On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton > wrote:

>I had a mouse.
>
(snip delightful story)

....and a gourmand, at that.

You will find that peanut butter on the traps is a cheap and effective
attractant. I cannot be lifted or snatched off the traps, but needs to
be licked, so the mouse comes fully into the trap.

I do understand your desires for humane trap and release, but you
should know that it is rarely one " Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous
beastie" about the place. They do pose a health hazard and if you do
not wish to do away with them, you might need to take extraordinary
measures to keep them out (it is next to impossible).

If you are going to release, you need to do so far from your home, and
you should understand that nature is not kindly to them out of doors
anyway.


Boron

Boron Elgar > wrote in
:

> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton > wrote:
>
>>I had a mouse.
>>
> (snip delightful story)
>
> ...and a gourmand, at that.
>
> You will find that peanut butter on the traps is a cheap and effective
> attractant. I cannot be lifted or snatched off the traps, but needs to
> be licked, so the mouse comes fully into the trap.

My husband used to mix some of our bird's seed with peanut butter and
bait the traps with that.
>
> I do understand your desires for humane trap and release, but you
> should know that it is rarely one " Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous
> beastie" about the place.

Yep - no such thing as a solitary mouse, in my experience! Did not try
humane trap and release as I knew they'd just be back.


Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
> I had a mouse.
>
> He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.
>
[snip]
>
> Maybe the rabbits will adopt him before the snakes and
> coyotes do.
>
> --Blair
> "This ain't no Habitrail."


very funny story. i had a mouse. he knew all the tricks: we captured him
with glue. sorry for being cruel but i told my husband either him or
me... i was ready to move back to my mother. i adopted a cat
immediately. never had any more mice.

your story reminds me of a catch my cat did when i was living in an
apartament on the ground floor. he chased inside what seemed to be an
extremely large rat. We were watchig tv in the evening and i saw with
the side of my eyes a large mouse-like figure entering from the open
window, followed by my cat in a evident state of agitation.

i tought screaming very loud and repeatedly was the best thing to do at
the moment. my husband (scared as hell) didn't think so.... anyway, he
chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he discovered it was a
young opossum. he captured the thing and freed him in the garden outside
with great disappointment of my cat. the next day i saw the creature
hanging by the tail from a plant outside eating the flowers. looked at
me and ... well was not that ugly afterall....

ciao, anna maria


www.annamariavolpi.com

anna maria wrote:
> Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>> I had a mouse.
>>
>> He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.
>>
> [snip]
>>
> your story reminds me of a catch my cat did when i was living in an
> apartament on the ground floor. he chased inside what seemed to be an
> extremely large rat. We were watchig tv in the evening and i saw with
> the side of my eyes a large mouse-like figure entering from the open
> window, followed by my cat in a evident state of agitation.
>
> i tought screaming very loud and repeatedly was the best thing to do
> at the moment. my husband (scared as hell) didn't think so....
> anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
> discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
> him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
> next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
> eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
> afterall....
>
> ciao, anna maria
>
That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not really ugly.
I wouldn't want one in my house, though.

Jill

jmcquown wrote:
>
> anna maria wrote:

> > anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
> > discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
> > him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
> > next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
> > eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
> > afterall....

> That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not really ugly.
> I wouldn't want one in my house, though.

My dog caught an opposum once. Big whoop, the thing just froze in
its tracks, what's to catching it? This maneuver totally confused
my dog as she was not interested in actually catching it, she just
wanted to chase it. Thing didn't move for hours.

nancy

Nancy Young wrote:
> jmcquown wrote:
>>
>> anna maria wrote:
>
>>> anyway, he chased the orrible thing and at a closer look he
>>> discovered it was a young opossum. he captured the thing and freed
>>> him in the garden outside with great disappointment of my cat. the
>>> next day i saw the creature hanging by the tail from a plant outside
>>> eating the flowers. looked at me and ... well was not that ugly
>>> afterall....
>
>> That's too funny!! Opossums are odd looking creatures, but not
>> really ugly. I wouldn't want one in my house, though.
>
> My dog caught an opposum once. Big whoop, the thing just froze in
> its tracks, what's to catching it? This maneuver totally confused
> my dog as she was not interested in actually catching it, she just
> wanted to chase it. Thing didn't move for hours.
>
> nancy

Hence the phrase, "playing 'possum"

Jill

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton >
wrote:

