# What's the most humane way of killing mice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2012, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481 "2012-03-22T10:54:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/21 "2012-03-22T15:08:30Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > if you have a situation where you can check the snap traps every day or two then they work well. a sprung trap with a dead mouse in it doesn’t work, though it will still feed other mice. Indeed. Nothing like forgetting about a trap for several days and finding it sprung with just a mouse head in it. We had a mouse infestation a few years ago when a building neighboring our apartment was torn down. This caused us to become connoisseurs of mouse traps. I think the most humane and effective traps are the plastic white and red snap traps with peanut butter as bait. They always caught them at the neck and we never saw a mouse that had survived the trap springing. For us, the wood and metal ones just didn’t work. I think out of the 40ish mice we caught, one was in wooden snap trap. They were often able to clean the peanut butter off the trigger without springing them. For the most humane way to kill a mouse that you have in hand, when our dog mortally wounded one I chose drowning to put it out of its misery. Though I think that was more so I didn’t have to crush him than for the mouses benefit. In the past, my mother had recommended putting them in a box attached to a running car’s tail pipe. Given that I had on-street parking at the time, I thought that wasn’t the best option. But anyway, if you saw a mouse you almost definitely have several. And the best way to deal with the problem is to seal up however they’re getting access to your house. ---
**Author:** ![isaiahrobinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@isaiahrobinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/isaiahrobinson)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/22 "2012-03-22T15:08:32Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > I used to work in the basement of an office building. Every now and then there would be a hatch and you’d get about a dozen mouse sightings on any given day. There was one lady I worked with who’d always struck me as a savagely hot feral country girl who was captured, sort of tamed, put into a dress, and then released into the office. Brilliant, and very capable but…she could catch mice with her bare hands as easily as you or I could grab a doughnut out of a box. Then she’d put them in a bag, and stomp on it. She challenged me to come up with a more humane way of dispatching them–poisons, snaps, glue, catch & release into the wild for predation–and I had to admit she was right. But it was all so horribly incongruous to me at the time. Why aren’t snaps more humane? ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/23 "2012-03-22T15:09:20Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > And do we know anything about the time perception of mice in cold? The hours between midnight and sunrise take about two weeks in my freezing tent. WhyNot, you’re doing it wrong. Camping should be about taking things slowly, experiencing the pastoral serenity of nature. Moving at relativistic speeds defeats the purpose. ETA: I recently posted about mousetraps; you may find some interesting trap discussion here: [House in the woods has mice. Are removal efforts futile?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=637419) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/24 "2012-03-22T15:14:03Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > WhyNot, you’re doing it wrong. Camping should be about taking things slowly, experiencing the pastoral serenity of nature. Moving at relativistic speeds defeats the purpose. Hey, how else am I going to fit a years’ worth of drumming and dancing into a long weekend?! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kdeus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b487fb/32.png) [@kdeus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kdeus)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/25 "2012-03-22T15:18:43Z")
I think for most people, the question is: “What is the lowest value for the quantity (painful for mouse + stressful for person)?” For example, I know “bag & stomp” will end the mouse’s life before he knows he’s even sick, but I don’t see me doing that. My last war, I went with a glue trap which I then moved to the freezer. Mickey appeared to have passed on within 20 minutes. He spent his last miunutes gazing at an enormous picture of a pizza, so maybe it wasn’t too bad for him. Ever since the black snake moved into the basement, I haven’t had mice. As **machine elf** said, predation is probably more suffering for the mouse than many pest control methods. However, it is very low-stress for the people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/26 "2012-03-22T15:19:42Z")
Another consideration is the post-death clean-up. A snap trap can be pretty messy. Sometimes the mouse will essentially explode. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/27 "2012-03-22T15:25:22Z")
I like using a humorously over-sized wooden mallet. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/28 "2012-03-22T15:42:28Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > But what do you do with it? If you release it near your house, it’ll come straight back. If you release it into the wild it’ll die of starvation or being eaten by predators because house mice aren’t adapted to survival in the wild. … Bwuh? 😕 It’s not like the mouse living in your crawl space is domesticated. It’s still a “wild” animal; it’s just using your home as its habitat. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/29 "2012-03-22T15:50:55Z")
We had some mice. I used the live trap with peanut butter and released them down the street. They never came back. I don’t see how if they couldn’t live outside they got into the house in the first place. It’s not like they are pet mice that have been bred indoors for generations. I think they will be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/30 "2012-03-22T15:53:41Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > Why aren’t snaps more humane? When they work as intended and snap the neck or crush the skull, they’re hard to argue against–even getting caught and bagged must have some kind of trauma associated with it. But as a kid I saw the old Victor perfom anywhere from Absolute Fail (bait gone, trap not sprung); Fail (bait gone, trap sprung, no mouse in sight) Kill as Advertised (bait intact, mouse pinned at the neck and dead); Catastrophic Kill (destruction of the mouse’s head, trap discarded due to excessive gore); and Get The Cat! (trap sprung, mouse alive & present with broken back and/or missing limbs). Anita, even in 3.5 inch heels, _never_ missed. ---
