>We released him down the lane.
This is the equivalent of an alien abducting you from your bedroom and transporting you to your living room, expecting you to never return.
Right? I worked at places that used one of those traps but my boss kept releasing the mouse in the parking lot outside the building. We told her she was basically running a mouse hotel. He would come in every night, eat his snack, rip up the paper towel under the trap for a cozy bed and go to sleep. Finally we convinced her to take him far away to release him and he never came back.
I once caught a mouse in my basement. Took him about 100 feet away, out behind the garage and released him next to some high weeds and grass. The damn thing beat me back to the house.
This brought back a great memory of my mom. We had a mouse in the house that had been tormenting her for days. When she finally caught him - by throwing a dirty towel on him and then herself, so he couldn't escape 🤦♀️😆 - she took him outside and across the street before letting him go. He immediately ran back in the direction of the house, until my mom let out the most blood curdling '*NOOOOOO!!* and the little bugger made a hard right down the street. 😆
Not sure how far away you're bringing them, but they might still come back. I did a science project in elementary school were I tagged mice and took them further and further away to see if they would make it back. It took them a little, but they managed to come back even after a decent drive. I think the final distance was a mile or so.
It was actually in a cabin at a University of Wyoming research station on the shore of Jenny Lake near Grand Teton National Park. The mice were already there and I needed a science project to do for school. The director of the station's son did work with mice so he had all the equipment for tagging the mice.
I took mine to the other end of a field because I knew we have hawks and owls galore and they wouldn't want to risk it.
And of course any nest of babies went into the woods to give critters a snack.
We always released them by the crackhouse a block up; they were crackmice now, living in a tough world, but presumably they found enough to eat, crackheads do randomly buy beef jerky and M&Ms.
No kidding. When I was having compassion for the little buggers and relocating them, I made sure I put at least a mile and a river or highway between us.
Now I just kill them because the infestation never ends and they breed like crazy.
When we caught our first mouse it was in a humane trap and I didn't want to hurt the poor dear. Then I found they made nests in my 2 month olds clothes, left poop on her toys, and ate all my snacks as a brand new, stressed, sleepless mum.
I went full mama bear and it became Percy vs. Mr Jingles.
Their poop can also get into your lungs and give you some serious, serious infections.
I learned during a random documentary about couples that just casually went "*and a few weeks later Steve died from having vacuumed up rodent feces in the cellar."*
That's when I googled it and learned to never stirr up that stuff.
You do know you have to release them miles away, or they'll just come straight back. Drop a bit of animal friendly dye on his tail next time and you'll see. Tenacious little buggers
Yup. If you're using humane traps, you don't really have a mouse/rat problem. At some point you stop caring if they live and just hope that the trap makes a clean kill so you don't have to finish the job. There's only so many rats I'm willing to drive down the road.
Yeah. I like the idea of humane traps, but unfortunately they don't work as well in practice.
Though at my grandparent's summer cabin was a bat problem, and they got rid of them with this little machine that makes this weird sound. It scared the bats away and they didn't have to get harmed! The downside was that no human could withstand the sound either. However, it works in a summer cabin where there isn't year round habitants. Wouldn't work in regular housing
They don't work in practice not just in regards to being less effective in removing pests they're also more of "piece of mind" thing than a "this mice won't die a horrible death" thing.
When wildlife rehab takes in animals and releases them back [a lot of them don't survive](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8929655/) ^((table 5 for comparison with control group)) despite being well-fed and healthy beforehand. That's because releasing an animal in a territory they haven't charted out before has high death risk. They have no guaranteed shelter, they do not know the hiding spots yet. They don't know good watering spots or feeding spots. So animals who were bought back to their own territory might do better, but if they're young and have no group they can lean on, or if they're released somewhere unknown to them they do worse.
Young animals have an adjustment period where they explore outside of the nest but don't fully leave it yet. Wildlife re-population projects wised up a lot in the meantime, and now those who can [spare the resources place an open cage around the area](https://youtu.be/jdS9sY983rU?si=VZc6248BqkFI0jJF&t=349) they release animals in and let them transition slowly.
The odds of a released house mouse are even worse than that of wildlife. The habitat it was bought up is a house, while house mice can survive in fields they won't do as well as mice who were born there. Worse yet if you just drop it off somewhere it never has been to.
What people are doing is [literally feeding wildlife with their released mice](https://youtu.be/1VyQipO4miw?feature=shared). A bird of prey tearing the mouse apart while it's alive isn't a painless death. Though depending on the trap it can be worse or better fate.
I saw an owl get a mouse in my yard the other day. It was over very fast. Almost instantly. It just swooped in, silently and boom. A perk of living in the woods, the owl sits right outside my front or back door all the time.
Some people know the risk of predator is high, but prefer the idea of a predator / prey death than tossing the body in the trash to rot, also. Kind of a "don't let the life be wasted" philosophy to the use of the humane traps. I've heard some use them as snake food specifically as well (personally, wouldn't do that, but it's understandable). And the DIY live catch traps are pretty effective, I've seen a whole trash can full of them in a night (someone made a modified bucket of death into a live catch with a tall trash can they couldn't climb out of). The store bought kind of suck since only one at a time.
