Nope, no water involved. Besides, rats are good swimmers. Catch them live, they can't climb up the walls of the bucket. Then just dump them live where someone else can have fun with them!

Good to hear. Some of those bucket catchers have water so the mice drown. Probably not for rats, but the idea is that they have to swim indefinitely because they cant climb out with wet feet nor hop out (mice can jump really high) because they are in water not on solid ground.
Drowning is very inhumane though.

 

I like these for the larger mice and rats. For the smaller ones I find the following effective.

https://www.amazon.com/D-Ultra-Cove...ocphy=9027814&hvtargid=pla-319112719562&psc=1

I have tried a few variations of the bucket trap (rolling log, diving board, etc), and they are fairly effective but too often the mice evade capture.

They look pretty good too really. A little pricey though.

 

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I got up to read for a while. Soon, Licorice, our black cat, showed up, proudly showing me her latest catch.

Bob

Oh that's cool.
One think i forgot to mention too though, is that cats like to 'play' with the mice before killing them. I think that's a bit inhumane also. In the end i guess we have no choice sometimes due to the risk the little creatures pose to human life.

After trapping several with the kill trap now i see that the numbers are dwindling fast. That means they must have been coming back in once released outside.

 

One think i forgot to mention too though, is that cats like to 'play' with the mice before killing them. I

That s exactly what she proceeded to do. She would drop it, and when it ran, chase and capture is again. My wife claims that this is to wear them out so they cannot fight back, but it seems to me that one quick bite would dispatch them more safely.

Bob

 

A nature Journal a few years back:

Subject:
To Conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States.
We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.
Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality.
Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.
Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact.
P.S. Free ranging can include both owned and un-owned (Feral) cats

 

Snap traps like the ones MaxHeadRoom posted a picture of work best. It's best to hide the peanut butter under the trigger to be sure they trip it. I've had them lick the peanut butter off of the top without tripping the trap.

Cats can be good mousers but we (my wife being the crazy cat lady) had, at one time, nine indoor cats. Do you think any of them would catch a mouse inside? Nope! Interestingly enough, as well, mice carry parasites and other diseases that are harmful to cats. Go figure. It's one reason outdoor or feral cats rarely last into old age.

I recently renovated my house to fix a poorly built section. That section was to blame for the mouse problem that I had. Unfortunately black rat snakes love mice and also found the holes that the mice were using. Late summer that year, we ended up with 9 baby black rat snakes. I figured that was reason enough to do the renovations. My point to this tale is that you can try to close up the little holes that allow mice in. An ounce of prevention or something like that.

 

Snap traps like the ones MaxHeadRoom posted a picture of work best. It's best to hide the peanut butter under the trigger to be sure they trip it. I've had them lick the peanut butter off of the top without tripping the trap.

Cats can be good mousers but we (my wife being the crazy cat lady) had, at one time, nine indoor cats. Do you think any of them would catch a mouse inside? Nope! Interestingly enough, as well, mice carry parasites and other diseases that are harmful to cats. Go figure. It's one reason outdoor or feral cats rarely last into old age.

I recently renovated my house to fix a poorly built section. That section was to blame for the mouse problem that I had. Unfortunately black rat snakes love mice and also found the holes that the mice were using. Late summer that year, we ended up with 9 baby black rat snakes. I figured that was reason enough to do the renovations. My point to this tale is that you can try to close up the little holes that allow mice in. An ounce of prevention or something like that.

That reminds me, i have heard the phrase "That cat is a good mouser" i guess because some cats are and some cats arent.

Wow, i think i rather have mice than snakes

 

Wow, i think i rather have mice than snakes

I can see the pickets outside your house now - SLM, snake lives matter.

 

Fortunately all the natural occurring snakes here are all harmless!
In fact they eat Mice!

 

The mice might have a different opinion.

 

Well those Garter Snakes mostly eat worms and insects. The larger Rat Snakes eat mice and rats but also eggs and chicks. Not only from my henhouse but are very adept tree climbers and feast on wild bird and squirrel nests also.

 

I’ll vote for snakes. At least they don’t leave little turds all over your kitchen cabinets.

Bob

 

I’ll vote for snakes. At least they don’t leave little turds all over your kitchen cabinets.

Bob

Is it too much to ask for a home free of mice and snakes?

I vote for genetically engineered cute cuddly bunnies that have the intelligence of dogs (but don't chew your shoes), scare off pests like cats (but don't piss on your shoes because they have personality defects), that cuddle with your feet and keep them warm while you sleep, and don't suddenly and mysteriously die over night.

 

A recent

I vote for genetically engineered cute cuddly bunnies that have the intelligence of dogs .

A recent study on the animals that possess intelligence, dogs came out Very low on the scale. and failed the test.
The criteria was the ability to reason, Birds came out as one of the highest , next to primates.

 

A recent

A recent study on the animals that possess intelligence, dogs came out Very low on the scale. and failed the test.
The criteria was the ability to reason, Birds came out as one of the highest , next to primates.

I believe that such a study exists but I have first hand experience that contradicts its findings. Yes, birds are intelligent, some of them obviously as or more intelligent than dog. Dolphins are intelligent. Apes are intelligent. Elephants, raccoons, etc. Lots of intelligent animals. Their existence doesn't make dogs dumb. I'm sorry but an intelligence test that shows dogs to be unintelligent reflects more poorly on those who created the test, than it does on the dogs.

(However) just like with people, some dogs are idiots.

 

I can see the pickets outside your house now - SLM, snake lives matter.

