I inadvertantly made a water trap last winter in my garage. Left a 5 gallon bucket with some water in it for a couple of months (too damn cold to do any work) and when I came back and opened the door.. the most aweful stench assaulted my nose.. 6 dead mice floating in the water...
I've done glue traps. No, it doesn't kill them so you do have to deal with live ones stuck to them. Since I do NOT like vermin in the house and damn sure won't accept them gnawing on very rare and no longer produced British car wiring, I have ~zero~ compunctions about chucking them in the trash. The glue trap's biggest plus is the lack of blood and guts to clean up.
Speaking of vermin: I have nothing against snakes. They don't bother me, I leave them alone and just stay away from the sharp end mostly because they eat the above mentioned mice. I've passed this attitude on to the kiddo; you can't tell for sure quickly if a snake is or isn't poisonous so the best thing is to assume all of them are and stay away. But the other night, the kiddo comes rushing in the front door to tell me she and her best friend down the street had just caught a snake in the street. Okay, I go to see. Probably a garter snake, corn snake or something similar, they are all over around here. Best friend has the snake wrapped in a denim jacket. I tell her, okay, 'let it go on the driveway' and she does. OMFG it was a foot long COPPERHEAD. 
Holy crap. It scoots over into the grass and stops, I guess because it's cool. No way will I have that hanging around the house no matter how many mice it devours, so I dispatched it quickly. And then berated the two teeners for being dumb enough to grab a POISONOUS SNAKE off the ground.
One of my cats probably prays for a mouse or two to darken my doorstep. The other might not be much of a mouser--both are indoor cats, but one will torment a toy mouse for hours before tearing its head off. 
<--not worried about mice at the moment. Daphne will obliterate them.
I've used this stuff with good success. As well as spending a LOT of time figuring out (and sealing up) how the little cherubs get in.
Carmel works good for trap bait. Cats sometimes "play" with mice, and they get away. A small terrier will make it his mission in life to kill all mice in your house. But if the mouse hides....say in the sofa....the terrier WILL trash it to get to it.
Jensenman wrote: I've done glue traps. No, it doesn't kill them so you do have to deal with live ones stuck to them. Since I do NOT like vermin in the house and damn sure won't accept them gnawing on very rare and no longer produced British car wiring, I have ~zero~ compunctions about chucking them in the trash.
And why don't you just put it out of its misery first before you chuck it into the trash, leaving it to starve to death? That is a disgusting and unnecessary thing to do with any animal.
Leaving them on glue traps to starve is beyond cruel. If you're going to use them, at least kill them. Just leaving them on there is just opting to torture them, since they can also mutilate themselves on the trap trying to get off.
I also have ~zero~ compunctions about telling people like you off. Jesus Christ, why do people have to be complete a-holes about killing things? Quickly and painlessly, not hours and days of torture... they feel pain after all, they don't deserve such torture. Sheesh. TBH, I think glue traps should be outlawed - they're torture devices, nothing more.
Snap traps are better anyway. Usually an instant death, and the animal doesn't gnaw parts of itself to get away - you're worried about "blood and guts" yet glue traps have been known to cause mice to disembowel themselves and rip limbs off just by attempting to pull off, such is the strength of the glue. Then you have to take into account the amount of piss and poop the animal will generate stuck for hours on such a trap where the whole thing will be covered by it (that in itself is why the CDC do not recommend these traps).
But my main beef here is choosing to "throw it out" while it's still alive. Animal abuse. It's wrong to keep them alive on those glue traps, and for idiots who partake in such an activity speaks volumes of them. I hate when mice poop on my kitchen floor, but I hate it even more when people intentionally drag out the animal's misery. FFS, do the right thing and put it out of it's misery.
But of course, I'm going to assume my point will be lost to a lot of people.
To reiterate, I am not against killing of mice - nor am I telling people to "live with them". All I am saying, that it is not cool to torture them (and it is wrong) - and that if you HAVE to kill them, do it quickly and painlessly - as you would an animal you'd slaughter for eating. Unnecessary cruelty is unnecessary.
We have three rat terriers, and live in woods. We get mice and their kin all the time. Now once the ratties get an idea they are there, I really do feel sorry foe them. Ever seen em hunt? Much less 3 of em working together? The mice don't have much of a chance, and its usually over quickly.
Got one last night. I tweaked a snap trap for a hair trigger and half an hour later SNAP!.
Reset the trap, checked the others, now I wait. No signs of mouse this morning.
4eyes wrote: Carmel works good for trap bait. Cats sometimes "play" with mice, and they get away. A small terrier will make it his mission in life to kill all mice in your house.
This is how I ended up with a piano with a dead mouse inside and bite marks all over the keyboard base...
HenryC wrote: And why don't you just put it out of its misery first before you chuck it into the trash, leaving it to starve to death? That is a disgusting and unnecessary thing to do with any animal.
