I had mice when I first bought my house but got rid of them. I am now thinking of putting rat and mouse traps outside and get them before they can cause harm. It's not illegal is it? Why isn't there an active government program to trap and kill wild mice and rats to keep them from infesting homes, garages and barns? .....and sewers.
Claude Hopper wrote in news:vIidnUri2s3y1BjVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
There is, but they don't like you, so you can't have it at your house.
on 7/21/2008 10:45 PM Claude Hopper said the following:
Something else for the government to do for you? Keep a cleaner house and seal up all outside openings and they won't come inside the house. Don't seal up the doors or you won't be able to get in either.
It really depends in where you live. Call your county animal control gang and see what they have to says about it.
I am certain that even in semi-urban areas you cannot set spring and claw traps outdoors - this is to protect pets and children. However, cage traps are usually legal as long as you don't poison the bait and you are able to release pets unharmed.
Dick
As another poster said, seal up as many openings where the little critters can enter your home. In a wild environment, the mice have many natural enemies. In a semi-rural environment, mice and rates are kept down by owls and such.
If you make your house uncomfortable for the critters they will tend to take their chances outside.
How to do it?
The combination of snap traps, glue traps, and poison has done the job for us. It seems like every two years or so they come back in. But the poison and trap combination gets rid of them within a few weeks. You have to be careful with the poison if you have kids or pets. The snap traps and glue traps "educated" your domestic critters (including kids) very quickly.
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In many places, it is illegal to relocate wild animals without a license.
Are you kidding? There's not even a government program to trap and kill thieves.
Think cat.
Towser, now deceased, was the mouser-in-chief at the Glennturrent distillery. During her 23-year reign, she caught 28,989 mice. Plus a few rats, pheasants, and an occasional rabbit.
There's nothing quite like a cat placing a dead mouse on your face while you're asleep.
Geez just get a cat.
Be careful.
Sometime in the middle of the night, take a look out a window. You will see hundreds of pairs of beady little eyes staring at your house. These sets of eyes are attached to mice/rats and their tiny brains scheming of ways to become your roommates.
Keep your lawn mowed and vegetation away from the house. Destroying habitat and food sources is the best way to control critters. Just One Bite or similar poisons work quite well on mice. The issue is using it outdoors and how it might affect other animals such as squirrels, chipmunks, pets.
Homeland Security Department may have a program provided you can prove rodents to be terrorists. Prove they have WMD and the entire military complex may come to your aid.
Take a 5 gallon paint bucket,put a ramp so they can get to the top,put a board across the top then put water in but keep it down just so they can't reach it add some oats on top of the water,they will fall in trying to get the oats & drown.
Be cautious. If too many of the rodents are eradicated then they'll be declared "endangered." You'll then spend tax dollars repopulating suburbia with rats and mice.
on 7/22/2008 11:21 AM JP said the following:
Or, you can install an in ground pool and don't cover it. I often pull dead mice, moles, and chipmunks out of mine. :-) I managed to net a half drowned chipmunk out one day. Put him on the concrete deck and he was shivering and coughing. I went to get a pair of work gloves and a towel to dry him off. By the time I got back he had recovered enough to run away. Don't ask why I didn't leave him in to finish the job. I don't kill animals for any reason and even get upset when I hit one with the car. Of course, now I've started a thread about why I should kill all animals around my property because someone else does
Check this out
The real problem is if you are not real selective in killing the rodents (or other animals), rats and mice will be all you have. Once the rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels and birds are gone the rats and mice population will rise up to exploit the food supply. They are smart enough to avoid the traps, poisons and cats.
I keep hearing about Towser the wonder cat but you notice he never wiped out the rats and mice. In fact there were so many he could kill thousands and never put a dent in the population. They can reproduce faster than a cat can kill them. That is not true of many other species.
Towser was a she cat. There's a bronze statue of her at the distillery.
I agree with you; if I was Towser's boss and she was bringing me better than three mice per day, I'd have hired her a helper.
Still, think how bad the situation would have been without the cat.
A joy I am very happy to have missed so far in my life. RIP, Towser, and may all other cats continue her legacy.
My bet is the rats were still sustaining the maximum population the environment would support. They were just farming rats for the cat. You get rid of rats by controlling the environment, not killing the rats. If you create a perimeter they can't breach, you kill out the ones inside but if they are outside you have to control the shelter opportunities and the food supply.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?
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