Conference misery::feline_v1

     I don't have a solution.  I just thought you might enjoy this.
Some friends of mine take the mice their cats catch and put them in
a terrarium with an exercise wheel and lots of wood shavings for burrowing.
This protects them from the killer cats, but is really not fair as the
mice need to be free.  Recently, the little mice were given their freedom.

    Sometime after the big release, the owner (a contractor at DEC) got
into her car to go to work.  She got on the highway and what crawls onto
the dash but one of the white-footed deer mice.  She knew it was one
of the ex-pets as it was unafraid.  It sat on the dash and took a bath.

     The two of them arrive at the DEC plant and mouse climbs out of the
car.  Owner goads him to get out of the parking lot so he won't get killed.
Owner chases the mouse toward the field with the trees and stream (owner
knows a big black cat hunts there and isn't too fond of this solution).
At any rate, sick of looking foolish, owner gives up and goes to work.

     Five o'clock arrives and owner heads out to the car.  She drives
home, pulls into the garage and who hops out but the white-footed deer mouse.
What a life that little mouse has.

     The terrarium solution is not great, but it is definitely better than
poison.  The little guys are kind of fun to watch.  Good luck on
solving your problem.

Denise

You could always invest in a Hav-a-hart trap and try releasing them outside.
If you do it now, the ground is not yet frozen and they will still be able 
burrow in for the winter (I assume that's what they do). If you released
them some distance from your house, and any other house, maybe they won't 
come back ! You could also leave them a little store of food (birdseed and
dog bones) to encourage them to stay where you've left them.

Last winter, I discovered a mouse was sharing my room with me. Well, at first
I didn't know if it WAS a mouse. I live in a rectanglar basement room about
20' by 12' with baseboard heaters all around. The little critter got behind
the walls (paneled) through a hole at a far end of the room where a heating
pipe comes through, and he would run all along the baseboards to my bookcase
at the other end of the room, where I kept a bag of generic milk-bone style 
dog treats.

I spent quite a few days watching him at night, and he wasn't the sort of
cute rodent as you describe: he had a very long, sleek body, shimmery like
velveteen, and a short little tail, very tiny ears, and very tiny eyes. He
was very nervous, very wary. I started leaving him a dog bone, or some bird
seed (he loved it !). I was alternately enjoying the little beast and feeling
like I was living with vermin. I was also worried that our cats (3) would 
"get" him. I called the local County Extension Service and talked to a man
there who seemed to know everything about this species of mouse. It was a
meadow mouse, not usually the kind of mouse to move into a human house, and
the man said that he would probably move out as soon as the weather suited
him. He also said this type of mouse is not usually a disease carrier and
did not do alot of chewing, so probably wouldn't do much damage to any part
of my house. I got a Hav-a-hart trap and set it out, loaded with peanut
butter as was recommended. No mouse. Never saw hide nor hair of him again.

Christine

Poison probably isn't a good idea since one of your cats might get to the
dead mouse before you do.

We occasionally get mice also (they must be suicidal since we have 10 cats).
The rate dropped off dramatically when we put an ultrasonic gizmo in the
basement.  We're thinking of putting another one in the house itself.

					John

When they first built ZK1, there was trouble for a while with flooding on the
first floor.  Because of this, the contractor had to delay putting in the
permanent outside doors on the first floor.  They had thick wooden doors with
about 1" space at the bottom to let the water out.  Come September, the
meadow mice found out that it was getting cold out but there was this nice
toasty building just sitting there.  The mice moved in.  I caught one in my
office and escorted it out in a styrofoam cup.  They were a considerable
problem for a while.

--PSW

I can see the trade press now:

"Apple's Macintosh had best beware, rumor has it that new products being
developed in Digital's Spitbrook facility will be useable with a mouse..."

:-)	John

We set traps in the cupboards;  also in the garage and other places the 
little beasties like to sneak in;  peanut butter works well as bait,
so does pwppervH?Y
w,

Ahem.  Disregard previous note garbled due to hideous line noise due to
dia-up access from the orbit of Pluto.

Traps set in areas frequently used by mice for entry are effective, with peanut butter or pepperoni ( yes, that's what I said) as bait;  either Victor
u-kill-em or HAvahart u-trap-em type traps work, choose based upon your view
of mice as 

	a.) nasty vermin
	
	or

	b.) cute and furry, like cats, but smaller.

(some days I take view "a" of my cats).

When the cats are playing hockey on my hardwood floors with some hapless
field or forest creature,  I usually try to grab said creature with a towel and
deposit he/she/it/them out in the woods next to one of my stone walls.  These
walls are a veritable woodland creature condo complex, so I figure thry will
be friends.