Why I don't use the traps. I don't want to smash them with a hammer, but I'm also unwilling to let them suffer. Thus, spring traps.
My buddy, a very avid hunter, doesn't like using the glue traps, so he uses a bb gun.
Joey
having once gotten stuck to a glue trap, I can understand why mice can mutilate themselves to get free.. that glue is HARD to get off..try it sometime (on a clean new trap)
So, I haven't looked at this thread in a while and didn't realize I'd started a firestorm with my glue trap suggestion. In our case I had to take Q-Tips and Avon Skin So Soft to release the little buggers' feet and then transport them to a relocation site well out of town. I had little kids who couldn't comprehend just wacking them with a shovel or gassing them in a box stuck to the tailpipe of the car. I certainly would never support cruelty to any animal, even the ones that invade my home.
If they are in a glue trap I usually just step on them. Kind of like stepping on a pecan. Y'all are worried about cruelty to a rat. Really? My cats are a lot worse than I am, they usually snap their spines and then play with them for hours or until I get tired of listening to their squeaks and step on them.
I'm liking the bucket trap, I might make one and put it in the attic this weekend. I hate putting poison out and then finding out the sucker died in a wall due to the smell.
The bucket trap would be perfect for my garage too. Frickn' rats are making a mess and it is only a matter of time before they climb into one of my cars.
Toyman01 wrote: If they are in a glue trap I usually just step on them. Kind of like stepping on a pecan. Y'all are worried about cruelty to a rat. Really? My cats are a lot worse than I am, they usually snap their spines and then play with them for hours or until I get tired of listening to their squeaks and step on them.
It's still something that can feel pain, suffering, etc. I'm not a hippie, but I also see no need in prolonging the suffering of an animal. As for the cats, that's just nature doing it's thing. Sometimes nature is cruel. We don't have to be though.
I have no trouble with hunting or killing animals, but I seriously hate to see anything suffer. I have used glue traps in the past but prefer other methods.
One of my most effective traps was accidental. I left the top off a half empty jug of antifreeze on the shelf in my garage. When I went to use it, it was nearly full of dead mice.
Smacked a hornet's nest there, didn't I? No, I didn't pull the wings off of flies when I was younger.
HenryC: I used to feed mice to the wife's ball python. They have to be alive when that is done or the snake won't see them. Now THAT could be considered cruelty; chunking one live animal in a cage for another to eat. But no, it's just nature's way. That's what happens in the wild.
I also was once tasked with finding the source of an odor in the service drive at a place where I used to work. Turned out to be two baby birds who fell out of the nest and down inside a steel curtain wall, they starved to death in there. Nature and circumstance is far crueler than anything I could dream up.
When I put the glue trap in the trash, my (very soon to be ex) wife and I had this very discussion. We both wanted the mice gone. She didn't like the idea of the 'snap traps', which is why we had the glue traps in the first place. Once they were caught, she found them in the trap. I told her I could kill them immediately via the Toyman method and outlined a couple of other possibilities, she got a little green and voted for putting them in the trash.
By the way: snap traps are also not 100% instant kill. In my younger days, I remember more than once being sent to check a trap and there was a still alive wriggling mouse in it. The design has not changed since then.
In short, when it comes to dealing with mice: the only truly 'humane' thing to do is let them run rampant, any other type of treatment of any trapping or killing is cruel. As noted, I do not like the idea of mouse E36 M3 in my grits and also have seen way too much rodent damage to wiring. So, if mice decide to move into my house, they lose.
I do not go out of my way to kill other creatures who co-inhabit this planet with us, I pretty much leave them alone. In fact, my $2006 Challenge car project got moved back about two months because some birds (Carolina wrens) had built a nest in the engine compartment and were raising a family. I do not hunt because I think target shooting with live targets is unnecessarily cruel. But that will not stop me from dispatching something that could present a threat to me or mine. (If you think mice could not be a life or death problem, Google 'hantavirus' or 'Four Corners Disease'.)
The method I chose that last time sure beats some others I've seen and heard of.
alex wrote:Brotus7 wrote: Do the mice die in the sticky traps, or do I have to kill them? I have no problem dropping the axe on them, but the gf may have a problem if she finds a live one glued to the trap before I kill it....The ASPCA's approved method (if you care) is drowning a stuck mouse. Letting them starve is a little morbid, but they are vermin, as you say. In my experience, they generally seem to go before they starve though. I think they might freak themselves out into a tiny, cute, little heart attack.
Yeah, that is probably what happens. Once in the hanger I worked in, a small mouse fell in a trash can, someone had an airpistol and kept shooting it with air and watching it run in circles till it keeled over dead.
Grtechguy wrote:slefain wrote: I did shoot two rats in our backyard with my pellet gun. My wife was appalled and called me a redneck.and her point?
I would inform her it's more redneck to live with rats. Shooting is more humane than poison, quicker.
