Welcome 
Hooray! I made a difference!
In January, my mother noticed mice in the house. So my brother set out live traps so he could release them unharmed outside. It occurred to me that releasing mice outside in the middle of a bitterly cold New England winter was probably not a kindness and that it was probably more humane just to use poisons.
Humane to the mice? What about the predators that eat the poisoned mice? I will mention again that manyrodenticides are bioaccumulative (same link as in earlier post) and can have devastating consequences up the food chain.
Snap traps, people. Seal up your house and set snap traps.
I was talking about poisoning the mice in the house, or using snap traps, or whatever method would mean they’d die, rather than freeze to death outside. (To which she replied, “Stop making me feel guilty.”)
Hey now, I’ve been a Doper for nearly as long as you.
Good info though, I hadn’t thought about how rodent poisons build up in predator populations.
Where do you think the mice spent the winter before there were cozy houses in New England?
Buried in nests that they made before the ground was covered in two-three feet of snow? My point was and is that the newly released mice will probably freeze before they’re able to make themselves a nest.
They are better equipped than you might think to deal with the forces of nature. Letting them out literally in the freezing snow with no preparations whatsoever probably won’t go well for them, granted, but at that point it is between them and nature. Killing them outright is purely between you and them. And if one wanted to be extra humane they could even leave some food and dig a few burrows in the snow filled with leaves or rags.
All that aside, freezing to death is one of the least painful ways to go out of any mentioned so far in the thread.
I meant YOU’RE welcome
You can’t just live-trap a mouse and let it loose in your yard. It knows how to get back in, it’s done it before. You need to release it sufficiently far away from your residence or you’re just banging your head against the wall.
if you look outside in the melting snow you will see tunnels that mice have made along the ground. they will damage the base of young trees and shrubs.
Very well then. Carry on. :rolleyes:
I realize this is a very old post but THAT is such a great idea!! Thanks!
Mice are wild animals. They can carry disease. They can bite you, your pets, and your children. They are enormously destructive due to their instinct to chew everything. If they chew electrical wiring they can cause fires, which potentially can destroy everything you own.
But hey, your choice.
There are traps that (attempt) to catch the mice live, after which you can release them outside. My brother-in-law’s experience with this is that about half the time the mice expire before release (stress? Illness? Something else?) and the rest - who knows?
I don’t worry much about using a spring trap for mice, but I want to know if Anise ever got behind the stove. Also, were there any braaaains there?
I just started refighting our mouse problem after getting rid of them last year. They’re too smart (or fat) to get into the enclosed traps so we’re setting snap traps and glue traps.