> I had a mouse.
>
> He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.
<snip>
>
> Caught the little bugger twice, actually.
>
> But not without some tweaking.
>
<snip>
> So I reset the traps, with Stilton, hoping that unlike the
> mild Asadero it would have the aroma of rot and depth that
> a mouse would seek out.
<snip>
>
> Left me standing, agape, trap and book in hand.
>
> Damn.
>
> There I named him. Zippy the Wonder Mouse.
>
> I refilled the traps with store-brand cheddar (still
> experimenting rather than just going with what works),
> and this morning, one of the traps was sprung but empty.
> I'd left the rather large chunks of cheddar an inch or
> so from the back of the trap, so as to avoid having them
> simply tilt themselves, but clearly, that was a mistake.
> He'd reached in and got the bait, then had room to get
> out without the lid dropping far enough to lock shut.
>
> Bugger.
>
> No more mister nice mouser.
>
<snip>
> Boshemoi! He'd walked right past the traps!

You sure it wasn't a baby rat? Rats are smarter than mice.
>
I use regular "kill 'em dead" traps on mice and bait them
with (drum roll) Jarlesberg... I've tried cheddar etc, and
even peanut butter, but I seem to have gourmet mice when
they decide to hang out at my house.

Fortunately, I haven't had to trap mice in years - due to
good mousers who make sure they don't step foot in my house.


Practice safe eating - always use condiments

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton > wrote:
I had a mouse. - He was living in my kitchen for a week or so. <snip>

For many years I've lived at the edge of a desert residential area, with
no homes immediately across the street. There used to be just a burned
out cabin foundation directly across, but one day a big tractor-sort
cleared that away, in preparation for a pre-fab home being put there
now. Until the initial cleaaring came about, I had never experienced a
need for mousing anywhere I've lived.

Hah! One evening I thought I saw what I supposed was a dried up
cottonwood leaf blow in through the security screen that I have an 8x10"
section cut out of for the pup, though no leaf was to be seen about.
Some minutes later there was a wee mouse scampering across the room to
get behind the television. I had nothing at home to use, so I went to
the hardware store and chose those "sticky plates" to set at each side
of the TV's back for catching the little buggar.

Caught the pest, I did, but what to do next? I was some afraid of being
also stuck to, or even bitten while carrying the mouse-laden tray out,
and again, what would I do with the now screeching thing next? I
wrapped kitchen tong ends into paper towels (so the sticky would not, to
them) and successfully collected the papered tray into the garage trash
barrel. I figured a kinder gesture for the unwanted about me pest would
be among the local dump's terrain.

During the two days wait for trash pick-up, that wee mouse reminded me
he was there with scampering about the trash barrel noises each time I
passed by, and my little pooch didn't at all understand my trying to
tell him nothing of interest to him or of any danger to his mamma was
outside the home....

=A0=A0=A0Picky ~JA~

In article >,
says...
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 07:31:16 GMT, Blair P. Houghton > wrote:
> I had a mouse. - He was living in my kitchen for a week or so. <snip>
>
> For many years I've lived at the edge of a desert residential area, with
> no homes immediately across the street. There used to be just a burned
> out cabin foundation directly across, but one day a big tractor-sort
> cleared that away, in preparation for a pre-fab home being put there
> now. Until the initial cleaaring came about, I had never experienced a
> need for mousing anywhere I've lived.
>
> Hah! One evening I thought I saw what I supposed was a dried up
> cottonwood leaf blow in through the security screen that I have an 8x10"
> section cut out of for the pup, though no leaf was to be seen about.
> Some minutes later there was a wee mouse scampering across the room to
> get behind the television. I had nothing at home to use, so I went to
> the hardware store and chose those "sticky plates" to set at each side
> of the TV's back for catching the little buggar.

When I was a kid I worked at a local hardware chain, and the store I was
at had a definite mouse problem.

Decided to use the glue traps at the time. Well, next day when I came in
there were two of the little critters stuck to it. What to do, what to
do.

Seems that week we were having a special on 2L bottles of Coca Cola
(Don't ask - it was a hardware store but we sold soda and TV's - go
figure - anyone remember NHD?) so I slipped the glue trap into a paper
bag, got the pallet jack and lifted an entire pallet of Coca Cola and
slid the paper bag underneath and hit the pressure release on the pallet
jack. Squish! Messy but effective.

