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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Spray ether, available at auto shops to start carburetor cars, to sedate and kill.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.