When i was very young we used to catch eels fishing for minnows for bait. Those things look like snakes and have nasty, nasty teeth. Have to be very careful releasing them from the trap they bit and bit hard.
Lucky i never got bit.

I actually think mice lives matter (MLM) but unfortunately the disease they carry also matters and also unfortunately that trumps their lives, sad as that sounds. The little creatures are innocent little beings that came into the world due to the mating habits of adult mice and dont really deserve to die at a young age. However there is reason to believe they were already of breeding age due to the behavior they were exhibiting but unfortunately for them again that's all the more reason to want to get rid of them.,

The way i look at it now is that nature would have them killed in a more gruesome way such as by getting eaten by a snake or caught in a glue trap. So the snap trap is quick, more human.
It's a nasty business but human health and local laws demand it has to be done.

 

Fortunately all the natural occurring snakes here are all harmless!
In fact they eat Mice!

View attachment 251613

Yikes ha ha. Hate to see that in the back yard

 

Well those Garter Snakes mostly eat worms and insects. The larger Rat Snakes eat mice and rats but also eggs and chicks. Not only from my henhouse but are very adept tree climbers and feast on wild bird and squirrel nests also.
View attachment 251615

Oh so you breed chickens for eggs and meat food?
I once had a neighbor who did that the chicken coup looked pretty messy though.

I also knew someone long time ago who bred rabbits for meat food. He would break the neck to kill them. Dont think i would want to do that myself.

As a little side story, long time ago my dad used to shoot rabbits that would stray into the yard from the woods because they would eat stuff in the garden we planted. One day we came home and there was a rabbit in the yard so i got the bow and arrow out and he shot at the rabbit. It looked like he missed, but then the next day when i was walking home from school i thought i saw something in the area where he had shot the hunting arrow (those have like a razor blade at the end not a rounded point like a sharp pencil). I walked over to the area and saw sometime small and bushy on the ground. I bent over and picked it up and for a few seconds couldnt believe what it was. It was the complete tail of a rabbit! Amazing because that would mean that he shot the tail off the rabbit, and to do that with a hunting arrow on purpose is nearly impossible because not only does the arrow have to hit the animal in the exact spot near the back end (within maybe 1/8 inch) it also has to have the razor like tip oriented just right so it slices off the tail and doesnt just cut off some fur or something. The tip is like a flat razor with a tip that is pointed, so it's not like a sharp pencil it's more like the tip of a dagger, which is flat. To cut the tail off that means the arrow head had to be vertically oriented or at least nearly so. I'd say within maybe plus or minus 30 degrees from perfectly vertical, which means a 1 to 360/60 chance (1 to 6 , chance or 16 percent chance) of being oriented in the right p;lane in order to cut off the tail that cleanly.
We kept the tail but not sure what happened to it over the years. That was probably more than 50 years ago.
Oh wait, if we assume an angle of plus or minus 30 degrees that's 60 degrees but the arrowhead is symmetrical so it's more like 120 degrees so it's a 1 in 3 chance or max of 33 percent chance of being oriented right.

 

Yikes ha ha. Hate to see that in the back yard

I took that shot of them coming out of the dens in spring to mate.
The males all gather at the entrance to the den waiting for a female to come out.
As to shooting game, my grandfather was a 'professional poacher', i would see all kinds of things on my plate as a kid!

 

I can see the pickets outside your house now - SLM, snake lives matter.

I actually think mice lives matter (MLM) but unfortunately the disease they carry also matters and also unfortunately that trumps their lives, sad as that sounds. The little creatures are innocent little beings that came into the world due to the mating habits of adult mice and dont really deserve to die at a young age. However there is reason to believe they were already of breeding age due to the behavior they were exhibiting but unfortunately for them again that's all the more reason to want to get rid of them.,

Thank you for sharing your perspective. This topic is one that my mind gets drawn into from time to time and I spend an unreasonable amount of time pondering it each time. I find it curious the arbitrary value we humans place the lives of other creatures.

It all started several years ago, I started seeing pro-opossum posts on social media and then the next thing I know, opossums are no longer pests, and many people now even insist they are "cute." Their cause was taken up by SJWs same as disadvantaged human social group.

A few years later I posted a picture of a snake I had killed on Facebook, asking for help in identifying it. I was publicly and unceremoniously taken to task by an online mob of radical snake advocates. That blindsided me; prior to that experience my understanding of the world was that "the only good snake is a dead snake" was a perfectly valid and common sentiment, maybe even held by the majority. I think I was right in my understanding, but the world changed. Opossums and snakes came into vogue.

In my musings on the topic I came up with more questions than answers. Why is it "animal cruelty" to pierce a kitten through the face with a barbed hook and toss it into a pen of hungry dogs, but perfectly acceptable to do the same to a fish? Why is it ok to glue a mouse to cardboard but doing the same to a bunny would be inhumane? (But it's ok to bash in a bunny's head with a bat (so long as it's for the purpose of eating it)). Why is it ok to poison an entire colony, thousands of ants, but doing the same to a flock of birds would be a crime?

The tentative conclusion I've come to is that our perception of other creatures' value is just that, ours. It's totally subjective, inconsistent, and when you drill down to the foundation on a case-by-case basis, almost always totally selfish in nature. We almost exclusively assign value to animals proportional to the amount of utility they afford to us and/or the feelings they arouse in us. It has nothing to do with the actual animals; it, like most things, is all about us. So is it really just and right to criminally prosecute someone for punting a puppy when most of us have mouse traps set under our kitchen cabinets?

Just to clarify, I'm not pro-puppy-punting, nor am I anti-mouse-trap. I just find it intriguing to see an uncommon example of someone actually holding consistent views on this.