Getting Rid Of Mice Humanly

[Theory5]

Hi. Last week I discovered I had mice in my apartment, so my roommate went out and bought some mouse traps for me to set. I placed them to the side of the stove because I had heard them running around inside and underneath. Yesterday one of my traps went off and it went under the stove somehow, it had dried blood on it, so I am assuming the mouse must have gotten caught but escaped. I have two standard mouse traps, and one horribly vicious one with plastic spikes that says "Jawz" on it (it was here before I moved in). I was hoping that if I couldn't save them to at least give them a quick end but that probably isn't going to happen. Is there a way to get rid of them humanly? Back home we have mice in our basement ceiling (fully furnished basement), and my dad said that the traps that catch the mice without killing them don't work. Short of getting a cat and letting it do all the dirty work (or perhaps I can borrow the neighbors cat :-P ) is there something I can use that won't end their lives?

[Chemnut]

Bobcat urine crystals.

 

They work for about a month before you need to replace them. The smell of a known predator sends them running.

[Turtle]

good grief! :doh: humanely?? really?? good grief.

 

Prevent rodent infestations

 

Diseases directly transmitted by rodents

 

Diseases indirectly transmitted by rodents

[granpa]

the most humane way to kill anything is to suffucate it with any gas except carbon dioxide.

the animal falls asleep and never wakes up.

its the buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood that causes the painful feeling of needing to breathe.

no carbon dioxide = no pain

 

dont use poisen. They are designed to kill slowly so kids wont be killed.

 

trapping them and releasing them in the wild is probably no different from killing them slowly.

 

cats break their necks. Its not painless but at least its relatively quick

[Boerseun]

Put a TV on with the "Eurovision" contest playing on an endless loop. That will drive all rodents in your house completely batshit to the point of committing mass suicide.

 

I don't exactly know how humane it is to force them to watch "Eurovision", though.

[Theory5]

Bobcat urine crystals.

 

They work for about a month before you need to replace them. The smell of a known predator sends them running.

Do you know where I could purchase this? And would it be as inexpensive as traps?

 

Also I haven't seen any in a while so I think it could have been just the one, or the blood on the trap scared them away.

 

Oh, C'mon turtle, mice are cute, these guys are small and brown with big ears.

 

Granpa, most gas can also kill people too. I live in a three family house, and even though I'm on the first floor I don't think the landlord would be comfortable with me using gas.

[granpa]

I meant trap them then gas them.

(I didnt mean poisen gas if that is what you think. Poisen gas would fall under the 'dont use poisen" part of my post)

[Mortonc3]

Well most societies are against murder...so you can't kill them if you want to be humane. Trap and release might work, but live traps are expensive. So that leaves keeping them from coming in to begin with. To do that you should go around your apartment or house and identify points of entry (check for screens on vents, cracks in concrete or drywall, etc.) Also remove attractants from the areas you have problems. If there isn't food or shelter they probably wont hang out long.

[Turtle]

 

Oh, C'mon turtle, mice are cute, these guys are small and brown with big ears.

 

 

did you read the links i gave? the first gives the methods to get rid of them, the next 2 list the diseases they carry. it's a no brainer.

[Turtle]

another thing; you are likely required by your lease and/or municpal/regional law/statute to report/remove any rodent infestation. not killing your vermin, you leave it to pose a hazard to the rest of your community. how humane is that? :doh: :naughty: here we go thens. while this is for illinois, i rather imagine every state has a similar program.

 

Municipal Rodent Management

A typical large city in the United States annually receives more than 10,000 complaints about rodent problems and performs tens of thousands of rodent control inspections and baiting services. To be effective, such large-scale rodent control operations require a detailed but concise plan, one that melds technical pest management expertise with interagency cooperation and public relations.

 

People are very concerned about rodent control – and with good reason. Rodents consume and contaminate food with their fur, urine and feces. Rat burrowing causes streets and structures to collapse. Their constant gnawing damages property. This has caused power outages, Internet blackouts, computer crashes, fires and human deaths. It is estimated that 25 percent of all fires attributed to “unknown causes” are probably started by rodents gnawing on gas lines, electrical wiring and matches.

 

Rodents also carry disease. A few centuries ago, 25 million people died of “black plague” – a disease carried by rats and transmitted to humans by fleas. Today, plague still occurs, even in this country, along with other rodent-borne diseases including leptospirosis, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, rat bite fever and food-borne diseases. Rat bites threaten human health. Thousands of people are bitten each year. Many more are exposed to rodent dander, fur, urine and feces, found in nearly all inner city dwellings. About 20 percent of inner-city children become sensitized to rodent allergens and may develop asthma. ...