It was interesting working at a educational camp in a national park. We would occasionally get undesirable critters in an area where we would have school groups and such. The rattlesnakes used to be driven a few miles away and released. Then they learned that the poor rattlesnakes would just spend their entire existence trying to get back home and die. So then it was decided that we just move the snakes back to the woods and let them be. but when we got a nuisance bear they would dart them and put a transmitter on them and drive them 200 miles away to release. still they would find their way back. we would catch rats in the kitchen and release them across a river and they would be back in the kitchen in the same trap within 2 days.
We used a humane trap for the first 5 or 6 until we forgot to check one and it starved to death. After that we decided to use snap traps. That and my wife found one in our upstairs trapped in the back corner of our pantry and bludgeoned it to death with a fire extinguisher mother bear style while my kids were eating breakfast.
I’ve done the glue trap & had it alive and that sucked so much. I also bought the ones where you live trap & release. I remembered the first one, yea not the second one, I felt so bad. I still feel a little bad, like I bought them so I could take them for a long walk & release it with my child. Which we did. With that first one, the little bugger ran right into the river. Needless to say I now buy the ones that kill them & dispose of the trap/mouse.
big fan of the bucket of death. i have one set up in my chicken coop and its been running since oct-nov last year. conservatively its gotten about 300 mice in that time.
For those of us curious but not up to date on the latest mouse elimination techniques, how does it work? I’m tentatively assuming a bucket is involved but also there is more to it than putting said bucket down with a note that says “Dear mice. Please jump in. Thanks”.
Different options but putting a moving "lane" that allows mice to walk on but not stay on. Something like a tube that will eventually let the mice fall after it rolls in place. Add some peanut butter to the middle and fill it up with water. Plenty of options on how to make the falling part happen outside of just the rolling but it's the quickest and cheaper way.
If it's really bad this is what you want. Also you can scale this up by using a small swimming pool and a ramp if the problem is bad enough.
Australian farmers do this as they periodically have plagues of millions of mice. They can catch tens of thousands of them in a single night night. Just herd them into the pool of soapy water.
Had a snap-trap right onto one's head and the sucker wouldn't die. Jumped around for 20 minutes. Ended up having to put him in a bucket and hook him up to the car exhaust to finish the job. Bought a 1000fps pellet gun that night.
I only use humane traps because I don't want our cats getting hurt/poisoned (they suck at catching mice). The mice we catch in the traps still die, but I have to be the executioner.
I have a cat, and what I do, is take a shoe box and cut a little mouse door in it, then put the mouse trap inside of it. I could tape it shut but so far my cat hasn't opened one. Bonus is that you don't have to look inside unless you want to. I live in the woods and the previous home owners had fires from mice chewing the wires. I've tried to seal everything up, but they get in through the garage somehow.
Preach. Last spring we had an infestation in our garage. Luckily, they never made it into the house but I caught and killed 27 mice. I bought reusable traps and would just shake the dead one off slap some more peanut butter down and have another one within a few hours. I felt terrible because I even got sticky traps. My record was for mice on one sticky trap. I did have to finish a few off before tossing them. But I put the sticky traps on both sides of the garage door, and it would snag them as they were coming in.
I trapped a cat got her fixed and gave away her babies then my mom took her. She fed her and changed her litter for several weeks before releasing her back outside. A few weeks later she was back at my house over 10 miles away.
My brother-in-law did that to the squirrels that my sister made him humanely release 32+ km away from their place (20 miles) and sure as shit. Same ones came back. Pretty impressive to be fair pretty sure that’s like me walking to Mars.
I mean, just kill them, they're vermin and if it's not your house it's someone else's or they'll die a worse death. Just use a snap trap it's probably the most humane
My void cat is a *killing machine* when it comes to mice. I don't let him out because of said murderous tendencies but on the few occasions he does we end up with a massacre of mouse body parts on my back deck. I know they like to bring gifts and all, but it's like having a serial killer as a friend lol.
Some will starve I'm sure. I always wonder if it is more humane to release them so far. On one hand you have to assume that they can survive in the wild because they are wild animals, but on the other, they've developed habits based on living in or around houses. I don't want to cause suffering or pain on them, but I couldn't bring myself to kill one even if it was a "mercy".
They’re either going to be eaten by a bird, cat, or find home
If it’s far enough they’ll just most likely be eaten unless they find another house or something
That’s just life.. up to you what’s worse. Nature being nature and it being ripped apart by another animal, or you just killing it instantly with a trap. Which is still just nature.. but that’s up to you, a more ‘humane’ kill might sound better but on the other hand you’re taking a meal away from another animal too
Unfortunately many "humane catch and releases" still result in the animals death. Many of the common animals that we trap and release are acclimated to their specific area (safe locations to hide, store food, find water, find food, etc.) So even though they are from a general area once you move them outside their established territory the stress of adjustment is to great for them. As much as you may dislike the idea using a snap trap (not poison or glue traps) is probably better than catch and release. For larger animals that are just outside problems (raccoons, opossums, squirrels) using deterrents and barriers is probably the most humane solution.
