Plaidophile

A bit of syncrhonicity here. We've had a mouse running about for a few weeks and caught him this morning. We'd had no luck with normal traps, and so I bought "one of everything". What worked was a glue trap. Sticky stuff the mouse gets stuck in.

Of course, I wasn't thinking when I bought it...wasn't thinking about what happened after the mouse got stuck. See, it's essentially superglue. There's no removing the mouse, but it doesn't kill.

Which means that I was stuck (no pun intended) with a mouse glued to a piece of plastic. I could either throw it out, letting the poor thing die of thirst or...

It was cute, too.

Yeah, I don't want to use glue traps because they're pretty damn inhumane. Spring traps at least kill them instantly most of the time.

Aren't there non-lethal traps that allow you to catch them alive then release them off in the country, where owls and hawks and things with big teeth can take care of them, leaving you guilt-free?

Yeah, or in the case of New York, just release them on the sidewalk where they can compete for food in their already-crowded ecosphere and die of starvation.

Personally I was thinking of getting some non-lethal traps and then just throwing the mice out the window, since they'd get the thrill of unassisted flight for their last three seconds of life.

(Yes, I realize that mice are light enough that they wouldn't die from the fall but would instead just be seriously hurt, and that it'd be unbelievably cruel to do that. I wouldn't actually do that.)

Incidentally, the traps went untouched all night.

If you don't mind the stench while the mouse body rots, the poisoned mouse baits work quite well.

If using spring traps, put them 2 or 3 inches apart with the bait side facing each other. If the mouse starts sets off one trap, it will attempt to jump backwards and get caught in the other. For bait, don't use only peanut butter. Stick a piece of a corn chip in the peanut butter. Also, depending on how the mouse gets caught, spring traps can be just as cruel as glue traps.

Glue traps are, by far, the best at catching mice. If you check them with any frequency (and have a good pair of boots, or a decent set of shears) there is no reason for glue traps to be inhumane.

Once you have the mouse in the glue trap, put it in a plastic bag, and seal the bag. The mouse dies pretty quickly, going to sleep as the O2 runs out. I can't think of anything more inhumane than snap traps. I've had them break the mouses back, and suffocate it from the presure rather than killing instantly. <shudder>.

I would use the catch and release traps, except it would make me want to keep the mice as pets, and the wife would be irritated if I did that.

The kids would like it I bet though...

big fat idiot

If you don't mind the stench while the mouse body rots, the poisoned mouse baits work quite well.

I do mind.

If using spring traps, put them 2 or 3 inches apart with the bait side facing each other. If the mouse starts sets off one trap, it will attempt to jump backwards and get caught in the other. For bait, don't use only peanut butter. Stick a piece of a corn chip in the peanut butter. Also, depending on how the mouse gets caught, spring traps can be just as cruel as glue traps.

Good idea. I don't normally have peanut butter or corn chips though. (The traps have peanut butter on them 'coz the super had already baited them.) And yeah, I know they don't always get neatly decapitated/crushed/whatever in the spring traps but at least there's a chance they won't die too painfully, and at least dying of slow internal bleeding is quicker (and probably more comfortable) than dying of thirst/starvation.

Glue traps are, by far, the best at catching mice. If you check them with any frequency (and have a good pair of boots, or a decent set of shears) there is no reason for glue traps to be inhumane.

I couldn't stand doing the final deed, no matter how much I think I'd be capable of it. One time in Las Cruces a pigeon broke its neck trying to fly through my window and it was just lying there, twitching, staring at me, hoping for release, and I couldn't bring myself to actually kill it. So I siced Toby on it so it could die at least somewhat honorably, and Toby just chewed on it for a while and then left it to keep on dying slowly and painfully, which didn't exactly make me feel better.

I don't think suffocation is exactly a fun way to die. If I had to choose, I'd rather go with a quick blow to the head than to spend five minutes suffocating.

Maybe it's just because I'm an asthmatic and have vivid memories of almost going that sort of way..

I'm asthmatic too, and also have vivid memories of that. Then there was also the time when my "friend" thought it'd be funny to sit on my shoulders in the swimming pool and very nearly drown me (more aggravating was that the lifeguard was right there watching but thought we were just horsing around).

Still, suffocation is relatively brief compared to waiting for me to get home from work and noticing it struggling there, what with me usually going straight to bed when I get home.

I don't think suffocation is exactly a fun way to die. If I had to choose, I'd rather go with a quick blow to the head than to spend five minutes suffocating.

Trust me, it's a matter of seconds. Less than 30, in fact. Remember - a mouse is SMALL.

Yeah, and their energy consumption and metabolism are proportionally WAY higher than a human's.

Amusingly enough (okay, maybe not amusing, but coincidentally), I'm involved with some murine euthanasia in my workplace, so I know something about the topic. In the lab, we use a weird sort of mouse guillotine for killing them for studies. Not for the squeamish, though.

A source I found - http://labanimals.stanford.edu/Guidelines/CO2.html - suggests that the plastic-baggie method won't work too well unless mice exhale a lot more CO2 than I think they do. (The source suggests 100% CO2 for 45-60 seconds.) Linked from the same page, I found http://www.avma.org/resources/euthanasia.pdf. Unfortunately, that document doesn't give any really practical suggestions for mouse-killing.

Now let's all say it together: eeeyyywww.

(did anyone else notice the alternate text in the RSS?)

I wiped out about a dozen mice this way this year so far. Not a single one of them lasted more than 45 seconds. Note, that I did not leave a LOT of extra room in the bag for air though.

You can always suck the air out of a baggie, creating a vacuum which will speed along the process. If you don't want to get contaminated, use a hoover or, if you have one lying around, a vacuum pump.

My preferred method, though, remains a blunt object to the head. Quick and (relatively) quick and painless.

Could we talk about something else, please?

Look! Baby foxies!



Awww they're so cute! =D