Mice!

[DandyFop]

There are mice in our house. Now that the winter has come they are popping up all the time. My cat is 16 and she still catches them. She is awesome.

Last night I was walking into the kitchen and there was one running across the back of the stove :( . I must interject that our house is kept clean (even my area!) so yeah, it's kinda gross. We opened up the stove because we knew it went in there and down below the burners was mice crap. That's fucking disgusting.

My mom set two traps inside the stove and caught two within like 10 minutes.

i wish they weren't cute :(

[ericlee]

I caught one a couple months ago with a glue trap and I took it across the street and let it go.

I'll be damned if there isn't another one. It may be the same one. The other night I saw it on the countertop next to the sink while I was gettin drunk. I grabbed a knife and walked over to it slowly and quietly and it didnt notice me till I was over top of it. It freaked out, jumped into the sink and I was taking jabs at it but kept missing cause I was fairly buzzed. It jumped out and ran away. If I wasn't so drunk, I would have skewered the damn thing!

[scotty]

The last 3-4 weeks we've been dealing with the annual bushrat madness, where just heaps of them invade your space during the breeding season. One night I counted at least six in the kitchen at once. We started out using non lethal Elliott traps that I borrowed from work and releasing them down at the road, but it was starting to get out of control, so I bought a heap of rat traps and started killing them. Really unpleasant control method.

We keep the place clean, with our food kept in containers in the cupboard and making the sure the doors are shut, but they kept coming in to scavenge the crumbs on the floor that didn't get swept up.

If they were the evil looking black rat (Rattus rattus) I wouldn't mind slaughtering them, but these are the cute and cuddly sort (Rattus fuscipes) a native rat. These are the sort of animals I deal with from time to time at work, so killing them goes against my nature. But then, they're certainly not endangered and I don't want them in the house.

[RobMoney$]

Having a mouse is one thing, but rats?

I'd be moving the minute I saw one rat, let alone multiple rattuses.

[scotty]

As I said, these are native rats and, because I live on a fairly remote property in the forest, I'm in their environment. At this time of year, they become very active, but only for a short amount of time. I didn't see one last night for the first time in a month. Compared to the black rat, they're quite small, probably the length of your middle finger. Interestingly, you only tend get females at this time of year because all the breeding males have died due to sexual exhaustion.

[cosmo105]

^that's the way to go (y)

one of my old profs (and now a good friend) keeps rats, and they're ridiculously cute and sweet and funny. but the rats i've seen at work are gnaarrrrrly.

[insertnamehere]

if you use nonlethal traps, ive read that you need to take them at least a mile from your house before you release them. rats are really intellegent, and im guessing mice are sort of the same shit. i wuv them but yeah i woudlnt want them shitting all over my house.

can rats and mice interbreed? they don't really seem all that different besides their size, but animals of different speecies arent supposed to be able to have babies.

[scotty]

In the animal kingdom, it is possible for different species to mate and produce offspring - hybrids. In the main, however, mating between species doesn't happen. There are categories of reproductive barriers - prezygotic and postzygotic barriers. Prezygotic barriers mean that species can't or won't mate, or do but can't produce offspring. Postzygotic barriers are where hybrids are produced but infertile (either them or their offspring) or are inviable (to weak or feeble to live). The mule is the perfect example of whats known as hybrid sterility - a horse and a donkey have mated and produced offspring (a mule), but the offspring is infertile.

Its more common in plants, but still reasonably rare. Some eucalypt species hybridise quite easily and produce new plants but struggle to establish dominance over established communities.

[Randetica]

i could never kill mice or rats

i usually dont even kill flies, guess im a much better person than your mum will ever be

[insertnamehere]

In the animal kingdom, it is possible for different species to mate and produce offspring - hybrids. In the main, however, mating between species doesn't happen. There are categories of reproductive barriers - prezygotic and postzygotic barriers. Prezygotic barriers mean that species can't or won't mate, or do but can't produce offspring. Postzygotic barriers are where hybrids are produced but infertile (either them or their offspring) or are inviable (to weak or feeble to live). The mule is the perfect example of whats known as hybrid sterility - a horse and a donkey have mated and produced offspring (a mule), but the offspring is infertile.