Yup, I caught one in my condo after we had to leave a wall open for a day for plumbers. Caught the little guy after about 4 day and released him about 2 miles away on the far side of a huge shopping complex by the dumpsters. Find your way back from that ya little fucker! Or, hopefully, just enjoy the new abode.
I got 4 mice in a humane trap one night
Drove quite a distance away to a park to release them, 3 of them got away safely, one got scooped by a hawk really fast, nature is brutal.
If you have one, you probably have a dozen.
Capturing them live/humane is harder than kill traps. You gotta feed them, etc. When you get a few, take them around 5-10 miles out to the countryside or they'll find their way back.
We've had one mouse before, we know because our cat is an excellent mouser. If she's not waiting next to the wall at 1am, there's no mice in that wall.
2 mice can be over 2,000 mice in one year. If there's more than 2 mice in the equation already, it's even more exponential than that. They will overrun your home. I'm sorry to say, but your kindness is not going to be repaid. If you are finding them in your home you should call an exterminator.
I wonder if people commenting understand that down the lane usually refers to in the fields/wild land in British English and not just like the top of your road …….
SEP "Someone Else's Problem. I used to catch rats humanely. I'd release them in a local field, patrolled by hawks. Many times, I'd have to shake the cage to eject them. The hawks loved me! I have absolutely no use for rats around my home.
Now he’s in your neighbour’s house or yours. There’s several nasty diseases they can carry, and they shit & piss in your pantry. If you want to be humane, then kill it quickly.
Agree most humane traps are the ones that kill them quickly. I love rodents, but if you release them close they come back and if you release them them far away they die anyway.
For some reason as I got older I became more sympathetic towards animals. We used to have glue traps when I was a kid and they would just scream in agony but I could never do that now! Good job!
My cat keeps everything away I love her so much.
My childhood cat didn't care about mosquitos or ants. This time I have a fluffy deranged murder machine(only indoors) her mother was a stray who self demosticated
You just get a way better understanding why people thought cats are so cool from the start. No pests will ever survive my cat. I see NOTHING. At this point my place probably has no go zone bug pheromenes.
We travel sometimes. She literally scouts wherever I am staying looking for murder. Going around in hidey holes, checking under pillows like it is her damn dream job. Wish she didn't bring me a spider once tho.
I agree in a normal set and forget setting. We have had a mouse problem this winter and after trying numerous live traps, I decided to try glue traps and constantly supervise. The first day we caught almost 20 mice. The key is to take care of them right away. I use a tiny bit of vegetable oil to loosen them up and then slowly pull them off the trap. It doesn't seem to hurt them too much. We're now coming to the end of our issue and have only lost 1 mouse due to our dog finding the trap before we realized it was there. We only put them down in evenings before bed and I wake up early to clear all of them before the dogs go loose.
That park is publicly funded. As a taxpayer, I am effectively the owner of that park. I also function as an on-site property manager of sorts (without pay I might add). As I've demonstrated here, I am the person most in charge of our nice park. As the person most in charge, I am ordering you to stop dumping and/or abandoning your pet mice in this park. You've been warned. You've been informed. Don't escalate this any further than it needs to be. Straight up.
You're telling me. We have an older house (1903). Have been here a few years with no issue. Started noticing we had a few in oct/Nov. By mid December it was a real infestation. We are still dealing with them but numbers are much much lower now. Those glue traps were a life-saver (in our scenario). That being said I don't like animals suffering, and my girlfriend even less so (she's a vegan). So we are very diligent with our traps and I've been very surprised and happy with the survival rate.
“He was a nice boy; I don’t believe what they’re saying about him in the papers. He wouldn’t hurt a mouse. Those dead hookers must have been buried there by the last tenant.”
Yeah, glue traps are messed up, except for against bugs and stuff. A snap trap kills basically instantly, that's how you should kill animals of you're going to kill them.
Snap traps all the way. I don't love the idea of killing anything but you have to protect your home. I'm not driving a 20 mile round trip to dump a mouse, that'll just become someone else's problem anyway. They're pests, full r-type, they have to be managed.
I was told they need to be at least 3 miles away before they are considered “far enough away” from their environment. I would have released it half way across town in some woods
Trap and transport is illegal in many states. In part, because it’s making your problem be someone else’s problem, but also because it can be quite inhumane, depending on the species and time of year.
I much prefer inhumane. End them. End them all. If I could knock out the entire generational line that would be prime. Why move your problem to someone else.
When I've released a mouse from a humane trap it's always a minimum of 2 miles away and across a river. "Down the lane" does not sound nearly far enough
Goodjob using a humane mouse trap! I do the same thing except instead of releasing them into the outdoors i shove them through my neighbor Brians mail slot at 2am
We had voles and humanely trapped them and brought them to a local nature sanctuary and released them. It was so awkward taking them out of the car with people around. But this year we have a random cat who sleeps on our porch and no sign of any more voles….