I agree totally, cats are effective, but the process is as hard on the 
homeowner as it is on the mice!!

  another thing to consider...

  If your cats eat the mice they catch they stand a fair chance of contracting
toxoplasmosis, a didease that can be transmitted to humans.  While it is no
more serious than the flu if an adult gets it, if that adult happens to be 
pregnant, about 30% of the time the result will be birth defects, some of them
nasty.  (This information is from my faulty memory of an old Cats (or Catfancy)
magazine article that a reread a day or so ago.  Be gentle if my memory is 
inaccurate.)

tlh

Cisco brought home a mouse after I brought home a kitten. I think it was
a bribe. The mouse was released and the kitten stayed. 

Angus snuck in and then released a chipmunk, all other trophies were firmly 
rescued at the door. I guess though the presence of two cats is not enough
Four cats is too many for any sane mouse.


							.wIx.

	I had a mice problem (3 cats help keep it under control now) and I 
solved by the Hav-a-hart method. I feel that mice are vermin, but if I can go 
very little out of my way to dispose of vermin humanely then I will. I 
stockpiled the mice in a 10 gallon tank and when full (+10 mice) I emptied it 
some distance from my home on my way to work one morning. If you release mice 
any reasonable distance (100's of yards) from a house you can expect them back 
soon. As for taming them, Deer Mice don't tame, they're always somewhat wild 
and not really suited for pets. Not to mention having the local cats staring 
at them all day could give them some mental disorders.

	Hav-a-hart is a good catching method since it eliminates any danger to 
your other pets (or children!!) from poisons/traps. Remember that in most 
suburban areas the encroachment of man has severely depleted the "predators" 
that would keep the mice population down, therefore cats are welcomed to fill 
in this gap in my neighborhood.

/harry

    It's been some time since my base note, and fortunately the plague
    of mice didn't continue, but I still see one every now and then.
    
    The most recent one was last night. It was very, very hot, and I
    was lying awake with the fan running. I thought I heard something
    drop, but couldn't tell through the noise of the fan, so I started
    to get up - but when I put my feet on the floor, something bit me!
    
    Understandably startled, I turned on the light, and saw Abigail
    pursuing a mouse across my feet. I jumped - those little beggars
    are fast! - and then joined the chase, hoping to rescue the mouse
    before Abigail permanently disabled it. (Well, yes, it *did* bite
    me, but not hard enough to break the skin, and besides, I'd probably
    bite any giant who tried to step on *me*...)
    
    Visualize, if you will, a semi-clad, bleary-eyed person stumbling
    through a sweltering house, trying to beat two eager felines to
    one Olympic-class sprinter of a mouse. I suppose it was very funny
    while it lasted, but I didn't become fully conscious until it was
    nearly over.
    
    No, I didn't catch the mouse. Neither did the cats. After Abigail
    made a lovely bank shot off of the bookcase, the mouse recovered
    nicely and dove under the recliner, never to be seen again. I do
    hope he makes his way outside, because if not, my mighty hunters
    will roust him out sooner or later...

    Getting used to it,
    -b

    Mice, I've discovered _can_ be cute, but almost invariably are rather
    stupid.  Of my current three, the best hunter, astonishingly enough,
    is Merlin, my male half-Manx/half-Siasmese (and brilliant!).  The
    trouble is, he's _so_ good that I generally don't know he's gotten
    one until I pick up a "hairball" now and then (he eats them, but
    they don't sit well...)
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Another mouse tail.....
    
    We've had two mouse incidents over the past 6 months. At first we
    thought the cats were "losing it" because they would sit in front
    of the kitchen cabinets for hours and just stare at the doors...
    then I started finding traces (one mouse can sure put out a lot
    of "traces"...)
    
    Anyway - we didn't have the heart/stomach to set traps and I didn't
    want to use poison (didn't want cats to eat poison or poisoned filled
    mouse)  Anyway - I just kept cleaning out the cabinets of all edibles
    and left some of the cabinet doors open during the day. Finally
    one night there was a "present" waiting for us at the front door.
    Dead, but not eaten - probably "played" to death. (by the way, this
    is a two cat family)
    
    A few months later, we had a reoccurrance of mouse and I went through
    the same thing. Except this time, I guess the mouse decided it was
    safer to come out when humans were around. Of course it did it when
    we had company and both cats were in... there we are, all standing
    around kitchen/dining room when one of the guests does a quick two-step
    to the other side of the room saying "there's your mouse". At first
    I thought she was talking about the fake stuffed one the cats play
    with, but this one was doing the Olymnpic mile throught the dining
    room, living room and dove under the bed covers with two humans  
    trying to follow, both armed with plastic bowls to collect it. By
    the way - cats ignored this one, must have thought it was a human
    toy!
    