Its more common in plants, but still reasonably rare. Some eucalypt species hybridise quite easily and produce new plants but struggle to establish dominance over established communities.

well i know about mules, ligers, etc, but i guess what i meant was, could mice and rats produce live fertile offspring?

[Audio.]

aww lucklys. all I get here are giant possums fighting with backyard pets.

[DandyFop]

I tried a few years ago to convince them to use non-lethal traps but nobody was having it. My cat has killed the most though, not really anything I can do about that.

[scotty]

well i know about mules, ligers, etc, but i guess what i meant was, could mice and rats produce live fertile offspring?

I don't know, but I'd doubt they'd even get to that stage. I think it'd come down to mechanical or gametic isolation (both prezygotic barriers). Mechanical isolation is where their bits don't fit, size in this case. Gametic isolation is where the sperm is unable to fertilise the egg (sperm and egg are known as gametes).

But, I don't know. I just wanted to show off.:o

[MC Moot]

VERMIN!....I had them this fall when the weather changed....defended the home front valiantly with duck tape, steel wool and these wonderful new hands free traps that are re-usable...caught 2 and they retreated,surrendered or were decimated...regardless...had to be done...Hanta Virus!...plus they made it totally personal when they shat in my utensil drawer...still a very nasty way to wake up,finding there stiff little germ ridden carcass under the sink or in a cupboard...nast,nasty.....cat's rule....I also am a clean freak/virgo....so yeah....mice....

[abcdefz]

mice mice baby

dum dum dum dumdumdumdum
dum dum dum dumdumdumdum

[kaiser soze]

I haven't seen a mouse in my place in months...finally!

On average the past few summers I trapped 10 or so

[Rock]

I'm a little girl when it comes rats and mice.

When I moved into a newly built house a couple of years ago, me and some friends were hanging out. I saw a mouse and jumped on a chair and started yelling for my friend to kill it. he just cornered it and picked him up and threw him outside. Fucking nasty fuckers.

And DC has a terrible rat problem...they are pretty fucking big. One night I had to piss really bad so I stepped in an alley to take a leak. It was probably about 10 feet wide but well lit. I started pissing and all of a sudden tons of rats started running out of the drain pipe of one wall to the other right in front of me. I was so scared i started running backwards whilst pissing screaming. My friend just laughed at me and tried to piss on them.

Fucking nasty fuckers.

I prefer the non-lethal traps, but they never seem to work for me...but the neck snappers or glue traps always work. It sucks, but so did having them in my house.

Fucking nasty fuckers.

I have no problems with pet mice and rats though. No problem at all.

[abcdefz]

At the BART station, where my afternoon bus stop is, there's this dirt embankment with some scrubby plants that slopes up toward the
fenced-off train platform. Anyway, sometimes if I have leftover rice, I throw it up the embankment and the birds fly over and eat it.

One day I'm watching the birds eating the rice and all the sudden a few rats came out of the bushes and scurried to the rice, scattering
the birds.

I never knew that the rats had made a home there. That's a little creepy, because if you're sitting at the bus stop, that means they're
right there... a couple feet behind your back.

Ugh.

[MC Moot]

Well that shatters my image of Rock.…:D....but I can relate this summer I was in alittle city in southern spain that has a small hospital…I was walking home at about 2 in the morning,when illuminate under this old gas street light was a Smithrite like garbage can with a trail of liquid running from it to form a puddle in the middle of the street…as I walk towards and into the light I see 2 “kittens” drinking from the pool and as get up to them I realize the pool is human blood leaking from the hospitals bio-hazrd bin and the 2 kittens are fuckn massive rats having a snack….way to kill a decent buzz…..:eek: