humane mouse trap

[Graham.]

[Graham.]

Human mousetraps are availible on Ebay, smaller than mine suprisingly ;-)

location: United Kingdom

[Brian Gaff]

I'm thinking of offering councelling services for the mice after their trauma.

Brian

[Nightjar]

in a very rural Gite de France. With nothing better to do of an evening, they spent the time drinking beer and building ever more elaborate ways to trap mice.

Colin Bignell

[The Natural Philosopher]

which will last less than a week., probably as he will die agionisingly of starvation not knowing how to find food,. If a hawk doesn't get him first.

Not many predators in a suburban house.

[Mathew Newton]

On Thursday, May 31, 2012 11:23:50 PM UTC+1, Graham. wrote: =20

t, the thought of killing a 'cute little mouse' with a conventional trap ho= rrified her so she plumped for a humane trap instead. Only problem was she = forgot to check it regularly enough and one day found a mouse in it.... dea= d... it'd got trapped in that tiny space and must've slowly starved to deat= h.

Mathew

[Graham.]

Brian, in one of the pictures, having being caught in semi-transparent plastic box, he is standing to his full height on his little hind legs looking rather indignant to say the least.

The last picture shows him being released in the local park and the house-mouse starting his new life as a fieldmouse.

[Adrian C]

I've used these successfully to trap mice on the loose here.

it had caught a couple, SWMBO left one of the traps outside on the patio open to dry after washing out unmentionables left by the previous residents.

It dutifully trapped another one. :-(

I held the trap upward so that the opening was at the top, and stared at the cutest small baby white mouse I had ever seen. It also stared back at me and probably thought I perhaps didn't look that cute. Nevertheless we shared the moment(!) until I walked down the garden and out of the back gate, where mousey decided to leg it jumping from an almost suicidal height (for a mouse).

Never seen again. I miss 'im.

[Dave Liquorice]

Thinking "What's that blue thing, can I jump out?" The shallow box is no challenge, the deeper one might require a bit of a scrabble at the top depending on how used to jumping the little blighter is.

I think it's a field mouse (apodemus sylvaticus) anyway as it's fairly dark brown, it's tail is the same length as its body and white underneath. House mice (mus domesticus) are a lighter brown or grey in colour and have a tail shorter than their body. House mice are lighter underneath but not white.

If local park has housing within a mile or two it will be back inside somewhere almost before the captor has got home...

[Dave Liquorice]

plastic latch isn't strong enough. Resorted to placing baby monitor in loft with traps and listening for the sound of trap activation and scrabbling. Then getting up there quick...

Had more success with these:

the little beggers knaw holes in the side where there are tiny ventilation holes. These are big enough at about 1.5mm dia for them to get enough purchase with their teeth.

[Tim Streater]

[Steve Firth]

I think that one can reason from the basis of human experience that short lived animals must experience time passing very slowly, more so when in "fight or flight" mode.

Human children find that the days are long and that what seems like a few minutes to an adult is eternity to the child.

[Andrew Gabriel]

the thought of killing a 'cute little mouse' with a conventional trap horrified her so she plumped for a humane trap instead. Only problem was she forgot to check it regularly enough and one day found a mouse in it.... dead... it'd got trapped in that tiny space and must've slowly starved to death.

They can only live a very short time (some hours) with no food or water.

My grandmother wouldn't hurt a fly. She came to stay once when we had mice (which turned out to be living off a bag of grass seed in the loft, although we didn't yet know that).

One ran behind a little chest of drawers in her room whilst my dad was trying to catch it. She lifted up the drawers, realised they were a bit too heavy, and dropped them. That was the end of that mouse...

[Tim Streater]

I have a clear recollection of sitting in the high chair and discovering gravity. If you held something out to the side and let go then it moved, ever so slowly, to the floor. The slowness stuck in my mind.

[Graham.]

...If the urban foxes don't get it first, although I would guess a domestic cat would me more nimble on its toes.

Interesting to hear that it might be a fieldmouse though.

It's fortunate I kept the lid on the box, after I removed it and I took a second shot without the lens-cap dangling, it had already jumped out.

[djc]

I don't remember the discovery of Gravity, nor the discovery of the power of the Spoken Word. However, according to my parents the discovery was probably simultaneous. Throw rattle out of pram, say "dwoppedit", proud parent (baby says first word!) returns rattle, throw rattle out of pram...

[Dave Liquorice]

Took us a few winters to work that one out along with working out that 100yds from the house wasn't far enough. They now get deported several miles away from any habitation to take their chances.

[John Rumm]

Yup, I am sure we have deported the same ones several times over! Not only that, the remaining one or two are very much harder to catch (possibly again).

[Dave Liquorice]

problem

deported

It was after catching the same mouse three nights on the trot that we decided that 100yds wasn't enough. How did we know it was the same mouse? It had a nick in one of it's ears.