Mouse farts.

An update.

I still have mice and saw one this morning as I sat up in bed. Neither of us were all that impressed with each other.

Not a single mouse has been caught in a trap.

The huge box of poisoned grain is disappearing at an alarming rate, so either as one dies, another takes its place, or we have a huge family living somewhere. Or, DBH's favourite theory, we have a family at either end of the house.

DSis and farming OH were here over the weekend, and he says that mice now have learnt to strip the outer blue coating from normal grain, so we should all be buying teeny linseed servolex. My grains haven't been stripped but as yet, they don't seem to be working. Or maybe I am right, and we live on the path of a big mouse run and will never be free, like people who live in old barns who have no idea that they are housing the descendants of thousand-year-old mouse dynasties.

I do use it outside. I put in in the greenhouses as they always burrow their way in to keep warm over the winter. That disappears really fast. Also under the sheds. Heaven knows how many of them there are out there - or in here!

We always put poison down outside as the granules are coated with an attractant and we don't want the little b****rs coming in looking for it. DH fills the bait stations once a week and we usually get through a £30 tub every winter.

Well worth it though.

This must be the first time I have heard people say that it is kinder to finish them off quickly. It's quite refreshing. I would rather do that because I would like to decrease the population - the year before last East Angular had a dreadful population explosion of rodents because it was so dry everywhere.

Elegran - DBH or I would drive them to the woods on our way to work, after collecting up the night's catch.

Moving mice out of their home territory, and therefore into the territory of other mice, means that they get attacked and usually killed by the mice in the new territory. So it is more humane to use good traps that kill them instantly.

Elgran

Can you lie through your teeth?

Do you drive while telling the two lies, or walk? It makes a difference to the distance. Two walking lies would hardly get me to the front gate.

I did read somewhere that two lies away works, no nearer or they are back the next day. So, humane is inhumane? That's very interesting. We used to have humane traps in the garden until we realised we would be ferrying mice around East Angular every day. Then we just gave up and decided that as long as they didn't come too far indoors we would just pretend they didn't exist. Despite them eating my raspberries, strawberries, marrows... Three pairs of leather boots...

DBH is all for pulling up the carpet and floorboards and putting poison down, and sleeping downstairs for a few weeks. The mice are getting into his dreams. He dreamt he was orchestrating squeaks and farts last night.

Humane traps are inhumane - the poor things sit in there trapped, terrified and sweating, and if you do not get to them till the next morning they sometimes suffocate in the trap. Better a quick splat we decided. There is also the problem of what to do with the mouse you have caught - you really do have to drive them a long way away to release them or they just wander straight back in.

That's true pompa. It will have to be traps. How awful. Maybe I could try some humane ones and send them away on holiday.

They have to come out to eat, so set traps, that way you get rid of bodies.

The smell is terrible. We had a rat die under the floorboards in the dining room a couple of days before last Christmas. Never before have I got through so many scented candles in such a short time.

I don't know - but I was just upstairs doing my hair and getting ready to go out and I heard squeaks. I'm sure they are laughing at me. If I give them some of that nice blue stuff to eat and they die, the smell in our bedroom will be even worse than even DBH can make it after a curry. I need a ferret.

How many mice = one cow

And to think they try to blame it all on cows!

With all these mice farting I am beginning to worry about the hole in the ozone layer!

There was a large brown rat hoovering up the seeds under one of our bird feeders the other day, which is next to the house.It jumped into a plant pot and sat and looked at me. It had whiskers and quite a nice face and pink hands and feet.However, I don't want it [and it's mates] moving into the loft for the Winter, so we took the bird feeder away.Am listening out now for sounds from the loft [ a fieldmouse up there would be ok though.]

Wait until you get rat farts!

We used to get them when we lived in the country, little fieldmice looking for somewhere warm. The worst thing about that though was when the mice died in the walls, the smell was disgusting.
Now that I live on the outskirts of a small town all I get is pheasants strutting around the garden.

It could be squirrels. They must fart too.

Janerowena - I sympathise with you, we get mouse visitors every autumn too. Though I've never heard one fart ( my hearing isn't too good.)
They can get in through the tiniest of cracks, I saw one in our upstairs bathroom sliding off under the skirting board.
The worst thing they've done is damage my piano - they use the soft materials to make a nest. I'll have to play more often.
Keep us updated, especially if you manage to get rid of them (I don't like to use poison.)

Oh look! You/your mouse/rat are in Discussions of the Day. That was quick. Was thinking they hadn't redone them for a while.

Here too! Which is why DBH hides the air rifle from me.

I need a mousecam don't I, to poke under the floorboards. I too could be a Youtube sensation - janerowena's incredibly flatulent floorboards.