Borrowing a cat to take care of mice

[nanette1985]

My friend has offered to loan his cat, since we seem to have a lot of mice. There's construction in the building.

Anyone done this? Does it help? How long should I borrow the kitty for?

The stupid traps don't seem to be catching anything, cat sounds like a better idea.

UPDATE: My count so far is 38 mice, plus a bunch that got away. I just put traps all over the place. It's been a couple of days since I got a mouse, maybe that will be it!

Thanks for all the help.

Oh, now my friend wants to bring the cat over to see if he can find any more mice.

 

[E equals MC2]

Originally posted by: princess ida
My friend has offered to loan his cat, since we seem to have a lot of mice. There's construction in the building.

Anyone done this? Does it help? How long should I borrow the kitty for?

The stupid traps don't seem to be catching anything, cat sounds like a better idea.

Won't cats only ward off mice only to return as soon as the cat is gone?

 

[40Hands]

Sounds kind of weird. There is no telling how long it would take the cat to hunt them nor if it would just play with them like mine does. Also the cat might run away if it were let outside.

 

[pontifex]

lol, is atot the only place that tries to find different ways to take care of problems?

whatever happened to traps or an exterminator?

 

[ViviTheMage]

when i left for two weeks, my sister had my 2 cats and they caught a bunch of mice i heard haha.

 

[IEC]

Peanut butter mixed with rat poison works, as does mouse traps with a bit of peanut butter and cheese on top.

 

[torpid]

Cats are only a temporary solution. Also, it is rather traumatic for a cat to be moved and it could take a few days before they'll even consider prowling around on the hunt.

 

[hanoverphist]

when my neighbors moved, there was a rash of mice let loose in our neighborhood. no food so they went looking for a new house to infiltrate. they chewed a hole in a door on the side of the house and let themselves in. once i noticed, there was 3 main nests i found. i killed them all with pine sol, my boot, a hammer and a blowgun. the blowgun was by far the most fun. once i fixed the door and got rid of the ones in my house they have yet to return. its been about 7 years since that happened. i still see them outside at night on occasion, but they havent tried to get back in at all. my dog kills all the mice/ birds/ cats that stray into my back yard as well.

 

[Mashed Potato]

Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Peanut butter mixed with rat poison works, as does mouse traps with a bit of peanut butter and cheese on top.

Gets my vote...i used traps with peanuts on it. Caught the little ah heck in less than 15 min. Actually felt kinda bad that it snapped the thing's hind legs........then i remembered that he $h1T in my 1/2 cup measuring tool....

EDIT: Also the cat might spray...then you will be setting up a bigger trap with a piece of chicken on it for the cat....

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Peanut butter mixed with rat poison works, as does mouse traps with a bit of peanut butter and cheese on top.

peanut butter is by far the best attractant for mice. but they get smart if you use only traps. best thing you can do is find their point of entry and close it, then find their nests and kill them all with extreme prejudice. i stuck one to a wall with my blowgun thru the hip. he didnt die, but i took him outside and told him to tell his friends to stay away. my kids thought i was cracking and going over the deep end, but we havent had mice here since.

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: hanoverphist

Originally posted by: Spartan Niner
Peanut butter mixed with rat poison works, as does mouse traps with a bit of peanut butter and cheese on top.

peanut butter is by far the best attractant for mice. but they get smart if you use only traps. best thing you can do is find their point of entry and close it, then find their nests and kill them all with extreme prejudice. i stuck one to a wall with my blowgun thru the hip. he didnt die, but i took him outside and told him to tell his friends to stay away. my kids thought i was cracking and going over the deep end, but we havent had mice here since.

thats actually how we got rid of our mice once and for all. set up traps all over, killed several almost every day-- but they kept coming back. then one day, a trap was set off but there was no corpse. Instead, we saw some blood and a blood trail going off somewhere. Guess like the mouse wasn't killed, but got critically injured. Never had a single mouse since then.

If you dont like the trap idea, you can get the other kind of trap, its an extremely sticky piece of paper. you put a piece of cheese in the middle, and the mouse walks right onto the sticky stuff. fur and legs get stuck tight. the only bad thing is you have to get rid of a live mouse afterward. i used to just stick them into a garbage bag and slam it on the ground a couple times as hard as possible. the squeals were disconcerting....

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: torpid
Cats are only a temporary solution. Also, it is rather traumatic for a cat to be moved and it could take a few days before they'll even consider prowling around on the hunt.

