# I pit people using rat poison unnecessarily. (Mercy killing of mouse) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 8, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615 "2012-07-08T18:42:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/1 "2012-07-08T18:42:40Z")
This is a sad pitting, rather then an real angry one. But still. Yesterday, I passed a neighbours house and saw a [mouse](http://www.cozypad.com/how-to-catch-a-mouse-without-killing-it/6761.html) on the sidewalk. My initial thought of “Aww look how cute” quickly changed into “Oh god, not again”. Because a mouse in his right mind doesn’t walk out into an unprotected sidewaik in broad daylight. A sane mouse runs away when a human hand approaches. But this mouse didn’t. Because it was half crazy with pain. When I looked at it closer, And picked it up to look at it, I saw that it wasn’t hurt, but its eyes were unfocused and it was writhing in pain and agony. God, that mouse _hurt_. This mouse had been fed rat poison . The modern kind, available at any Home Depot. The [kind](http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/contrac-rodent-place-packs-p-77.html)that conveniently " stops bad smells from inside the woodwork" by dessicating the animal from the inside out. A mouse that ingests the poison is mummified from the inside out _while still alive_. It is a slow, slow, cruel torture of a death. Now, I’ve found one rat and one mouse in the same situation before. I didn’t quite know what was wrong with the first one, so I took it to the garden and put it under a shrub out of the cat’s reach to see if it would get better. It didn’t. I found the dead rat a day later exactly where I left it. It is not pleasant to think about how it died. So when I found that mouse yesterday on the sidewalk, my thought of :“Oh God, not again” was because the only decent thing to do would be to take the mouse to an allyway and give it a quick mercy killing. Which I did, gritting my teeth. I hate people who use that kind of poison instead of using alternatives. Is it really so difficult to buy some airtight containers to put your foodstuffs in? To pack nesting materials in sturdy plastic bags? God, the mice that my cat kills in our backyard (the yard is fenced off) have swifter deaths that that horrible poison gives them. Animal cruelty sucks. ☹ And having to kill a beastie with your own hands sucks too. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/2 "2012-07-08T18:53:31Z")
I don’t know, the problem is if you’ve ever had a house infested with rats or mice all those “precautions” you talk about don’t typically do shit. It happened to me years ago and you’d be literally amazed at how many rats you can kill with conventional traps and still have more and more rats around. They are pest animals, reproduce rapidly, and in great numbers. They can survive on very meagre amounts of food and water, and if they infest your home it can be a nightmare to get rid of them. I eventually called in a professional exterminator and they used poison–and that was the only thing that ever got rid of them. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/3 "2012-07-08T19:11:20Z")
War is hell. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/4 "2012-07-08T19:18:53Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t know, the problem is if you’ve ever had a house infested with rats or mice all those “precautions” you talk about don’t typically do shit. We had a rat infestation back in my dorm house when I was a student. The cause was simple: none of the slacker students who lived there had much of a clue whose responsibility it was to put the thrashbags out, and the bags piled up in a small shed attached to the house. When we got a clue and assigned thrashduty to the most responsible of us, the rat problem was solved within a week. No food & no shelter - no rats. Why would rats stick around in a home that offers no food? Just to be annoying? So forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical about rat infestations out of nowhere in private homes that require poison to solve. Okay, restaurants and farms and food factories, I understand, although a cat or dog seems a better solution then. But anywhere else it is IMHO far more often a matter of sloppy handling of food then of rats " invading" homes. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/5 "2012-07-08T19:21:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > War is hell. Yes. And I didn’t ask to be drawn into it. But the kind of people that use such poisons and traps rarely are the kind with enough decency to do their own mercy killing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/6 "2012-07-08T19:36:56Z")
When the rats stop moving into my house, I’ll stop poisoning them. Sorry, but not feeling a lot of sympathy for the rats. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/7 "2012-07-08T19:43:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > When the rats stop moving into my house, I’ll stop poisoning them. Sorry, but not feeling a lot of sympathy for the rats. And this how it’s being framed. Killing mice vs not killing them. Howe about instead we frame it the way OP talked about. Killing them in a torturous or aginizing way vs dealing with them in a more humane way? Edit: let me tell you, I had gal bladder trouble. That was extreme pain. Never felt anything like that in my life. If that mouse experienced that kind of pain, and it sounds like it experienced it several times over, that is wrong. Especially when much kinder methods of even killing exist. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/8 "2012-07-08T19:46:30Z")
