Keeping Mice Away

[7/4]

And Eric, just because you've only caught a couple of mice doesn't mean that there are not dozens of them around.  Their litters are HUGE.  And they reproduce quickly, like any other rodent.  Rabbits are not the only ones which do that in the rodent family.

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Are rabbitts rodents?

[rostasi]

There was a time when they were considered part of the rodent family

just because of their close resemblance, but I think it's changed now.

Rabbits are lagomorphs and - this may be too much info - but they have

"defining" characteristics:

Edited October 2, 2005 by rostasi

[Eric]

And Eric, just because you've only caught a couple of mice doesn't mean that there are not dozens of them around.  Their litters are HUGE.  And they reproduce quickly, like any other rodent.  Rabbits are not the only ones which do that in the rodent family.

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Yes, I have suspected as much. But I figure I somehow eliminated the more adventurous end of the gene pool ...

[DTMX]

Their litters are HUGE.

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Tell me about it. I had a litter of mice up inside the wall of one of my bedrooms. I could hear them thumping around but couldn't figure out how to get rid of all of them at the same time. Then the mother got eaten by an owl or something, and after 2-3 days the litter died. And it stunk - I mean a sickly-sweet, eye-watering miasma that turned that whole room into the Amityville Horror. I've dealt with a dead mouse in the wall before - give it a few days and it will dry out. I don't know how many dead mice were in that wall but they had the collective putrifying power of an adult opossum. After a week or so, I was this close to cutting a hole in the wall and scooping them out myself. Good times...

1. If you put out traps or poison, put it along the walls. Mice tend to hug the walls when they travel (don't like being exposed on all sides).

2. If you put out a trap - and the next day the trap has been sprung, and moved a considerable distance - you need a bigger trap. True story.

3. Seal up any holes leading into the house and get rid of anything that mice might want to hide in, under or around. Time to take those old newspapers to the recycling center.

4. Get a cat. They're wired to hunt and almost always get their mouse, unless the mouse is Speedy Gonzalez or a baby kangaroo.

[J Larsen]

There was a time when they were considered part of the rodent family

just because of their close resemblance, but I think it's changed now.

Rabbits are lagomorphs and - this may be too much info - but they have

"defining" characteristics:

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Scratching my head over bullet point three...

[7/4]

There was a time when they were considered part of the rodent family

just because of their close resemblance, but I think it's changed now.

Rabbits are lagomorphs and - this may be too much info - but they have

"defining" characteristics:

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Scratching my head over bullet point three...

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[tonym]

The wheels- are those Kenny G CD's?

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they can't be. They don't have coffee cup rings on them.

[patricia]

=DTMX,Oct 2 2005, 03:25 PM]

Their litters are HUGE.

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Tell me about it.

1. If you put out traps or poison, put it along the walls. Mice tend to hug the walls when they travel (don't like being exposed on all sides).

2. If you put out a trap - and the next day the trap has been sprung, and moved a considerable distance - you need a bigger trap. True story.

3. Seal up any holes leading into the house and get rid of anything that mice might want to hide in, under or around. Time to take those old newspapers to the recycling center.

4. Get a cat. They're wired to hunt and almost always get their mouse, unless the mouse is Speedy Gonzalez or a baby kangaroo.

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Nothing better than a cat. The one drawback is that, like any other pets, they have to be considered if you travel. Getting somebody to look in on your little guys is sometimes a problem, feeding them and changing their litter. Leaving them home during the day is no big deal.

So, A CAT.

Oh, BTW, I'm not an expert on rodents, so not knowing that rabbits were lagomorphs is understandable. But, if that's so, what are gophers, squirrils, chipmonks, beavers, mink, ermine and those other guys?? I have always thought, when I thought about it at all, that they were all rodents.

Which are lagomorphs? Just rabbits?

Edited October 16, 2005 by patricia

[Jim Alfredson]

My cat is a good mouser. He also catches bats. We're still fixing up this old house and there are some holes in the ceiling (covered by drop ceilings) where bats can come down from the attic. Herman has caught a few by jumping up in the air higher than I thought his fat ass could.

The ultimate mouser cat we ever had was when I was growing up on the farm. My sister's cat, Tigger (yes, he was an orange tabby... she was very young when she named him) was a part of a litter of barn cats from my great-grandmother's farm and he had HUGE paws. We called them mega-paws. His claws were gigantic, too. He kept our house out in the country completely clean of mice.

My other sister's cat, on the other hand, who was a siamese/persian mix, wouldn't touch a mouse to save his life. So when getting a cat, make sure you get a mouser!!!

[7/4]

We had a siamese named Sabrina that was quite a mouser.