 

 

Illinois Department of Public Health

[Illiad]

A question of ethics!

 

Why kill a mice who's just trying to live

Do you refuse to kill the mouse simply cause it's cute? what about the other not-cute mice?

If you catch them and let them go 'somewhere else' you're just conveniently shifting the problem to someone else~ you NIMBY!

If you catch them and release them in your local forest (if you have one lol) will ur introduction of mice deprive other critters there of food? and/or lead into an reproducing uncontrolled plague?

 

gassing them sounds awkward ~.

but i cant think of any solution that will satisfy everyone (mice and men). There is no such thing anyway.

[Moontanman]

Set traps, use peanut butter as bait, it's more difficult for them to get off the bait holder and will more likely result in their deaths. Mice and rodents in general are destructive carriers of disease, you cannot tolerate them and cats are a joke, they seldom really control mice and never rats and cats are destructive as well and a danger to the environment if allowed to run loose...

[CraigD]

Googling “no-kill mouse trap” will give you lots of mail order sources for effective traps (in my experience, these actually work better than the old-fashioned spring-loaded kind) that won’t kill mice.

 

Mice are edge-followers, so are pretty easy to trap with any sort of one-way door gizmo, so with a little ingenuity and some scrap materials, you could likely make no-kill traps for much less that the $12 most of the commercial ones appear to cost.

 

What to do with the varmints after you’ve caught them is a whole ‘nuther problem. Just freeing them where they’ll ultimately plague someone else (a mouse in the woods fairly unerringly finds its way to a house or barn, I’ve been told) seems disreputable.

 

The most humane scheme I can think of is to separate them by gender (this is pretty easy – the males have pretty obvious, if mouse-sized, genitalia) into 2 cages, and let them live out their short, mousey lives in well-fed comfort, while you get the fun of watching them do their cool mouse behaviors (other than that troublesome mating one). You’ll likely catch a pregnant female or three, so be prepared to witness the miracle of mammal motherhood, and be sure to remove the male pups after they’ve no longer need to nurse (at about 25 days old) but before they can mate (about 40 days old).

 

Have fun, post pictures, and watch out – wild mice tend to bite!

[Illiad]

The most humane scheme I can think of is to separate them by gender (this is pretty easy – the males have pretty obvious, if mouse-sized, genitalia) into 2 cages, and let them live out their short, mousey lives in well-fed comfort, while you get the fun of watching them do their cool mouse behaviors (other than that troublesome mating one). You’ll likely catch a pregnant female or three, so be prepared to witness the miracle of mammal motherhood, and be sure to remove the male pups after they’ve no longer need to nurse (at about 25 days old) but before they can mate (about 40 days old).

 

lol, wont anyone who shares the house/building have misgivings?

Anyway,since we're trying to be humane and all, remember to take the mice to the vet to check if its infected with any sort of disease.

I'll suggest you get a 'play-cage' (the kind for hamsters, I seriously don't know what they call it ) for them~ (Does mice like running on wheels?)

If you catch more than you can take care of, turn a blind eye and release them 'somewhere else'. If your neighbor complains about having trouble deciding what to do with the mice they caught, smile, and show them yours.

[CraigD]

lol, wont anyone who shares the house/building have misgivings?

I had a captured mouse zoo like I describe in a 3-unit apartment house, which did generate some concern that my wired-together hardware cloth cages might not be entirely escape-proof. The only major escapes I had were from accidentally leaving the cage tops open, but, perhaps because there were males nearby, or perhaps because they remembered all the free food, nearly all of the couple of dozen escaped females came back and were recaptured.

 

Anyway,since we're trying to be humane and all, remember to take the mice to the vet to check if its infected with any sort of disease.

Though I was much too poor to consider this in my mouse-keep days, later, in my more recent pet rat-keeping days, I discovered that this is harder said than done, as most vets aren’t crazy about “small livestock”, as mice and rats are usually termed.

 

The worst problem I had was not preexisting disease, but death by horrible affliction. Both my mice and rats, especially the females, seemed terribly cancer-proned in old age (which is only a year of a few for mice and rats), and appeared to suffer horribly if left to die. I encountered only 1 vet that would euthanize a rat. With my mice (After a few attempts at other techniques – FYI wild mice don’t like hypodermics!), and all but 2 of my rats, I used a shoebox with a hose duct taped to a car exhaust as a home euthanasia machine. Were I to need to now, I’d try filling a more airtight box with helium from a party balloon kit, though I worry that those kits add O2 to make them “suicide proof”, which could defeat the scheme.