**Author:** ![Unstable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/65b543/32.png) [@Unstable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unstable)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/31 "2012-03-22T16:15:32Z")
Another option once the live mouse is placed in a bag is to smash the bag hard on a hard surface such as a concrete/brick wall or the ceramic of a toilet bowl. It smashes the skull and many other bones very quickly and causes instant death. I’ve done it myself many times by swinging the mouse by the tail hard and smashing it against a toilet bowl. (These were feeder mice for my snakes) I wasn’t squeamish about grabbing them by the tail. Using a paper or plastic bag would give the same results. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/32 "2012-03-22T16:51:47Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > It might be more humane than it sounds. The mouse will probably succumb much faster to the cold than a human. Being a much smaller creature, it’s ratio of surface area to volume is many times higher. If it’s core body temperature drops quickly enough it wouldn’t suffer much. A typical freezer runs at about -18 C, a mouse probably can’t survive that for long. I wouldn’t make any assumptions without seeing actual data. Back when we kept reptiles, we couldn’t get our usual dead mice, so we got some live ones and put them in the freezer to kill them. We could hear them scratching to get out of the bag and it sure seemed like it lasted more than 20 minutes! I don’t know how much the mice actually suffered, but we felt like we were living [The Tell Tale Heart](http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/tell-tale-heart.html). ---
**Author:** ![Sethcrzygy86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@Sethcrzygy86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sethcrzygy86)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/33 "2012-03-22T16:52:39Z")
They’re vermin, they’re not Mickey and Minnie. Does anyone care about killing cockroaches? Seriously, mice are clever. You can only use a trap one or two times, then the mice simply avoid it. This is why poisons work slowly, so the mice don’t associate the food with death. Mice quickly learn to avoid glue traps, they don’t go into electronic traps and one a trap is sprung, they won’t go near another one again. As long as there is food or the smell of it, mice don’t care about getting food. They avoid it. ---
**Author:** ![Eliot\_Ness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Eliot\_Ness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eliot_Ness)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/34 "2012-03-22T16:57:40Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > Glue traps sound horrific. > > Poison apparently kills them very slowly through internal bleeding and is painful. Is that true? Is there any poison that kills them more humanely? > > Electric traps are apparently unreliable at actually killing the mouse. > > Are the traditional spring-loaded snap-traps reliable at killing the mouse? I’m not too squeamish about the mouse dying, as long as it dies quickly and painlessly. 1. First catch the mouse live. Many kinds of live traps exist, mostly for larger animals like squirrels and lobsters, but all basically the same - bait inside a box and the spring shuts the door. Sometimes a simple flap door, that is easy to push up to get in but will latch when it falls back. 2. Spray ether, available at auto shops to start carburetor cars, to sedate and kill. 3. Another “quiet killer” is any gas like propane, benzine or helium that has a warning label to warn of being able to kill without warning. ---
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/35 "2012-03-22T17:02:05Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > Rodents that are raised as food (for reptiles) are usually killed by putting them in the freezer. Cite? I believe the large rodent providers usually gas their rodents with carbon dioxide prior to being frozen for storage/shipping. Cervical dislocation is often used in laboratory settings, and, if done correctly, is regarded as humane. You can find plenty of how-tos online. I think snap traps are the best option for home owners. If you’re squeamish about the clean up, plenty of “disposable” traps exist. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/36 "2012-03-22T17:07:05Z")
mice can be caught in already used traps for dozens of times, until the trap fails to work. don’t try to kill a mouse with flammable vapors or liquids. you stand the risk of health problems for yourself breathing those vapors or having an unnecessary fire hazard. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/37 "2012-03-22T17:23:42Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Bwuh? 😕 It’s not like the mouse living in your crawl space is domesticated. It’s still a “wild” animal; it’s just using your home as its habitat. But mice have evolved to live in human houses for the past 5,000 years. Humanity is their natural environment, not nature. ---
**Author:** ![isaiahrobinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@isaiahrobinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/isaiahrobinson)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/38 "2012-03-22T17:44:38Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Bwuh? 😕 It’s not like the mouse living in your crawl space is domesticated. It’s still a “wild” animal; it’s just using your home as its habitat. Right. Their habitat is houses. Leave them in the outdoors and they can’t survive. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/39 "2012-03-22T18:22:35Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > Glue traps sound horrific. > > Poison apparently kills them very slowly through internal bleeding and is painful. Is that true? Is there any poison that kills them more humanely? > > Electric traps are apparently unreliable at actually killing the mouse. > > Are the traditional spring-loaded snap-traps reliable at killing the mouse? I’m not too squeamish about the mouse dying, as long as it dies quickly and painlessly. Most effective, most inhumane – glue traps. Most humane, snap traps. Even more humane but probably not viable in most jurisdictions - 12g with 3 inch mags of #7 shot at about 5 feet. Basically vaporizes him/her before they have any idea whats going on. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481/40 "2012-03-22T18:28:33Z")
I was told that a humane way to euthanize a mouse that’s been caught alive is to put it in a bag and then hold the end of the bag over the tailpipe of a running car. They succumb to the carbon monoxide poisoning quickly and painlessly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-humane-way-of-killing-mice/616481.md?page=3)