Then of course when they started digging up the neighborhood where I
lived to put in new apartment buildings to give the animals from
Providence College a place to live we had a mouse/rat problem. Seems the
rats had taken up residence under the doghouse. Friend and I used to
take two shovels and a rock. Using one shovel and the rock as a fulcrum
and then tucking the spade end under the doghouse (A big doghouse - for
a German Shepherd, best dog I ever had but that's another story.) and
jumping to lift. As the rats ran out the other of us would hammer em'
with the other shovel. Once we knew they were dead we'd toss em' into
the nearby foundation of a new building going up.

Problem was that some people thought this wasn't so humane. Remember,
we're talking about rats here both the four legged kind and the two
legged kind. So we graduated to a live trap. Problem there is what the
hell do you do with the now ****ed off rat in the cage. First run we lit
it on fire - bad, bad, bad.

Fortunately I had a 10 gallon aquarium with a slow leak. From that point
on we simply filled it with water, dropped the trap containing the rat
in and voila - dead rat.

And my SO wonders why things like that don't bother me. I've been
dealing with it all my life.

COTTP wrote:

> Decided to use the glue traps at the time. Well, next day when I came in
> there were two of the little critters stuck to it. What to do, what to
> do.

That's the thing about glue traps - they're alive and stuck and panicked
and crying and you have to kill them. Snap traps are much more humane,
imo. Old bf and I had a glue trapped mouse one time, had to hit its
head with a hammer to kill it. That was just creepy. He wanted to
reuse the trap, so he grabbed the mousey corpse with a paper towel to
remove it, it mostly came off, but its tail was still in the glue.
D'oh. At least it was alreay dead by then.

-j.

June Oshiro wrote:

> That's the thing about glue traps - they're alive and stuck and panicked
> and crying and you have to kill them. Snap traps are much more humane,
> imo. Old bf and I had a glue trapped mouse one time, had to hit its
> head with a hammer to kill it. That was just creepy. He wanted to
> reuse the trap, so he grabbed the mousey corpse with a paper towel to
> remove it, it mostly came off, but its tail was still in the glue.
> D'oh. At least it was alreay dead by then.

Thank you for sharing. :-P

In article >,
June Oshiro > wrote:

> COTTP wrote:
>
> > Decided to use the glue traps at the time. Well, next day when I came in
> > there were two of the little critters stuck to it. What to do, what to
> > do.
>
> That's the thing about glue traps - they're alive and stuck and panicked
> and crying and you have to kill them. Snap traps are much more humane,
> imo. Old bf and I had a glue trapped mouse one time, had to hit its
> head with a hammer to kill it. That was just creepy. He wanted to
> reuse the trap, so he grabbed the mousey corpse with a paper towel to
> remove it, it mostly came off, but its tail was still in the glue.
> D'oh. At least it was alreay dead by then.
>
> -j.
>

IMHO glue traps are the most horrible and inhumane things that man has
ever come up with. :-( If the animal is lucky, it'll shove it's nose and
mouth into the glue and suffocate. Otherwise, they slowly die of
starvation/dehydration.

Kinda like crucifixion. :-P

If you MUST use glue traps, at least kill the poor things when they get
trapped! If you can't hit them, toss the glue trap into a pail of water
and walk away for an hour or so. <sigh> Still not fun, but better than
the alternative.

I'd like to see those damned things outlawed. At least snap traps are
quick, and the coumadin based poisons cause the animal to bleed to
death. Not really painful at all. That is what I use if I get a bad rat
infestation around the livestock...

Just my opinion. I HATE glue traps! They are inhumane...

K.

--
^ ^ Cat's Haven Hobby Farm ^ ^ ^ ^
>,,< >,,< >,,<

sf <icu2@pipeline dot com> wrote:
>I use regular "kill 'em dead" traps on mice and bait them
>with (drum roll) Jarlesberg... I've tried cheddar etc, and
>even peanut butter, but I seem to have gourmet mice when
>they decide to hang out at my house.

Y'know what?

I just realized.

The mouse didn't show up until after I'd bought
my first Stilton in months.

--Blair
"I should charge a cover."

In article >,
Blair P. Houghton > wrote:

> sf <icu2@pipeline dot com> wrote:
> >I use regular "kill 'em dead" traps on mice and bait them
> >with (drum roll) Jarlesberg... I've tried cheddar etc, and
> >even peanut butter, but I seem to have gourmet mice when
> >they decide to hang out at my house.
>
> Y'know what?
>
> I just realized.
>
> The mouse didn't show up until after I'd bought
> my first Stilton in months.
>
> --Blair
> "I should charge a cover."

Try bacon rind...
That always worked on the mice up at the mountain cabin. :-)

K.