[Jim Alfredson]

I don't think it was because was a siamese that he didn't mouse. It was just the way he was. Cats are pretty amazing creatures... they definitely have personalities.

[7/4]

I don't think it was because was a siamese that he didn't mouse.  It was just the way he was.  Cats are pretty amazing creatures... they definitely have personalities.

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No doubt about that. Every time I've been bit, it was always someone elses cat.

[patricia]

What I find interesting is the adjusting of hierarchy in a household in which there are both cats and dogs.

Our original pet was Morris, a stray, who was an adult when we got him. He was a superb mouser and a dignified gentleman cat.

It was a few years later that we acquired Bubbles, a Bichon Frise. It was not surprising that she took the second place in the pecking order. Morris could get her to move from a favoured spot, just by looking at her and moving toward the location.

Fluffy, a young lady cat, also a stray came after Bubbles and within a few days took the second place, pushing the dog to third place.

Fluffy was a terrible mouser. She once chased a mouse for at least half an hour, all through the house, batting at it, but letting it go. At one point she had the mouse cornered and was still playing with it, making noise that disturbed Morris who was trying to sleep. Finally, Morris strolled over, killed the mouse, ate it and went back to the mat in front of the door and went back to sleep, after giving Fluffy a disgusted look. It was amazing to watch.

[Guest]

What I find interesting is the adjusting of hierarchy in a household in which there are both cats and dogs. 

Our original pet was Morris, a stray, who was an adult when we got him.  He was a superb mouser and a dignified gentleman cat. 

It was a few years later that we acquired Bubbles, a Bichon Frise.  It was not surprising that she took the second place in the pecking order.  Morris could get her to move from a favoured spot, just by looking at her and moving toward the location. 

Fluffy, a young lady cat, also a stray came after Bubbles and within a few days took the second place, pushing the dog to third place.

Fluffy was a terrible mouser.  She once chased a mouse for at least half an hour, all through the house, batting at it, but letting it go.  At one point she had the mouse cornered and was still playing with it, making noise that disturbed Morris who was trying to sleep.  Finally, Morris strolled over, killed the mouse, ate it and went back to the mat in front of the door and went back to sleep, after giving Fluffy a disgusted look.  It was amazing to watch.

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Morris was the cat version of Papa Jo Jones. Fluffy was the cat version of Bird at the jam session where Papa Jo flung his cymbal to express his displeasure.

[Big Deal]

Earlier this year I found some mouse calling cards in the bread drawer. This is the bottom drawer in my kitchen. I figured that my cat Max wasn't earning his keep and set a spring trap in the drawer. I went out and when I came back that night, I heard a noise coming from the drawer. Max had come in with me and came over to investigate along with me. There was the mouse caught but not killed, jumping all over and making a lot of noise. I thought "now what? Guess I'll have to brain him with a shovel" and then I looked down at Max and thought "Ah what the heck". Outside we went, I opened the trap and that mouse shot off like a rocket with Max right on his tail. After much kitty glee, he killed the little bugger and then wanted back in the house. He then headed right back over to the bread drawer as if he was waiting for another "treat". Alas, he left emptied paw.

[mikeweil]

Mice look for food and shelter in a basement. We had a dozen in ours all the time, but when I systematically removed everything they possibly could sink their teeth in, they were gone within weeks.

[mikeweil]

My advice seemingly helped, as it stopped the thread?!?!

[mikeweil]

Part of the problem I described two posts above was that my mother had birds in cages and stored their food in the same chamber as her own food supplies. She had a large birdcage from floor to ceiling in the lobby. The food chamber was only 10 feet away, easy for the mice to find, and it was just as easy for them to climb the wooden shelves to get everywhere in there .....

The point is, when we recently renovated the flat, my friend opened the old housing for the electrical fuses which was on the wall in that food chamber. He removed half a dozen mummies of mice who had run up the wall to hide when my mother switched on the light in the chamber, crept in it between the fuses and electrocuted themselves when they closed a circuit. And we always wondered about the funny smell in there and why the fuses blew all the time .....

[BruceH]

Buy a cat.

[Shrdlu]

Yeah a cat, or, seriously, and old-fashioned mouse trap.

We had rats and mice in an outbuilding, and I tried poison, but it didn't get rid of them. So I got a rat trap (just a big mouse trap) and within an hour the rat was a memory! In the next few days, it killed another rat and six mice. Never had a problem again. Uggh, the rats were bigguns!

[7/4]

Yeah a cat, or, seriously, and old-fashioned mouse trap.

We had rats and mice in an outbuilding, and I tried poison, but it didn't get rid of them. So I got a rat trap (just a big mouse trap) and within an hour the rat was a memory! In the next few days, it killed another rat and six mice. Never had a problem again. Uggh, the rats were bigguns!

la pew!