Cats and mice

[auntypurple]

I have 2 cats, both sisters, the 1 is really lazy, the other is being a right royal pain. She brings in mice for her sister to play with. I thought I had seen the ones she brought in, caught them and let them go. Today I had a new cooker, and when I pulled the old cooker out it had mouse poo behind it. I have looked every where and can't find any mice. So this evening I have put down some traps, and I feel really mean and nasty doing this, but don't wan't mice running around my house. Hopefully the traps will be empty in the morning, and I don't have mice at all. Oh and do mice like choc spread and pork pie? Didn't have anything else to bait them with. Anyway how do I stop her bringing them in? I don't really want to put a collar on her, as I know someone whose cat got stuck on it's collar and chocked. Sorry for all the spelling mistakes.

Contrary to popular belief, mice don't like cheese in traps, the pork pie is a good choice. Also bits of cooked sausage, fruit cake and similar. I had same problem, but the droppings were on the fridge freezer top! Cat must have brought in mouse which got away under fridge and climbed up the back. It must have gone off to find food and been caught again, as the body was never found. Good reason to always keep food stuffs in high cupboards, although mice can climb pretty high when they want to. Have you checked all your other cupboards inside? Even if you can't see it, they will have trailed urine everywhere.

There is nothing you can do to make them stop bringing in rodents unfortunately.But you are absolutely right to want rid, as they can chew through cables and do all sorts of damage.

You can get safety collars for cats which have a clip
type fastening instead of a buckle, if the cat gets caught in a tree their bodyweight will make the clip snap open. Means you lose the collar, but the cat doesn't choke. We have found the odd one belonging to our cat in our garden, luckily, and a neighbour found one in his garden and as he recognised the name tag, posted it through our letterbox! Having said that, I don't think a bell on a collar will stop the hunting and catching.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply. I have just posted in chat, as I deff have something in the house. The choc spread and pie was gone off the traps. The traps never sprung, and one was moved to the other side of the room.

I am going to get some humane traps today in the hope that they get stuck in the box. I have no idea why the traps didn't go off, they did on me when I was trying to put them down.

Will try and get some collars with clips, and put lots of bells on and hope they hear her coming and hide. Right now I really hate that cat.

Mice like chocolate and peanuts.

You can't stop her bringing them in; that's the nature of cats, and something that people need to take into account before they take on a cat as a pet.

If you don't like the idea of putting down traps, why not get some humane ones? They go in, the trap tips up and closes, and you can then release the mouse outside.

I have just been to the local diy shop and brought a humane trap. It's a dome shapped wire thing, not sure it will work but it's all they had.
Have just brought 2 from ebay that the door shuts when they go in, which look better.
Also just brought some peanut butter and choc biscuits, so hopefully the mice will like that.

Cat no.2 once brought in a mouse (5a.m and I had a massive hangover). I spent 3 hours trying to catch it and then it literally just disappeared. No idea where it went and didn't come across any droppings. Nothing turned up in a humane trap. Think it must have found a way out.

The killing sprees only seemed to stop when the cats got a bit older or we locked the cat flap. Get a humane trap but to be honest don't think they are much use.

Thanks, set all the traps again last night as I could only get hold of one huane one yesteday. Put choc spread on the nasty killing traps, all choc spead gone again, 1 trap sprung the other didn't. Put peanut butter in the humane trap, that was still there. Mouse still not caught. My others humane traps came form ebay today, so will only be putting them down tonight. After tonight I will leaving the cat in at night(if the mouse still isn't got), she brought it in, she can catch it.

Forgot to add, have had cats for years, the two cats I have now are about 2, and only started catching mice this year. None of our other cats ever bothered.