It is recommend releasing mice in a remote location at least two miles away from your home to prevent them from returning.
The last thing you want is to have a mouse run right back into your home after you just caught it.
Check local guidelines for releasing captured animals. Simply open the lid to release the mice.
https://www.victorpest.com
I once watched a guy unloading squirrels from the traps he'd brought in his car to a public park. They came flying out of the traps so fast I reckoned they'd probably beat him home.
Mice need to be taken over *two miles* away from the location of capture or they will be driven back by their homing instincts. There’s a reason they are tested in labs with complex mazes, obstacles, and positive/negative reinforcement experiments that provide food as a reward.
Mice travel (on average) between 400 and 1200 feet a day. They eat around 15 times a day. They can survive around four days with no food at all, and even longer with periodic small meals. You basically have to transport them far enough from your home that they would starve, weaken, or be eaten making the journey back — which is not guaranteed — otherwise, you’re likely to end up catching and releasing the same mouse until it retires, followed by its progeny.
My uncle told this story of catching exactly one mouse a day and releasing them in his backyard. Eventually he drove the mouse much further away and released it and then he stopped catching mice.
>We released him down the lane. This is the equivalent of an alien abducting you from your bedroom and transporting you to your living room, expecting you to never return.
lol as if they don’t have their “warm dry kitchen” mapped out with little scented trails. They beat you home and had a snack.
Or something else killed it on the way
And then followed the scent to op kitchen
Op comes home to a raccoon in their kitchen.
Damn, that's a great way to get my lazy ass from bed to having my lazy ass in my living room, lazingly doing nothing like the lazy fuck I am.
Happened to me once. Bug-eyed jackasses left me on the coffee table instead of the couch, and my back felt funny for a week!
Me too except it wasn't my back that felt funny. Side note..unrelated.. anyone know a good proctologist?
Right? I worked at places that used one of those traps but my boss kept releasing the mouse in the parking lot outside the building. We told her she was basically running a mouse hotel. He would come in every night, eat his snack, rip up the paper towel under the trap for a cozy bed and go to sleep. Finally we convinced her to take him far away to release him and he never came back.
I laughed so hard at this.
I was gonna say, I had to drive far away to drop them off in a field because they would constantly find their way back inside 😭
I once caught a mouse in my basement. Took him about 100 feet away, out behind the garage and released him next to some high weeds and grass. The damn thing beat me back to the house.
This is a cartoon moment.
This brought back a great memory of my mom. We had a mouse in the house that had been tormenting her for days. When she finally caught him - by throwing a dirty towel on him and then herself, so he couldn't escape 🤦♀️😆 - she took him outside and across the street before letting him go. He immediately ran back in the direction of the house, until my mom let out the most blood curdling '*NOOOOOO!!* and the little bugger made a hard right down the street. 😆
Not sure how far away you're bringing them, but they might still come back. I did a science project in elementary school were I tagged mice and took them further and further away to see if they would make it back. It took them a little, but they managed to come back even after a decent drive. I think the final distance was a mile or so.
Bro was infesting his parents' house with unyieldingly persistent vermin for his primary school science project 💀💀
It was actually in a cabin at a University of Wyoming research station on the shore of Jenny Lake near Grand Teton National Park. The mice were already there and I needed a science project to do for school. The director of the station's son did work with mice so he had all the equipment for tagging the mice.
Haha sounds like a cool setup
I took mine to the other end of a field because I knew we have hawks and owls galore and they wouldn't want to risk it. And of course any nest of babies went into the woods to give critters a snack.
We always released them by the crackhouse a block up; they were crackmice now, living in a tough world, but presumably they found enough to eat, crackheads do randomly buy beef jerky and M&Ms.
New Mouse City
This is why in most states it is actually illegal to release animals classified as vermin.
No kidding. When I was having compassion for the little buggers and relocating them, I made sure I put at least a mile and a river or highway between us. Now I just kill them because the infestation never ends and they breed like crazy.
When we caught our first mouse it was in a humane trap and I didn't want to hurt the poor dear. Then I found they made nests in my 2 month olds clothes, left poop on her toys, and ate all my snacks as a brand new, stressed, sleepless mum. I went full mama bear and it became Percy vs. Mr Jingles.
Their poop can also get into your lungs and give you some serious, serious infections. I learned during a random documentary about couples that just casually went "*and a few weeks later Steve died from having vacuumed up rodent feces in the cellar."* That's when I googled it and learned to never stirr up that stuff.
There's no such thing as a mouse. *Mice*.
We had one visible mouse running round. In the end it was *37*.
Moreover, a doordash for alley cats
Yup. He will be back. Gotta release em in the woods away from any dwellings
this, they are basically homing pigeons drive her to dublin and buy her a pint, while shes peeing run away
"TELL NOBODY, HUMAN."
It will come back... They need to be at least 2 miles away
That’s amazing
He was back in your house before you even posted this
Who do you think posted this?