Agreed, plus the cat won't know the place too well. My cats learned where the mice liked to live, though there were loads of hiding places. One cat, Scotty, would come "hunting" with me for mice sometimes. He seemed to understand how the flashlight worked, and would watch where it was shining. (He wasn't the sort who cared to chase a spot from a flashlight, and only watched it when the beam went somewhere totally dark. He'd also look at me quickly if I turned the light off.)

My preferred mousetrap + bait combo is dried cherries with Victor mousetraps. Bend the curled part of the trigger up, put the cherry in, and mash the teeth on the end of the trigger's curl into it, securing it in place. The mice will try to tug the cherry free by its tough skin, triggering the trap. They generally die with their teeth still latched onto it.
I can get quite a few mice with just one cherry before it starts to lose its smell.


Best solution obviously is to try to figure out how they keep getting in. Mice are dirty, leave droppings and urine anywhere they damn well please, carry disease and parasites, and they can really scare the hell out of you when one decides to run down a textured wall.

 

[Steve]

Get your piper friend down the street to lead them out of your house once and for all.

 

[BrownTown]

If they were my cat they would just pat it on the head for ten minutes and then get bored and let it get away .

 

[Baked]

Mustard gas the building.

 

[bGIveNs33]

pics?

 

[Leros]

Just go get a bunch of mice poison things. We had mice in our house. Spent a few months trying to use snap traps, glue traps, etc. I finally just spent $20 on 10 poison bait blocks, and a week later we had no mice.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Don't waste your time. If it's not a barn cat it might not even know what to do. It might chase the the mice around a bit until it gets bored, and then wait at its bowl expecting food. If it is a barn cat, then you're just going to find bits of mice all over your house when it does catch one. Even then it doesn't solve the problem of where they're coming from or why.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: princess ida
My friend has offered to loan his cat, since we seem to have a lot of mice. There's construction in the building.

Anyone done this? Does it help? How long should I borrow the kitty for?

The stupid traps don't seem to be catching anything, cat sounds like a better idea.

LOL
I had to laugh when I read that.
Someone might could start a business.
Got rats ? We got Cats!

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother

If you dont like the trap idea, you can get the other kind of trap, its an extremely sticky piece of paper. you put a piece of cheese in the middle, and the mouse walks right onto the sticky stuff. fur and legs get stuck tight. the only bad thing is you have to get rid of a live mouse afterward. i used to just stick them into a garbage bag and slam it on the ground a couple times as hard as possible. the squeals were disconcerting....

my ex wife was putting some of those sticky traps down, saw one run under the bathroom door and flung it at the mouse. it slipped under the door and got the side of the mouse to our surprise. stuck it hard, but the worst part is having to dispose of them... those suckers are alive still, so i had to kill it anyway. not like im gonna free it from the sticky and release it outside. the sticky traps we got were impregnated with a nummy peanut butter smell, so we didnt need to bait them onto it. they were effective.

 

[bctbct]

If you have been using poison dont turn a cat loose on them because it could injure the cat.

 

[Modelworks]

Tip for those that got mice/rats
You need to walk around the outside of your home and find out where they are getting in.
If you find a hole put steel wool in it, mice hate to try to chew through it.

 

[nanette1985]

Originally posted by: Steve
Get your piper friend down the street to lead them out of your house once and for all.

Great idea!! I have to try and meet the guy and ask him!

Bye, bye, little mousies. He can take them down to the river at the end of the street and make them jump in. Mice can't swim, can they?

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: princess ida
My friend has offered to loan his cat, since we seem to have a lot of mice. There's construction in the building.

Anyone done this? Does it help? How long should I borrow the kitty for?

The stupid traps don't seem to be catching anything, cat sounds like a better idea.

LOL
I had to laugh when I read that.
Someone might could start a business.
Got rats ? We got Cats!

Well, I got SNAKES!

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: princess ida
My friend has offered to loan his cat, since we seem to have a lot of mice. There's construction in the building.

Anyone done this? Does it help? How long should I borrow the kitty for?

The stupid traps don't seem to be catching anything, cat sounds like a better idea.

LOL
I had to laugh when I read that.
Someone might could start a business.
Got rats ? We got Cats!

Well, I got SNAKES!

Our cats are professional.
Siamese, trained in a monastery in cat-fu !