Getting rid of mice without hurting them?
 

I got a new flat, trouble is there is at least one mouse hanging about. I don't mind them as such but having them uninvited doesn't do much for the vibe of the place. Anyone had experience with getting rid of mice in a non-violent way? I remember Steve actually requesting stuff of animals and getting his requests respected. But I don't know if I can expect that to work for me xD

Ultrasonic Pest Control Devices High frequency sounds that send the little beasts scampering for peace and quiet, but that humans can't hear.

I use live traps and transport them to a park.

Cool stuff, thanks guys :)

Get a cat?

Might hurt the mice, but that's nature. And besides, often just the smell of a cat will have the mice find other places to be... :)

Had thought of that but if I can get rid of the mice without killing them even better! Cats can eat vegan catfood, hey it's not natural but nature can be cruel sometimes... humans have the power to do something different if they choose.

I usually feed mice with cookies when they live in the same place as I do. I love mice! :)

..this won't help you to get rid of them, though..

P.S. This is not a joke, I'm totally serious!

:)

This is what we did as well. You can buy traps that won't kill the mice in retail stores, but then you have to transport the mice away from your house. It works for a little while, but mice seem quite smart. They learned to avoid our traps. Eventually, they left on their own as I believe they only took over our garage because it was so freakin cold.

If it is really just one mouse, it might not be a problem. I'd get rid of them quickly before you have a little mice family living with you though. :D

For awhile, I could hear a mouse in the crawlspace here, and it wouldn't go in the trap. I knew it had found the trap because it was pooping on top of it. :p Then one day I found poop inside the trap and realized it was going in there, eating the bait and then getting out again. Quite a smart mouse! I told everyone the mouse was using the trap as a toilet.

So I had to go buy a more expensive live trap. The next morning I found two culprits in there. I shook my finger at them and reprimanded them for using the other trap as a toilet.

I have a cat too, but my cat is a catch-and-release cat. (Andrew, you might like that!) If a mouse gets in the basement, the cat brings it upstairs and lets it loose. Then I have to chase it around and catch it. I put on a glove and just pick it up when it gets confused and into a corner or something. Then I put it in the live trap or an old coffee can and off we go to the park.

Cats are obligate carnivores. Please do not do this to your cat...

I don't know anything about vegan cat food, but I would be very careful about following this route. A lot of it seems to be kibble, which I don't think is a good idea to rely solely upon. I fed Maya dry food for the longest time as I don't have much money. It was a cheap thing to do. But I ended up bringing her to the Vet as she was bleeding while having bowel movements. It turned out she was really dehydrated and had a protein deficiency. She stopped bleeding once I introduced wet food into her diet. (Bringing her to the Vet more or less cancelled out all my savings, btw. :rolleyes:)

Cats are weird. Or may be it is just my cats. Maya doesn't really drink that much and much of her hydration comes from the wet food that she eats. You'd think she'd just go drink from her water bowl, but she doesn't.

The site I'm reading says that cats tend to suffer from urinary tract problems, which can be exacerbated by a plant protein diet as well, regardless of whether it is wet or dry food.

I won't repeat the good advice already here, but I will add this.

Make it impossible for them to get food. Seal EVERYTHING and be spotlessly clean.

They will leave, unless you miss something, or they have a source they can bring inside and stash.

What type of building do you live in Andrew? It might help to find where the mice are entering and block off those access points. The building I lived in previously was really old and had a lot of cracks in the walls. I suspect, if I had chosen to live there longer, the mouse infestation would be a reoccurring theme each winter. If your building is really old and run down, may be you should move at the next convenient time? My experience was a good learning experience though. It never even occurred to me to inspect the house for cracks when I first moved in. There isn't a hope in hell that I would move into such a run down building again in the future after the whole mouse fiasco though. It caused more problems than just having mice. They more or less trashed our garage and it smelled like barn for ages afterwards. The landlord was really pissed off. :rolleyes:

It is an oldish house, I paid an entire month's agent fee to get this damn thing so I hope to hell I don't have to move out immediately. The mice aren't trashing the house though, I only saw them flit across the floor twice.

Re: vegan cats: rest assured that if I ever get a cat I will think of this a bit harder.

I had the thought yesterday that I could combine cruelty-free eggs with vegan catfood. Possibilities.

It's interesting to note that the Guinness world record for the longest life for a cat was a vegetarian cat.