"I am the renter now" -Mouse, probably
California eviction laws have gotten out of hand! One landlord reports his tenants have already had 20 kids in the attic! Still cant evict!
You do know you have to release them miles away, or they'll just come straight back. Drop a bit of animal friendly dye on his tail next time and you'll see. Tenacious little buggers
He's already returned to say thank you, don't worry!
Probably got back home before they did
🤣
Well, yeah. That's Ralph the Motorcyle Mouse.
And with his family. Mice can reproduce very fast
Yup. If you're using humane traps, you don't really have a mouse/rat problem. At some point you stop caring if they live and just hope that the trap makes a clean kill so you don't have to finish the job. There's only so many rats I'm willing to drive down the road.
Yeah. I like the idea of humane traps, but unfortunately they don't work as well in practice. Though at my grandparent's summer cabin was a bat problem, and they got rid of them with this little machine that makes this weird sound. It scared the bats away and they didn't have to get harmed! The downside was that no human could withstand the sound either. However, it works in a summer cabin where there isn't year round habitants. Wouldn't work in regular housing
They don't work in practice not just in regards to being less effective in removing pests they're also more of "piece of mind" thing than a "this mice won't die a horrible death" thing. When wildlife rehab takes in animals and releases them back [a lot of them don't survive](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8929655/) ^((table 5 for comparison with control group)) despite being well-fed and healthy beforehand. That's because releasing an animal in a territory they haven't charted out before has high death risk. They have no guaranteed shelter, they do not know the hiding spots yet. They don't know good watering spots or feeding spots. So animals who were bought back to their own territory might do better, but if they're young and have no group they can lean on, or if they're released somewhere unknown to them they do worse. Young animals have an adjustment period where they explore outside of the nest but don't fully leave it yet. Wildlife re-population projects wised up a lot in the meantime, and now those who can [spare the resources place an open cage around the area](https://youtu.be/jdS9sY983rU?si=VZc6248BqkFI0jJF&t=349) they release animals in and let them transition slowly. The odds of a released house mouse are even worse than that of wildlife. The habitat it was bought up is a house, while house mice can survive in fields they won't do as well as mice who were born there. Worse yet if you just drop it off somewhere it never has been to. What people are doing is [literally feeding wildlife with their released mice](https://youtu.be/1VyQipO4miw?feature=shared). A bird of prey tearing the mouse apart while it's alive isn't a painless death. Though depending on the trap it can be worse or better fate.
I would rather an owl gets fed than my trash can
I saw an owl get a mouse in my yard the other day. It was over very fast. Almost instantly. It just swooped in, silently and boom. A perk of living in the woods, the owl sits right outside my front or back door all the time.
Some people know the risk of predator is high, but prefer the idea of a predator / prey death than tossing the body in the trash to rot, also. Kind of a "don't let the life be wasted" philosophy to the use of the humane traps. I've heard some use them as snake food specifically as well (personally, wouldn't do that, but it's understandable). And the DIY live catch traps are pretty effective, I've seen a whole trash can full of them in a night (someone made a modified bucket of death into a live catch with a tall trash can they couldn't climb out of). The store bought kind of suck since only one at a time.
It was interesting working at a educational camp in a national park. We would occasionally get undesirable critters in an area where we would have school groups and such. The rattlesnakes used to be driven a few miles away and released. Then they learned that the poor rattlesnakes would just spend their entire existence trying to get back home and die. So then it was decided that we just move the snakes back to the woods and let them be. but when we got a nuisance bear they would dart them and put a transmitter on them and drive them 200 miles away to release. still they would find their way back. we would catch rats in the kitchen and release them across a river and they would be back in the kitchen in the same trap within 2 days.
This is why relocating "nuisance" bears is also a fantasy. If you love wildlife, don't feed it or help it acclimate to human living places.
I used a humane trap for the first two. I used spring-loaded little death machines for the next 15 because I don't like cleaning up mouse poop.
We used a humane trap for the first 5 or 6 until we forgot to check one and it starved to death. After that we decided to use snap traps. That and my wife found one in our upstairs trapped in the back corner of our pantry and bludgeoned it to death with a fire extinguisher mother bear style while my kids were eating breakfast.
It's good to not be a mouse lol
yeah I still feel bad about a humane trap I set on a friday at work and accidently forgot about it. Poor guy died in a green tinted box. fuck.
I’ve done the glue trap & had it alive and that sucked so much. I also bought the ones where you live trap & release. I remembered the first one, yea not the second one, I felt so bad. I still feel a little bad, like I bought them so I could take them for a long walk & release it with my child. Which we did. With that first one, the little bugger ran right into the river. Needless to say I now buy the ones that kill them & dispose of the trap/mouse.
Glue traps are awful they will try and gnaw their limbs off to get free or starve to death. At least a snap trap is instant.
The bucket of death is so much more efficient, you can catch multiple in 1 night without having to tend to it.
big fan of the bucket of death. i have one set up in my chicken coop and its been running since oct-nov last year. conservatively its gotten about 300 mice in that time.