--
^ ^ Cat's Haven Hobby Farm ^ ^ ^ ^
>,,< >,,< >,,<

Katra > wrote:
>Try bacon rind...
>That always worked on the mice up at the mountain cabin. :-)

Nope. I'm sticking with Stilton.

HE CAME BACK!

Or his little sister did.

Shoulda known.

I heard and saw one on the kitchen counter tonight.

Set the traps out with a fingernail of stilton in each,
and about an hour later--clack! Rattlerattle...

He's so owned.

I dropped him out past the back fence again, this time with
a flashlight so I could see him split for the culvert.

Tomorrow I'm definitely getting a proper coverplate for the broken
cleanout on the outside of the kitchen wall. I'm pretty sure that's
their ingress.

--Blair
"Anyone rented Mouse Hunt lately?"

In article >,
Blair P. Houghton > wrote:

> Katra > wrote:
> >Try bacon rind...
> >That always worked on the mice up at the mountain cabin. :-)
>
> Nope. I'm sticking with Stilton.
>
> HE CAME BACK!
>
> Or his little sister did.
>
> Shoulda known.
>
> I heard and saw one on the kitchen counter tonight.
>
> Set the traps out with a fingernail of stilton in each,
> and about an hour later--clack! Rattlerattle...
>
> He's so owned.
>
> I dropped him out past the back fence again, this time with
> a flashlight so I could see him split for the culvert.
>
> Tomorrow I'm definitely getting a proper coverplate for the broken
> cleanout on the outside of the kitchen wall. I'm pretty sure that's
> their ingress.
>
> --Blair
> "Anyone rented Mouse Hunt lately?"

I'm actually impressed that you are live trapping... ;-)

I tried that with the rats in the chicken yard and it got way out of
hand as rats are so smart, they seem to learn about the others getting
trapped so stopped going into the box traps.

I had to resort to careful poisoning. :-(

The carcass count stopped at 48...... <sigh>

I'm just glad that they never got into the house, even tho' I have
several hunter/killer cats. Rats ate eggs and killed and ate young
pigeons.

Nasty creatures <shudder>

Watch out tho', mice can carry Hanta virus.

K.

--
^ ^ Cat's Haven Hobby Farm ^ ^ ^ ^
>,,< >,,< >,,<

In article >, Blair P.
Houghton > wrote:

> Nope. I'm sticking with Stilton.
>
> HE CAME BACK!
>
> Or his little sister did.
>
> Shoulda known.

Ayup. No such thing as "a mouse." "-)

> I heard and saw one on the kitchen counter tonight.
>
> Set the traps out with a fingernail of stilton in each,
> and about an hour later--clack! Rattlerattle...
>
> He's so owned.
>
> I dropped him out past the back fence again, this time with
> a flashlight so I could see him split for the culvert.

Score one for Mousey's diversionary tactics. :-)

> Tomorrow I'm definitely getting a proper coverplate for the broken
> cleanout on the outside of the kitchen wall. I'm pretty sure that's
> their ingress.
>
> --Blair
> "Anyone rented Mouse Hunt lately?"

Blair, I hope you'll keep this tail, er, tale, going. It's very
entertaining.
--
-Barb
12-28-03: Tourtiere picture added to my site: <www.jamlady.eboard.com>
Also a picture of my Baba Authorized struhadlo for making halushky
"If you're ever in a jam, here I am."

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 23:43:51 GMT, Blair P. Houghton >
wrote:

> sf <icu2@pipeline dot com> wrote:
> >I use regular "kill 'em dead" traps on mice and bait them
> >with (drum roll) Jarlesberg... I've tried cheddar etc, and
> >even peanut butter, but I seem to have gourmet mice when
> >they decide to hang out at my house.
>
> Y'know what?
>
> I just realized.
>
> The mouse didn't show up until after I'd bought
> my first Stilton in months.
>

LOL! Well, there you go... it's all your fault.


Practice safe eating - always use condiments

Blair P. Houghton > wrote in message >.. .
> I had a mouse.
>
> He was living in my kitchen for a week or so.
>
> I got some great no-kill traps from Home Depot. Small gray
> plastic boxes with a gravity lid that stays open while the
> trap is tilted forward, but slips shut once it tilts back.
>
> Exactly these:
>
> http://doitbest.com/shop/product.asp...386&sku=769878

Cute story. Thanks for having enough compassion to use the
Have-A-Heart traps. Really no need to kill the little buggers -
relocation works well.

Also, next time, peanut butter works wonders.

-L.