 

I'll suggest you get a 'play-cage' (the kind for hamsters, I seriously don't know what they call it ) for them~ (Does mice like running on wheels?)

Mice do, and will play on spinning wheels and disks. Rats don’t seem to, unless trained to, and then they’ll only do it if consistently reinforced with food treats. Rats are considerably smarter than mice.

 

What all my little scurrying pets seemed to love was ramps, so I made lots of them on the insides of their cages. I’ve read that it’s bad for their paw pads to run on wire cloth, but never saw any sign of injury or discomfort on any of my wee beasties, so am skeptical of the claim.

 

A last bit of mouse/rat keeping lore: caged mice or rats can make quite a racket (especially the females, who seem in a constant game-that-isn’t-really-a-game to establish social pecking order), so sleeping in the same room with them isn’t something I’d recommend!

[Theory5]

I had a captured mouse zoo like I describe in a 3-unit apartment house, which did generate some concern that my wired-together hardware cloth cages might not be entirely escape-proof. The only major escapes I had were from accidentally leaving the cage tops open, but, perhaps because there were males nearby, or perhaps because they remembered all the free food, nearly all of the couple of dozen escaped females came back and were recaptured.

 

 

Though I was much too poor to consider this in my mouse-keep days, later, in my more recent pet rat-keeping days, I discovered that this is harder said than done, as most vets aren’t crazy about “small livestock”, as mice and rats are usually termed.

 

The worst problem I had was not preexisting disease, but death by horrible affliction. Both my mice and rats, especially the females, seemed terribly cancer-proned in old age (which is only a year of a few for mice and rats), and appeared to suffer horribly if left to die. I encountered only 1 vet that would euthanize a rat. With my mice (After a few attempts at other techniques – FYI wild mice don’t like hypodermics!), and all but 2 of my rats, I used a shoebox with a hose duct taped to a car exhaust as a home euthanasia machine. Were I to need to now, I’d try filling a more airtight box with helium from a party balloon kit, though I worry that those kits add O2 to make them “suicide proof”, which could defeat the scheme.

 

 

Mice do, and will play on spinning wheels and disks. Rats don’t seem to, unless trained to, and then they’ll only do it if consistently reinforced with food treats. Rats are considerably smarter than mice.

 

What all my little scurrying pets seemed to love was ramps, so I made lots of them on the insides of their cages. I’ve read that it’s bad for their paw pads to run on wire cloth, but never saw any sign of injury or discomfort on any of my wee beasties, so am skeptical of the claim.

 

A last bit of mouse/rat keeping lore: caged mice or rats can make quite a racket (especially the females, who seem in a constant game-that-isn’t-really-a-game to establish social pecking order), so sleeping in the same room with them isn’t something I’d recommend!

great idea, if I find some money for food and a cage I might do that, but i haven't seen or heard the mice in a while since it started getting colder. I think there was only one mouse.

A real long time ago (when I was in 6th grade) one of my friends had a hamster that made noise all night, so he built a wooden box with boards that were almost half an inch thick and he would place it over the cage at night, I guess he didnt want to move the cage out of his room :-P

[Illiad]

I used a shoebox with a hose duct taped to a car exhaust as a home euthanasia machine. Were I to need to now, I’d try filling a more airtight box with helium from a party balloon kit, though I worry that those kits add O2 to make them “suicide proof”, which could defeat the scheme.

 

Checked the net, the helium balloon kit does contain air (which part of it is oxygen). They dont have to make it 100% pure~ it saves them some money and prevent would-be 'suiciders' from using their stuff .

Running a car just for the carbon monoxide is expensive lol..why not try smoldering charcoal in your shoebox?

 

The only major escapes I had were from accidentally leaving the cage tops open, but, perhaps because there were males nearby, or perhaps because they remembered all the free food, nearly all of the couple of dozen escaped females came back and were recaptured.

 

Or perhaps, they were fond of their master =)

 

btw a long time ago, my father had a mouse trap that is some sort of special glue on a cardboard base. bait is placed in the center. When the rat came scurrying along and try to get a nibble at the bait, , the glue will set in and the rat stuck. But there were a number of problems with the trap

1. The glue is foul smelling

2. The rat doesn't always get stuck, sometimes they escape and leave a trail of foul smelling glue (from their feet) all over the house.

3. When the rat was caught, none of us could bear touching the rat to separate it from the glue, nor give it a quick end~hence, we left it to die of starvation. Other people, Im sure, also did the same thing. Some even resort to burning them alive!. I think the trap is meant to be humane, but it became the opposite and still is the most inhumane trap i know.

 

So keep away from it.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Illiad