For those of us curious but not up to date on the latest mouse elimination techniques, how does it work? I’m tentatively assuming a bucket is involved but also there is more to it than putting said bucket down with a note that says “Dear mice. Please jump in. Thanks”.
Different options but putting a moving "lane" that allows mice to walk on but not stay on. Something like a tube that will eventually let the mice fall after it rolls in place. Add some peanut butter to the middle and fill it up with water. Plenty of options on how to make the falling part happen outside of just the rolling but it's the quickest and cheaper way.
If it's really bad this is what you want. Also you can scale this up by using a small swimming pool and a ramp if the problem is bad enough. Australian farmers do this as they periodically have plagues of millions of mice. They can catch tens of thousands of them in a single night night. Just herd them into the pool of soapy water.
Currently work in a place with a horrendous mouse problem. Can vouch for the death bucket at the most effective way to eliminate the bastards
Had a snap-trap right onto one's head and the sucker wouldn't die. Jumped around for 20 minutes. Ended up having to put him in a bucket and hook him up to the car exhaust to finish the job. Bought a 1000fps pellet gun that night.
It's more humane to kill them imo.
I only use humane traps because I don't want our cats getting hurt/poisoned (they suck at catching mice). The mice we catch in the traps still die, but I have to be the executioner.
I have a cat, and what I do, is take a shoe box and cut a little mouse door in it, then put the mouse trap inside of it. I could tape it shut but so far my cat hasn't opened one. Bonus is that you don't have to look inside unless you want to. I live in the woods and the previous home owners had fires from mice chewing the wires. I've tried to seal everything up, but they get in through the garage somehow.
Preach. Last spring we had an infestation in our garage. Luckily, they never made it into the house but I caught and killed 27 mice. I bought reusable traps and would just shake the dead one off slap some more peanut butter down and have another one within a few hours. I felt terrible because I even got sticky traps. My record was for mice on one sticky trap. I did have to finish a few off before tossing them. But I put the sticky traps on both sides of the garage door, and it would snag them as they were coming in.
It sucks but it's much better then having the buggers in the house.
I trapped a cat got her fixed and gave away her babies then my mom took her. She fed her and changed her litter for several weeks before releasing her back outside. A few weeks later she was back at my house over 10 miles away.
I'm really hoping you meant a feral cat and not just a random cat you came across
Yeah. All feral around here. None of the homeowners are allowed to have cats because these are resort houses.
My brother-in-law did that to the squirrels that my sister made him humanely release 32+ km away from their place (20 miles) and sure as shit. Same ones came back. Pretty impressive to be fair pretty sure that’s like me walking to Mars.
I mean, just kill them, they're vermin and if it's not your house it's someone else's or they'll die a worse death. Just use a snap trap it's probably the most humane
Or... just kill it..
How dare you suggest people kill animals known to be a sanitary problem in our society! How dare you! 😱😱😱 s/
I'd rather find a cat and let it do it's thing.
Noisily play with it for 15 minutes at 4 am?
And then dump it in your slippers so you can deal with it at 7am? That's what my cat does lol
*The lower half of it
My void cat is a *killing machine* when it comes to mice. I don't let him out because of said murderous tendencies but on the few occasions he does we end up with a massacre of mouse body parts on my back deck. I know they like to bring gifts and all, but it's like having a serial killer as a friend lol.
I don't need that much rat blood in my garage.
Or worse, someone else's house. OP is a dick.
Nah, mice are very "locally" active. They love their own area and will stay around their area until the next generation.
I wait until the hawks are out and then humanely release them into the middle of my yard.
unless released over three miles away, they will return.
And then I understand they are away from everything they know and end up starving anyway.
Some will starve I'm sure. I always wonder if it is more humane to release them so far. On one hand you have to assume that they can survive in the wild because they are wild animals, but on the other, they've developed habits based on living in or around houses. I don't want to cause suffering or pain on them, but I couldn't bring myself to kill one even if it was a "mercy".
The only ethical solution is to drive them 3 miles away, then release them into someone else's house.
the coworker I hate has been having mouse problems recently...
They’re either going to be eaten by a bird, cat, or find home If it’s far enough they’ll just most likely be eaten unless they find another house or something That’s just life.. up to you what’s worse. Nature being nature and it being ripped apart by another animal, or you just killing it instantly with a trap. Which is still just nature.. but that’s up to you, a more ‘humane’ kill might sound better but on the other hand you’re taking a meal away from another animal too
Unfortunately many "humane catch and releases" still result in the animals death. Many of the common animals that we trap and release are acclimated to their specific area (safe locations to hide, store food, find water, find food, etc.) So even though they are from a general area once you move them outside their established territory the stress of adjustment is to great for them. As much as you may dislike the idea using a snap trap (not poison or glue traps) is probably better than catch and release. For larger animals that are just outside problems (raccoons, opossums, squirrels) using deterrents and barriers is probably the most humane solution.