    Well, human intelligence/wit/???? finally prevailed and the mouse
    was escorted outside. Haven't seen anything else since, but it was
    sure funny to watch adults outwitted by two ounces of fluff!

    
    You should try a shrew in the house.
    
    Imagine a 2 ounce bit of gray standing off a 20 pound cat, then
    charging out to attack the cat.
    
    Fortunately, the cat came to his senses and bashed the shrew.
    
    (Not dead, just dazed.  I swept it into a paper bag, rolled the
    top down and took it out to the woods. Dumped the shrew out and
    darn if it didn't come after me.)
    
    Dave

    Mutu like to catch snakes! BUT, being Siamese, we always have an
    argument about why she can't bring it into the house and play. 
    Even at 14 years old, she is remarkably like a kitten and plays
    a lot (her toys are strewn all over!).  Now Munchkin, on the other
    hand, whenever he's caught something it's always with a soft mouth,
    so the poor mole (usually) or shrew just has a massive heart attack
    and dies from fright!  One time he had caught a mole and was playing
    with it and the landscaper came up to mow the lawn.  If there's
    one noise he hates, it's the lawnmower.  It was really funny to
    see Munch with his front paw on the mole, eying this rapidly
    approaching lawnmower, and now knowing what to do!  He finally gave
    up the mole and *flew* into the house.  One other time, he caught
    a mole, and I have a picture of them going nose-to-nose before the
    mole up and died.  I call that picture "politics".
    
    J.
    

    
    	This past fall, my "mature" house kitties got their first taste
    	of mouse meat in my new house.
    
    	One afternoon, I came walking down the hall to see my two cats
    	sitting on the living room rug (facing each other) with something
    	small and brown (with a long tail) sitting cautiously between
    	them.  The kitties looked up at me as if to say, "Oh, hi." while
    	I tried to get a peek at their new "toy."
    
    	They pretended not to be paying much attention to the mouse,
    	and it made a dive for the stairs to the family room (with both
    	kitties in hot pursuit.)  When I got to the staircase myself,
    	the mouse was already mortally wounded (lying on its side with
    	its feet wiggling.)  It died a moment later, and I got it scooped
    	up into a paperbag before kitties had the chance to dine.
    
    	The next one came out while I was at work one night (my son
   	called me up and told me that Woofie casually strolled by the
    	couch with something in his mouth.)  He said that the thing
    	in Woofie's mouth had a tail and ran for its LIFE when Woofie
    	set it down for a minute.
    
    	The next hour or so was bedlam at our house ("Mom, I don't see
    	it anymore...oh, God, now TWEETIE has it in HER mouth...now
    	it ran into the kitchen...the kitties are looking everywhere...
    	no, I don't have my shoes on...THERE IT IS!!!")
    
    	Eventually, my son told me that the mouse looked dead, so he
    	did the "scooping it up into a paperbag" honors for me.
    
    	Meanwhile, we got exterminators to come in to put poison in
    	the Secret Mouse Area under our kitchen cabinets.  I felt safe
    	doing that because the cats seemed to be beating the mice up,
    	but we hadn't yet seen an ounce of actual mouse blood.
    
    	Our kitties think that mice are for killing and playing (but
    	when it comes to eating, FOOD is Tender Vittles or the stuff
    	that comes nicely in a can.)  I don't think that they realize
    	that they could actually EAT a formerly live mouse.
    
    	We did have one last mouse after the exterminator.  This time,
    	Tweetie did the honors.  We saw her chase it into the bathroom,
    	pick it up with her teeth, and slam it against the wall at an
    	unknown number of G's (but enough to break a little mouse neck,
    	I think.)  Woofie batted the poor thing around for awhile, but
    	it was dead within minutes.  Again, it was a bloodless kill.
    
    	We were very surprised that our spoiled house kitties would
    	know how to hunt/kill mice (after 10 years and 8 years, 
    	respectively, of having no mousing experience.)
    
    	They did an excellent job, though!  We figure that either we
    	have very smart cats or very dumb mice.  :-)
    
    							Suzanne...

    Many cats are good mousers; a few could care less.
    
    The best mouser of any cat I've had is Merlin.  This is a bit odd,
    because females are supposed to be better about that sort of thing
    than males, but Merlin is superb.
    
