http://www.bearridgeproject.com/2009/07/dont-mace-mice.html
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Don’t Mace The Mice
Let me say that mice are not cute little critters, they are dirty destructive rodents that should be eliminated. At first I thought of them as furry little jokers and would simply remove them outside with a shovel but not kill them. Now I smack them with that same shovel and fling their dirty little bodies out on the road for the coyotes to eat.
What changed my perception? Well they eat everything and crap everywhere. The boys food bowl is about 3 inches deep by 8 inches round. I would fill it full and they eat what they want but the bowl started being empty every morning. Those awful mice where carrying off the entire bowl worth of food every night storing it under the cabinets. The dogs chew bones and several stuffed animals that frankly were way to big to get under the cabinets where also stored away. Magic mice perhaps.
The dogs like chasing them and Conway patrols every night starting around sundown. He darts from spot to spot cornering them when he finds them. A quick bark alerts Axel who jumps in to help, Axel is more of a supervisor leaving the hard work to Conway. I grab the shovel and pull the dogs back. The mouse is usually cowering under the sofa or behind the trashcan. A quick smack dispatches them. We are slowly reducing their numbers to a more manageable amount.
Traps didn’t work they just took the food leaving the trap unsprung. Those little tent sticky traps were apparently a challenge...they chewed a hole through the side and removed the food. Can’t use poisons with the dogs but did try a unique approach one evening.
I was getting tired of hearing them scurrying about so arrogantly. I thought that if I could get them out of their little nest I could smack them with the shovel killing off several at once. So I took my bear mace and planned to spray just a tiny squirt under the cabinets making the evil rodents run out where I could quickly dispatch them.
THIS WAS A VERY BAD PLAN
Needless to say the mice didn’t scurry but I filled the house with bear mace causing the dogs and I to scurry. Bear mace works by the way and doesn’t come off. I was dipping myself and the dogs in the tub out back which only makes it worse. Apparently you have to use milk to neutralize the oil based spray...ironically it was the mice eating into my only box of powered milk the night before that started me on this very bad path. I took the brunt of the spray the dogs only picking up a small amount...the dipping in the tub pissed them off much more than the spray.
So I have decided that as long as the mice keep their numbers in check through common sense family planning and as long as the boys enjoy chasing them I will live with the mice. Oh they also have to stay out of the bed...that’s a deal breaker.
Posted by BigBear at 8:24 PM 13 comments
Labels: Life, Survival
Don’t Mace The Mice<<<
If he is in an area that the tree huggers got laws passed in, he might as well give up, for the mice take over in hours after a new law goes in.
Here they stopped ranching, said the cows stepped on the Mexican Voles tunnels and killed them.
The dictionary says “small round eared mouse”.
They took over my place in the hills, I came home one night to find one on the top step, attempting to open the screen door.
My neighbor did not have anything to bait his mouse trap with and used newspaper, soaked in catsup, from the leftover packet that had been in the hamburger bag and it worked so well that he kept using catsup and newspaper.