Live in the country and had a mouse problem. Food is in containers, mice chew through. Nesting materials, pot holders and kitchen towels can’t be kept in containers and still be conveniently used. Tried traps and caught some, but finally had to resort to poison. Too bad. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/9 "2012-07-08T19:49:30Z")
> [@GaryM](#): > > Live in the country and had a mouse problem. Food is in containers, mice chew through. Nesting materials, pot holders and kitchen towels can’t be kept in containers and still be conveniently used. Tried traps and caught some, but finally had to resort to poison. > > Too bad. Did you use the poison like the OP described? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/10 "2012-07-08T19:50:18Z")
I prefer snap traps for mouse infestations, but I’m not spending a lot of time worrying about the plight of mice cruelly killed by poison or whatever. As **Martin Hyde** said, once an infestation gets started, it can be sheer hell to get rid of it. I once had a family of mice that was apparently living on nibbling away the straw from our kitchen broom. I don’t really think that bagging the broom in plastic and keeping it on a high shelf is a good solution. Additionally, during that particular infestation, the mice figured out how to shimmy up the back of the stove in order to get onto the kitchen counters, where they promptly gnawed through a heavy-duty plastic bag and then a heavy-duty paper bag in order to get to our supply of rice. We solved it by placing snap traps liberally around all the places where we saw mouse traffic, but if that hadn’t worked I’d have happily and readily escalated to poison. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/11 "2012-07-08T19:51:14Z")
Bromadiolone is an anticoagulant. It doesn’t cause “mummification” - I’m not sure what that refers to. What bromadiolone does is it keeps blood from clotting and causes internal bleeding/hemorrhaging. I’m wondering if you’re seeing rats/mice being dispatched with something different. With all the rat poison spread around the alleys in this city, plus idiots who keep it under the sink where their dogs can find it, I’ve seen lots of rat poison ingestion by dogs. While most are seen soon enough to receive treatment and survive just fine (vitamin K1), I’ve seen a few that reached us days too late. While they were obviously sick, bloody urine/stool and bleeding from gums/pale, extensive bruising, and blood coagulation time off the chart, I have a hard time saying they were in pain. Bromethalin, on the other hand, is one of the “bad stuff” ingredients we’re worried about. This stuff might be what’s causing what you’re seeing, and if you can find who in the neighborhood is using it, you might want to encourage them to use the anticoagulant if they’re set on setting out poison bait. This stuff, though rarely, can cross-poison your cat if kitty were to eat a mouse that ate bromethalin - I wouldn’t want to risk it… > [@](#): > > Bromethalin Mode of Action > Bromethalin works by attacking and inhibiting the central nervous system, leading to paralysis and death. > > How quickly does Bromethalin kill? > Death by bromethalin poisoning most often occurs within 24 to 36 hours after digestion. > > Toxicity > Bromethalin is extremely lethal to mice, rats, and other rodents. It is recommended that bromethalin products always be used with a tamper-proof bait station as secondary poisoning can occur in dogs and cats that eat a rodent killed by bromethalin (although this is uncommon). Symptoms of secondary bromethalin poisoning in animals include loss of ability to bark, loss of appetite, and lethargy. There is not an antidote at this time but symptoms can be treated with corticosteroids. Always read the product label carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/12 "2012-07-08T19:57:52Z")
Mice are stinky, destructive little bastards that carry disease. What they can’t ruin by chewing, they shit or piss all over. Rats are the same only bigger. Fuck them. Traps, poison, air guns, starvation…these are all valid methods of eradicating them and can be used in concert. Outdoors, I cheer the weasels, stoats, owls, raptors, and other predators that keep the filthy beggars under some control. Feeling bad for a poisoned mouse is like feeling bad for staph infection that has been treated with antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/13 "2012-07-08T19:59:14Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Is it really so difficult to buy some airtight containers to put your foodstuffs in? To pack nesting materials in sturdy plastic bags? So you would destroy their habitat and slowly starve them to death? The little ones begging the parents to ease their hunger pains, but the little mice parents have no food nor shelter to give - only tales of a golden past before the Tupperware apocalypse came? You’re an inhuman monster. You are cruel to animals and you suck. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/14 "2012-07-08T20:01:31Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > So forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical about rat infestations out of nowhere in private homes that require poison to solve. There was a time in my life when I would have agreed with this. Years ago, I moved into a house that turned out to have mice. My roommate and I investigated, found the entry point, sealed it up - no more mice. Wow, I thought. That was pretty straightforward - why do people go to the trouble of using gross poison and traps and whatnot? Later I lived in a different house that was really, truly infested. We cleaned everything, put food in tight containers, stored food scraps in the fridge so the garbage didn’t smell good, took the garbage out regularly, scoured the house for mouse holes. Nothing worked, and they were everywhere. Eventually we resorted to traps and poison. Most of the little guys died quickly in the traps, but I’m sure some did suffer. Contrary to your claim, if we found one suffering we dispatched it ourselves. And I did put my foot down and say no to glue traps, because I thought they were too cruel. If you haven’t dealt with a total infestation, consider yourself lucky. If you got rid of rats in a week, that wasn’t an infestation. No matter how clean you think you are, I bet I could come to your house right now and find enough crumbs under your fridge and stove to keep a whole family of mice going for months. Sometimes there’s not much to do but bring out the big guns. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/15 "2012-07-08T20:23:41Z")
FWIW, **Maastricht** , I am 100% behind your OP. ---
**Author:** ![Dolomite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Dolomite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dolomite)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/16 "2012-07-08T20:27:05Z")
I have to deal with a yearly infestation that comes from the dilapidated storage buildings in my neighbor’s backyard. I’ve used glue traps, and have caught so many that between the time they’d become mired in the glue, and the time I cleaned the trap, the mice were chewing on their cell mate’s tail. I’ve redone my kitchen so that no floor level cabinets remain. I really didn’t like having to worried if the mouse I was trying to remove from the trap was carrying some disease. I went with the nuclear option and baited the shit out of the house. Now I don’t have a problem anymore. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/17 "2012-07-08T20:43:31Z")
traps are only good if they are baited and untriggered. there are many spots like crawl spaces that are hard to maintain traps in. poison baits in those areas is much easier. not only is there the ick factor of them or some food loss but the greater damage is to the building. they are a fire hazard with the damage they cause to electrical systems. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/18 "2012-07-08T21:51:08Z")
I use snap traps when mice show up, and check the traps every morning to be sure nothing is left there long. And it is somewhat reassuring to see one dead in the trap with an expression on his little mouse face that shows his last thoughts on earth were “oh look - free peanut butt-”. On the other hand, they carry disease and chew thru stuff. If the traps don’t work, poison is going to have to be the next resort. It’s mostly an academic question, since any mouse who would stay in a house with my dog Leet the Mighty Hunter Of Whatever He Finds[sup]TM[/sup] is too dumb to live anyway, and poison isn’t necessary. Sorry the animal suffered, but they still need to be gotten rid of, one way or the other. And I’ve seen cats kill mice, and that’s not pretty either. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![akennett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee59a6/32.png) [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/19 "2012-07-08T22:00:04Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Animal cruelty sucks. And yet you admit to letting your cats run around outside to torture and kill other animals, let alone to die the miserable deaths that outdoor cats so often do. Tell you what, you can get the fuck down off that high horse you think you’re riding and start sucking its dick like you ought to. ---
**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615/20 "2012-07-08T22:28:39Z")
As others have noted, the rat poison cited in the OP as a “dessicant” is actually an anti-coagulant. Rats poisoned with anti-coagulants bleed to death internally. I grew up on a farm. Rats are a constant issue on a farm. We killed ours with [Warfarin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin), which was the anti-coagulant of choice for killing rats in the sixties. A couple of years ago my mom (in a nursing home at the time) had a problem with blood clots. She freaked out when she discovered that the anti-coagulant that the nursing home folks were giving her was - you guessed it - Warfarin. In a somewhat lesser dosage, of course. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-using-rat-poison-unnecessarily-mercy-killing-of-mouse/627615.md?page=2)