
The idea is to poison them but not to the extent that they'll die there and then and stink up the roof. Just enough to get them to come out and go to their death elsewhere. Preferably outside the property.
I'm not cold-hearted. Am I? :p
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thierry Henry
We get a lot of water leaks around here because of rat poison. It drives them mad with thirst, so they chew into water lines in the attics and walls, causing a bunch of property damage before they die.
That's true about the water. Fortunately though our South African rats are considerate enough not to cause that type of damage. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by MrMatthews
The one issue with the poison thing is the danger to ones pets. Luckily our dogs are not into rat meat. lol
Still gotta be careful though that those pesky rodents don't contaminate the water bowls.
Honestly to me it seems like you were just hoping for some easy entertainment.Quote:
Originally Posted by sidewinderl
Poisons can also be a threat to predators such as owls, foxes, hawks and eagles if used on outdoor vermin. And there will always be some rats or mice that simply will not eat poisoned bait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thierry Henry
Most farmers in the US will have what are called barn cats - not pets at all (they are basically feral) but they live on the farm and their sole purpose (from the farmer's point of view) is to keep rodents under control.