    His trouble was he didn't know how to eat them.  He'd start from
    the nose and work down.  More than one morning (when he was a young
    cat) when the winter would drive in occasional field mice, I'd waken
    to find next to a pillow half a mouse.  (I'm glad he stopped doing
    that before I got married).
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    > dumb mice
    
    Back when I was living in the rural sticks of Houston, and was actively
    breeding and showing cats (versus passively showing that I do now),
    I had 8-10 adult cats at any one time.  I mean, the house HAD to
    smell of cat for miles. We actually had mice ventue into the house
    a couple of times, although neither one lived more than a day, at
    most.  Unfortunately, my kitties are far better at prolonging their
    playtime, and could bat a mouse around for hours, if I let them.
    
    The absolute funniest mouse story comes from my younger days. I
    grew up in the Dismal Swamp in Virginia. Some friends of ours had
    found "two abandoned kittens" in the woods.  We took one, they took
    the other.  Named the little thing "Tiny", couldn't have weighed
    more than half a pound.  Well, Tiny started growing, and finally
    topped out around 35 pounds, a respectable weight for what the game
    warden called a swamp bobcat (some wild/domestic cat cross).  Tiny's
    favorite hobby, for example, was beating up the german shepherds
    in the neighborhood. We definitely never had stray dog problems.
     Well, one day a shrew got into he house (not unusual for things
    to wander in towards late fall.  My mom and I cornered it, then
    went an got Tiny, figuring he could best handle this 4 ounce monster.
    Dropped Tiny down, he looked at the shrew, sniffed the air.. shrew
    did likewise.  Then there was this hissing sound and Tiny was running
    in the opposite direction, with the shrew right behind him. 
    
    We rescued Tiny, swept the shrew into a paper bag and I took it
    into the woods a ways.  When I dumped it out of the bag, it turned
    around and charged at me.  Needless to say, I took Tiny's "advice
    by example" and fled for my life.
    
    Dave

    One of My childhood cats, Buttons, was an excellent catcher.  She
    caught anything there was to be caught.  She was an indoor/outdoor
    cat(Please, no flames!).  Our landlord loved her, she kept all of
    the moles out of the garden and would very proudly present her "GIFTS"
    to his front door.  She also would catch mice, rabbits, squirrels,
    BIRDS, and anything else that DARED to roam into our yard.  Our
    house was mouse free and the garden was mole free.  What a CAT!!
   
    
    Holly

    Maggie, the ultimate in house cats, is of the opinion that mice
    _belong_ out of doors.  She never beats them up or plays with them
    -- she thinks they're just too, TOO tacky!  If she finds on in her
    house she catches it and proceeds to the nearest door and waits
    to spit it outside, alive and kicking and apparently unharmed.
    
    When the Mags is out 'sun-bathing' she ignores the mice completely;
    after all they DO belong there...
    
    Annie

    In my household, the cats can kill anything I don't have to see.
    If I see anything that is alive in a cat's possession in my front
    yard, on go the gloves and I save the critter.  The cats react by
    doing their prey elsewhere.
    
    Re .21
    
         If mankind had domesticated mice/rats (pet mice and rats are
    very clean; at least our rat was), and cats were killing them, we
    would be complaining about cats and raving about mice...
    

    The luxurious (and lazy!) indoor kitties, Carrington and Colby usually
    *hire* other cats to catch mice for them.
    
    Chris
    

    HMMM.Pookie would never ever think of chasing mousies.. if one ever
    did show up.. i know she would say"..Iam sorry you have the wrong
    suite.. my mummy will not allow me to associate with you... meowr!!!
    Pookie is an indoor kitty.. and her favorite entertainment is watching
    the birdies  on the patio.. she met her 1st squirrel.. i thought
    we were going to have carry her feet first to visit with her analsyst..
    regards
    Kate

    Re: 21
    
    I forget if I mentioned this before, but, have you ever seen a Cat
    Bird antagonize a cat?  It's a riot.  The bird actually swoops down
    at the cat.  We used to watch them in my parents back yard.  The birds
    never hurt them though and the cats never seemed to be able to catch
    them.
    
    Kathy
    
    

    Down in PA we used to watch the mockingbirds do this all of the
    time. They just love to tease cats:-).
    
    					Geoff

    Re: 26
    
    I think they were Mocking Birds.  I called them Cat Birds because
    I couldn't remember the name.
    
    Kathy

    RE:  cat birds
    
    Two summers ago, Mr. MacGreggor had a Mocking Bird that _would_not!_
    leave him alone.  In fact, if I wanted him to come in the house,
    all I would have to do is go to the back door and listen for the
    bird crys.  No matter where the cat was, the bird was there too.
    The poor cat didn't have a minute's peace all summer long.  One
    afternoon, I was sitting in the back yard reading.  Mr. MacGreggor
    was sitting on the lawn near me.  The bird would sit on a nearby
    fence and screach at him continually.  Then, every 5 minutes or
    so, the bird would make a series of dives at the poor kitty.  He
    must have been used to it, cause all he did was lie there in the
    grass with this really silly expression on his face as if to say
    "Is this silly bird *ever* going to leave me alone?".
    