I have those hidden type traps to be effective plus you don't have to see the mouse. Check the trip indicator and toss if tripped, although not reusable. And those ultra-sound transmitters seem to work.
Forgot about something I saw a long time back: mice can be euthanized pretty quickly with starting fluid (it's ether). Cut a small hole in the bottom of a cup, place it over the mouse, shoot the ether in the hole and then stick your thumb over the hole (or otherwise block it). It has to stay on there for a few minutes. Mousie goes to sleep and never wakes up.
Of course, while this is happening mousie is freaking out, so I suppose that will be considered 'mental cruelty'.
Jensenman wrote: HenryC: I used to feed mice to the wife's ball python. They have to be alive when that is done or the snake won't see them. Now THAT could be considered cruelty; chunking one live animal in a cage for another to eat. But no, it's just nature's way. That's what happens in the wild.
Live feeding is irresponsible - snakes can eat pre-killed just fine. There are a couple of risks accosiated with it, and it is just as 'natural' as keeping a snake in an enclosure. But that's a matter for another topic.
Jensenman wrote: Nature and circumstance is far crueler than anything I could dream up.
Nature is amoral and circumstances of it cannot be controlled - are you using what happens in nature as an excuse for your own actions? Please. By that logic I could justify kicking a dog just because they get treated worse in China.
Actually, I don't think nature can be far crueller? Why? The intent to be malicious - humans are such a creative species. Hell, we've even made ways to torture ourselves effectively. Most of the things in nature are merciful compared to what we are capable of. For one thing, a human can decide to prolong something's pain where it would most likely never be encountered in nature in the first place. A predator isn't going to do something like that.
Jensenman wrote: I told her I could kill them immediately via the Toyman method and outlined a couple of other possibilities, she got a little green and voted for putting them in the trash.
So you left them to starve to death? Well done. "Green", what the hell?
Jensenman wrote: By the way: snap traps are also not 100% instant kill. In my younger days, I remember more than once being sent to check a trap and there was a still alive wriggling mouse in it. The design has not changed since then.
No trap is infallible, but the chances of getting a swift kill are a lot better than a 100% chance of suffering of leaving an animal starving to death in your garbage bin.
Jensenman wrote: In short, when it comes to dealing with mice: the only truly 'humane' thing to do is let them run rampant, any other type of treatment of any trapping or killing is cruel.
Being humane doesn't have to mean "let live". It can also mean "put out of misery"... killing it on a glue trap is an act of kindness, rather than leaving it to starve. Honestly, you've never heard of a humane kill before? Oh, it's like - killing in a way that is as painless as possible, rather than leaving the animal to rip its skin off, gnaw at its legs and dehydrate/starve to death.
Jensenman wrote:I do not hunt because I think target shooting with live targets is unnecessarily cruel. But that will not stop me from dispatching something that could present a threat to me or mine. (If you think mice could not be a life or death problem, Google 'hantavirus' or 'Four Corners Disease'.)
Yet you throw a living mammal stuck on superglue in your rubbish while it is still alive? That's as unnecessarily cruel as you can get. I'm not questioning the purpose of dispatching something if it's a problem, I'm questioning your method.
I never said mice aren't a problem, or a health hazard - but those things have absolutely nothing to do with quickly killing an animal on a trap vs giving it an extremely slow and painful death. You're also exaggerating - hantavirus is incredibly rare, something like under 100 cases in the US a year. They're not as dangerous as you'd like to believe. Otherwise I would be dead by now (I lived on a farm when I was little, we had mouse plagues in Australia).
Jensenman wrote: The method I chose that last time sure beats some others I've seen and heard of.
My point still stands. Your method was disgraceful and just simply prolonged the creature's agony, when you could have just put it out of its misery. No instances of "brutal nature" is going to make that any more or less horrid... especially since you had a choice of how to dispose of it. T'was an act of human cruelty, nothing more.
That it is a pest is irrelevant, because you caught the animal anyway. Once you catch it, it stops becoming a problem so this really isn't about pest control. The animal is helpless on the trap, probably injured and frightened out of its wits - and what do you do? Yeah, just throw it in a garbage like a piece of rubbish - where it took who knows how long for it to finally die. Leaving it on the glue trap itself is bad enough (they get horribly injured on them), but to intentionally starve it on one, to prolong its pain? Wow, I don't know what to say.
Toyman01 wrote: Y'all are worried about cruelty to a rat. Really? My cats are a lot worse than I am, they usually snap their spines and then play with them for hours or until I get tired of listening to their squeaks and step on them.
Of course I care. They're still living creatures that can feel pain, as much as a cat or dog. They are mammals after all. Cats play with mice when they're bored and overfed, or teaching their kittens how to hunt. A cat doesn't comprehend the ability of another animal's suffering, we do, hence the comparison is rather moot. Cats don't know any better, but a human does.
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