I suspect that, like with humans, different cats respond in different ways to this diet.

I think I'd prefer a more naturally vegetarian pet anyway though. Ironically, about a month ago I was thinking seriously about getting a mouse ^^

Thanks, love. ;)

I love, love, love cats, and I know they are carnivores. My cat is a predator to the core. So I kind of cringe when people talk about feeding them vegetarian diets...

I've heard that the longest lived dog was a vegetarian, but I haven't been able to confirm it (and having had dogs my whole life, I kind of doubt it, but I'll concede the possibility because dogs have a wider range of things they can eat).

But many cats and dogs suffer health problems from eating kibble with grains in it -- obesity and diabetes, same as people, actually. And cats actually can't digest plant matter at all -- they lack the enzyme to do it.

Also, my dog plays fetch -- my cat plays "stalk the prey." Like I said, predator to the core. I've watched her stalk bugs, play with them, then eat them while they were still alive. I definitely wouldn't recommend a cat if you can't handle such things (I was cringing, myself).

Anyway, to get back on topic, we originally got a cat (partially) because we had a terrible mouse problem that we couldn't get rid of. We lived in this big country house, and we tried all the no-kill traps first, and the sound-stuff, but it was cold outside and warm inside, so they kept coming. That kitty never made it to adulthood (he drowned :(), but he was also a catch-and-release cat -- and his presence terrified the mice so much that they packed up and moved out.

My current cat would kill them all quite happily, though, I have no doubt of this.

Anyway! I agree with the advice to secure the perimeter as much as possible. If you can prevent them getting in, you can trap the ones inside and move them to a more suitable location.

Ha!! LOA at work? ;)

Oh, what fun! :D

My cat brought in a live bird once. We got it away from her, it flew, terrified into a corner, we shooed the cat out of the room and shut the door, and then caught the frightened bird (by dropping a towel on it, in case anyone ever needs to know how to catch a bird). It wasn't injured at all as far as we could tell, and we released it and it flew away. When the cat came back in, she searched for that bird for hours. "I know I put it down in here... where did it go?!"

I like Angela's suggestion. It sounds perfect. (Although it wouldn't work for me, because I have pet mice; they have become completely used to the smell of the cat, who couldn't care less about them, anyway.)

Won't preventing a cat from killing mice devastate the ecosystem?

I second this. Cats will sicken and die on a vegan diet. Likewise, rabbits should not eat steak.

You could however, feed you rabbit to your cat. That would be kind of vegan wouldn't it? ;)

If you mean "diet composed of vegans" then yes! It would! (Please do not, however, feed your cat to your rabbit.)

The ecosystem of Andrew's apartment?

i put something delicious inside a lunchbag size paper bag, & lay it on it's side, open. critter goes in, and i scoop up the bag and carry it outside... for larger critters a wastepaper basket works too.

of course this is labor intensive cause you have to hover; out of the immediate area where the bag is, but close enough to see it and grab it up right away. but i've used this method successfully when kitty brings critters in the house, i praise her for her grand hunting abilities, :D then i catch critter and let him out. sometimes we 'hunt' together... she'll find the area where it's hiding, paw at it and howl, and i move the furniture to get at it. fun! :d haha

Even if they don't appear to be visibly trashing the place, rodents instinctively chew on what is accessible to them. It's not ideal if they chew through your furniture and wall insulation, but it will be downright dangerous when they start on electric cables - bad for you and for them. A house is no safe place for a mouse.

Clean up all the food they could have access to. Put all your food in glass or plastic containers with lids. You can store many things in the freezer, too (coffee, sugar, all your grain products). Your trash should also be well sealed.

Call up your local humane society or equivalent, they sometimes have programs to lend effective humane traps (as they can be expensive).

That's an interesting solution!

I feed them jelly beans.:)

We have mice where I have just moved to...but we also have two cats...so the mice don't stick around for long.

And they actually eat them? :confused::d

Be careful. If they start multiplying fast, there could be a problem of infestation.

I have heard about this book which has effective tips and tricks on farm living. It may have something on mice too. The author lived in Spain, by the way. :)

Amazon.com: The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable (9780571161164): Juliette de Baïracli Levy: Books

Well, I never saw it for myself...but I did see the remaining jellybean, with little bits missing, and teeny weeny bite marks...:d

That will happen whether they eat her cookies or not.