    Marion  
          

    How about a parakeet?  Charlie loves to antagonize my two kitties.
    He thinks that's what they're there for.  Every once in a while,
    they will go over to his cage and just watch him and Charlie will
    perform for them quite nicely.  He'll play with his toys, chirp
    quite loudly, and start talking up a storm!  We're trying to get
    him to say "Cat at bird" but we're afraid we'll create a monster.
    He already starts to screech as if one of the cats is trying to
    get at him and when we go over to his cage, there isn't a cat around.
    He just wants a bit of attention.
    
    Holly

    I think the mockingbirds do that dive bomb number when they have
    an active nest nearby -- i.e., babies tucked in there, or on the
    way.
    

    Someone mentioned stupidity as a mousey trait.  That, however, allowed
    me to invent (credit where credit is due, after all) a great mouse
    trap.  I was at work one day (at NASA, home of high tech), when
    a mouse scurried through the stacks of computer printout and under
    the heater.  I simply took a long poster tube, secured the cap on
    one end, and placed the tube near the heater with the hole toward
    it.  Sure enough, less than five minutes later, the mouse saw the
    small black hole and made a beeline (sorry for the mixed metaphor 
    ... well, not really sorry) for it.  I clamped the other cover on, 
    carried it outside, opened it up, and out he went.  That trick has 
    worked half a dozen times WITHOUT FAIL!  Cheap, clean and humane.
    
    Gary

    Most troublesome hunter I've ever known was Tootsie.  OK its not
    fair to discriminate when she didn't necessarily know but I did
    keep telling her outside was for hunting not in.  At the time I
    was breeding gerbils too.........ever tried finding an albino gerbil
    that the cats thrown outside on a snowy day?
    
    Most tolerant cat MUST have been Tigger and his kids.  My boyfriend
    had a hamster as well as five cats who were all in/out cats and
    good hunters (I think I've mentioned Tosh's seagull somewhere else).
    These cats having been told not to touch the hamster would happily
    let it run over them and around the room!!!  Co-operative or what!!!!!!
    
    I wonder if it had anyhing to do with the fact that the hamster
    ate meat?
    
    Then again come to think of it the hamster I had when I was little
    chased of our cat once, nipped it on the paw when it went to curiously
    pat him.
    
    Jo
    Reading, UK.
    

Re: < Note 48.33 by SUBURB::COFFEYJ1 >
                       -< BULLYING HAMSTERS AND GERBILS >-

 >  Then again come to think of it the hamster I had when I was little
 >  chased of our cat once, nipped it on the paw when it went to curiously
 >  pat him.
    
 
My 18-pound all-white cat was absolutely terrified of my (1/2 lb.?) guinea
pig, would actually run out of the room when we put the little thing on
the floor!  All because it had once come up behind him and chomped down
on the end of his tail -- can cats fly, you bet!!    



Jan  who_has_as_many_cats_as_her_new_vet

    Borrow a ferret.  It will kill them in 2 seconds.
    

My mother's cat gets very agitated about bats.  I reckon he sees them as flying
mice - he can probably hear them too - but feels that it is rather unsporting
of them to refuse ever to land in the garden.

Our big black tom has a nasty habit of bringing rabbits into the kitchen.  Last
year he had a whole family within about a week - beginning with the babies and
working up to the adults - and he's started again recently.

We occasionally get hedgehogs in our garden, causing some consternation among
our family (six cats, two still quite young).  They don't go beserk like dogs
under the same circumstances, but they get rather excited and puzzled with these
miniature armoured cars.  After a while, they seem to decide that the animal
is not much fun - and more importantly, isn't edible - so loose interest.

Re .35 (ferrets):

A few years ago I was working with someone who told me this story...

He had a friend who worked an allotment; he would keep parts of it covered with
sheets of corrugated iron during part of the year. His party piece was to pick
up one of these sheets, whereupon his large tom-cat would dive underneath and
wreak havoc among the mice which had taken refuge there.

One day he was showing off his cat's prowess; he pick up up one corner of the
corrugated iron sheet, in dived the cat, and a battle-royal ensued. After a
short (but noisy) time, the cat retreated, looking somewhat the worse for wear,
having found out that a stoat is not as easy prey as a mouse!

However, on the next visit to the allotment, the cat was ready for a return
bout.  He launched himself into the same place and emerged within a few seconds
with a smug expression and a dead stoat.

Chris.