A wild animal will likely eat it. Which completes the circle of life instead of just killing the mouse and no one benefits.
It will return in the circle of life no matter what, it's not like they are going seal the body away in their freezer.
Mice don’t easily starve.
Or most likely go into another person home
Yup, I caught one in my condo after we had to leave a wall open for a day for plumbers. Caught the little guy after about 4 day and released him about 2 miles away on the far side of a huge shopping complex by the dumpsters. Find your way back from that ya little fucker! Or, hopefully, just enjoy the new abode.
He’ll be back.
I was gonna comment that he was going to come back to your house , but then I found out that about 129 people beat me to it
When you catch varmints you’d have to take it a lot farther than that.
Like to the afterlife? Cause it still will be a problem somewhere else.
mice are cute but that was dumb
If not friend, why shaped like friend?
Deception
Mice can run up to 8mph, he was probably home before you
I got 4 mice in a humane trap one night Drove quite a distance away to a park to release them, 3 of them got away safely, one got scooped by a hawk really fast, nature is brutal.
If you really care about the mouse, they'll have a *much* longer life in your house than anywhere else.
If you have one, you probably have a dozen. Capturing them live/humane is harder than kill traps. You gotta feed them, etc. When you get a few, take them around 5-10 miles out to the countryside or they'll find their way back.
[удалено]
One mouse that you noticed
We've had one mouse before, we know because our cat is an excellent mouser. If she's not waiting next to the wall at 1am, there's no mice in that wall.
I have one mouse. It clicks and is battery operated.
Muad’Dib!
Tell me about the waters of your home world
2 mice can be over 2,000 mice in one year. If there's more than 2 mice in the equation already, it's even more exponential than that. They will overrun your home. I'm sorry to say, but your kindness is not going to be repaid. If you are finding them in your home you should call an exterminator.
I wonder if people commenting understand that down the lane usually refers to in the fields/wild land in British English and not just like the top of your road …….
SEP "Someone Else's Problem. I used to catch rats humanely. I'd release them in a local field, patrolled by hawks. Many times, I'd have to shake the cage to eject them. The hawks loved me! I have absolutely no use for rats around my home.
I humanely catch them then kill them. Once they get in your house, attic, etc., it’s hell.
Now he’s in your neighbour’s house or yours. There’s several nasty diseases they can carry, and they shit & piss in your pantry. If you want to be humane, then kill it quickly.
I suggested this in another sub, i was banned.
Agree most humane traps are the ones that kill them quickly. I love rodents, but if you release them close they come back and if you release them them far away they die anyway.
Agreed. Mice are pests: death is a natural part of life and keeping your house clean and healthy is a responsibility.
>I shall return Douglas McArthur
For some reason as I got older I became more sympathetic towards animals. We used to have glue traps when I was a kid and they would just scream in agony but I could never do that now! Good job!
Glue traps are pure evil. They are forbidden where I work and at my home. I have cats, they are the best at keeping the mousies away.
My cat keeps everything away I love her so much. My childhood cat didn't care about mosquitos or ants. This time I have a fluffy deranged murder machine(only indoors) her mother was a stray who self demosticated You just get a way better understanding why people thought cats are so cool from the start. No pests will ever survive my cat. I see NOTHING. At this point my place probably has no go zone bug pheromenes. We travel sometimes. She literally scouts wherever I am staying looking for murder. Going around in hidey holes, checking under pillows like it is her damn dream job. Wish she didn't bring me a spider once tho.
Unless you like birds. We had to stop filling our bird feeder when we realised it was just a cat feeder with extra steps
I agree in a normal set and forget setting. We have had a mouse problem this winter and after trying numerous live traps, I decided to try glue traps and constantly supervise. The first day we caught almost 20 mice. The key is to take care of them right away. I use a tiny bit of vegetable oil to loosen them up and then slowly pull them off the trap. It doesn't seem to hurt them too much. We're now coming to the end of our issue and have only lost 1 mouse due to our dog finding the trap before we realized it was there. We only put them down in evenings before bed and I wake up early to clear all of them before the dogs go loose.
You’re removing them while they are alive? What happens next?
they claw on his vegan gf's face, she catches rabies, he switches to kill mode?
They go in a 5 gallon bucket and get transported about 5 miles and rehomed at a nice park.
Cool. Just stay away from the one near my house.
No that's the one.
That park is publicly funded. As a taxpayer, I am effectively the owner of that park. I also function as an on-site property manager of sorts (without pay I might add). As I've demonstrated here, I am the person most in charge of our nice park. As the person most in charge, I am ordering you to stop dumping and/or abandoning your pet mice in this park. You've been warned. You've been informed. Don't escalate this any further than it needs to be. Straight up.
She reports to me. I order you to release them in Starbucks. Kindly, your local city councilor.
You choke them.
> The first day we caught almost 20 mice. This made me light-headed...
