The Shrew: Most disgusting rodent (not actually a rodent) in existence

[PingSpike]

There's been some mice activity in the walls since I've had the house, it usually occurs around this time of year when they're looking for warmer areas. I set up victor mouse traps in the garage and have racked up quite the body count this year. I don't particularly like killing them, but the fuckers get in walls and make noise and last summer they chewed up my wood pile tarp.

Anyway, last week I caught a shrew. He was such a hideous bastard I looked him up. Look at this wikipedia entry, this thing is a fucking disgusting bastard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Short-tailed_Shrew

At least a mouse can sort of pass for cute. These shitty little things have stumpy tails, hideous heads adorned with tiny beady useless eyes, nasty red teeth that are actually venomous. But their behavior is the most disgusting. The wikipedia alludes to this when it states they have high metabolisms and need to eat their body weight in food each day...their venom allows them to kill animals slightly larger than themselves.

I checked my traps last evening, still set and no kills. This morning my wife informed me a mouse had "exploded" on the trap. This was strange as their death is rarely a gory affair. So I opened the door to the garage and as I stepped out a gray shape darted past my feet into the junk in the garage causing me to scream like a little girl roar like a raging beast.

I inspected the mouse trap, it appeared less a mouse and more some sort of shredded ball of gore with limbs and ears sticking out of it. It was surrounded by nasty black tarry spots. It then dawned on me the scene I was witnessing. A shrew was consuming the dead mouse stuck in the trap, shitting all around it while it did so. It had likely been interrupted by my wife earlier and then me later.

A new front has been opened in the war for my garage. I found a good deal from amazon on a 72 pack of victor mouse traps. That one was to stained with death to salvage.

 

[SamurAchzar]

Next thing you know, and he's on your doorstep with a folding knife, demanding that you eat pussy or else.

 

[Jadow]

You just need to tame it.

 

[mcurphy]

Interesting. I came across one of these last year. My neighbor's wife called me to remove one from her bathtub when her husband was out of town. At the time I thought it was a mole and hadn't even considered it a shrew. I have no idea how it got into her bathtub since the sides are very steep. The only way I could figure he got there was through the drain. He was dead when she found him, and I assume it was because he was trapped and unable to eat.

 

[Perknose]

You just need to tame it.

:thumbsup:

 

[Drako]

Meh, moles are more disgusting.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What's not to like? Cute and venomous too. If you want to step up the war, forget traps, get a ferret!

 

[Freshgeardude]

Next thing you know, and he's on your doorstep with a folding knife, demanding that you eat pussy or else.

/win

 

[Iron Woode]

My cat used to eat those things on a regular basis.

Head first with the tail still wiggling.

Mmmm.....

 

[Eli]

That's a big ass shrew. I have never seen a shrew like that before.

The shrews I'm used to are more like mice with a longer nose.

 

[El Guaraguao]

Kill it with fire.

 

[Brainonska511]

If it's bigger than a mouse, consider getting the larger rat traps. The mouse traps might not be the appropriate size to stop a shrew.

 

[Farang]

Interesting. I came across one of these last year. My neighbor's wife called me to remove one from her bathtub when her husband was out of town. At the time I thought it was a mole and hadn't even considered it a shrew. I have no idea how it got into her bathtub since the sides are very steep. The only way I could figure he got there was through the drain. He was dead when she found him, and I assume it was because he was trapped and unable to eat.

she planted it there. its the classic plant-a-dead-shrew-and-bang-your-neighbor trick.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

she planted it there. its the classic plant-a-dead-shrew-and-bang-your-neighbor trick.

Chika - bow, chika - bow wow

 

[paperfist]

That is a hideous beast!

hmm I haven't had good luck with Victor mouse traps as I've set 4 and so far the mice got the peanut butter but not the death. I was just looking on Victor's site though and they have a nefarious electrocution device that can kill up to 150 mice (10 per session) that drops them into a shock n drop chamber.

lol I'm buying it!
http://www.victorpest.com/store/rodent-control/m260

 

[BoomerD]

What a shrew...d little creature...

 

[Ichinisan]

Shrews don't eat your food or chew your stuff. They'll eat bugs, larvae, worms and stuff like that. The mouse was just a fortunate source of fresh protein for the shrew.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Alternator size it.

 

[SearchMaster]

First two responses FTW.

 

[lxskllr]

It's not so bad looking. For ugly NA animals, nothing beats the possum imo. According to your link, they can't survive in temps over 35C. Rent an industrial propane heater, and cook them out of your garage.

 

[BudAshes]

that's a zombie shrew.

 

[Ichinisan]

It's not so bad looking. For ugly NA animals, nothing beats the possum imo. According to your link, they can't survive in temps over 35C. Rent an industrial propane heater, and cook them out of your garage.

Why? They won't cause a problem. They'll eat some nasty garage spiders until there are no more invertebrates left to eat, then leave. A shrew's high metabolism won't let it stay in one place for too long because it will run out of food / energy and die.

 

[Jeff7]

My cat used to eat those things on a regular basis.

Head first with the tail still wiggling.

Mmmm.....

One of my cats would occasionally come across the things while wandering around the yard. I don't know the mode of envenomation (isn't venom harmless when eaten?), but he'd end up with a fever, and just rest in one place he'd always go whenever he was worried or scared. After a few hours, he was fine.

I think it took 3 shrews before he finally figured out that they weren't good playmates.

 

[Mrvile]

I've always been a fan of sticky traps. I know they're brutal but sometimes it's the only thing that works. Then we got a cat.

 

[PingSpike]

I've had good luck with the traps lately. I had a problem last year with the mouse not dying and then running off and hiding with a trap stuck on his head. Then I'd have to hunt around the garage searching for some sad ass mouse and have to bash it with a shovel. This did not rate highly on my list most fun household chores. You try to kill them very fast, but my experience has been that it is not as easy to do as it sounds. So this year I've tethered the traps to blocks of wood with pieces of string, and I place blocks next to the trap to try and funnel the rodents head first into the killing end of it. So far I only saw one mouse that I needed the tether for and he died before I got their anyway.

A guy at work was talking about his rodent problems and he mentioned he'd started doing the same tether thing for the same reason.