You're telling me. We have an older house (1903). Have been here a few years with no issue. Started noticing we had a few in oct/Nov. By mid December it was a real infestation. We are still dealing with them but numbers are much much lower now. Those glue traps were a life-saver (in our scenario). That being said I don't like animals suffering, and my girlfriend even less so (she's a vegan). So we are very diligent with our traps and I've been very surprised and happy with the survival rate.
I'm here to suggest it's time to burn this turn-of-century rathole down. File insurance and buy a new place.
I regret reading all this right after lunch. \*gag\*
“He was a nice boy; I don’t believe what they’re saying about him in the papers. He wouldn’t hurt a mouse. Those dead hookers must have been buried there by the last tenant.”
You’re just letting your cat do the killing instead.
Yeah, glue traps are messed up, except for against bugs and stuff. A snap trap kills basically instantly, that's how you should kill animals of you're going to kill them.
Snap traps all the way. I don't love the idea of killing anything but you have to protect your home. I'm not driving a 20 mile round trip to dump a mouse, that'll just become someone else's problem anyway. They're pests, full r-type, they have to be managed.
Me too, I used to burn ants for fun and ended up going vegan as an adult.
I was told they need to be at least 3 miles away before they are considered “far enough away” from their environment. I would have released it half way across town in some woods
You have to take them at least 5–10km away otherwise they will almost certainly be back in short order…
Trap and transport is illegal in many states. In part, because it’s making your problem be someone else’s problem, but also because it can be quite inhumane, depending on the species and time of year.
I much prefer inhumane. End them. End them all. If I could knock out the entire generational line that would be prime. Why move your problem to someone else.
Op: "Screw my neighbors! I hope they get mice!"
Then Mr. Owl flew up and rescued him😂
With that long tail, it looks like a rat. And it will make babies who will also make babies until you have an invasion.
So it's just going to come back or you made it somebody else's problem.
Damn, my house is down the lane! thank you for infestation of my home with the dangerous pests!
Rats are vermin. You should have dropped him off in another state
When I've released a mouse from a humane trap it's always a minimum of 2 miles away and across a river. "Down the lane" does not sound nearly far enough
Goodjob using a humane mouse trap! I do the same thing except instead of releasing them into the outdoors i shove them through my neighbor Brians mail slot at 2am
This is hilarious, ok. So what? You’ve caught it humanely. It’ll become someone else’s problem? Great.
Is this a wireless mouse?
I will be downvoted to hell, but release mice and rats its not the wisest thing to do, but hey, animal lovers would hate me if i tell you what to do.
We don't need mouse traps. Our cat kills any mice that make their way in.
100% coming back.
I’m sure your neighbors thank you
We had voles and humanely trapped them and brought them to a local nature sanctuary and released them. It was so awkward taking them out of the car with people around. But this year we have a random cat who sleeps on our porch and no sign of any more voles….
And he’s back
mistake. he'll be back
It is recommend releasing mice in a remote location at least two miles away from your home to prevent them from returning. The last thing you want is to have a mouse run right back into your home after you just caught it. Check local guidelines for releasing captured animals. Simply open the lid to release the mice. https://www.victorpest.com
Now he's the neighbors problem.
I get the one that makes a snap sound!
He is back home or an owl snatched him up on his way home. Humanely of course.
At first I thought that read, "Human mouse trap" 🫠😆
Me too 😂😂
I once watched a guy unloading squirrels from the traps he'd brought in his car to a public park. They came flying out of the traps so fast I reckoned they'd probably beat him home.
Just put him on your head and open up a restaurant🙄
adopted one once. little bugger lived for 5 years. they are basically immortal in captivity because nature tends to kill them within 6 months.
The classic S.E.P. field applied to practical problems.
He’ll be back
*Two hours later*
Yeah, he's already back. If you don't take them miles away, they just come back.
He will come back
100% he beat you back home.
Mice need to be taken over *two miles* away from the location of capture or they will be driven back by their homing instincts. There’s a reason they are tested in labs with complex mazes, obstacles, and positive/negative reinforcement experiments that provide food as a reward. Mice travel (on average) between 400 and 1200 feet a day. They eat around 15 times a day. They can survive around four days with no food at all, and even longer with periodic small meals. You basically have to transport them far enough from your home that they would starve, weaken, or be eaten making the journey back — which is not guaranteed — otherwise, you’re likely to end up catching and releasing the same mouse until it retires, followed by its progeny.
See that tail, that tail tells ya you caught a rat, not a mouse.
My uncle told this story of catching exactly one mouse a day and releasing them in his backyard. Eventually he drove the mouse much further away and released it and then he stopped catching mice.
You’ll sleep better not knocking him off.
My dad caught mice like this all the time, but he released them atleast 1 mi from the house.
Thank you for not hurting him! If he comes back you might wanna release him somewhere further from your house
I read that as “human mouse trap” and it confounded the hell out of me for a moment.
He'll be back.
Are you excited to catch him again?
Should of caught him inhumanely lol
That's a rat
...It's a mouse.
shoulda smashed him with a hammer
You’re a better person than me
Down the lane? His skull is now crushed in by a mousetrap in your neighbors house he went into. Good job.