Chubbs the tegu
Well-Known Member
Tom, lets get real.. u know u have fed live prey at one point in ur life
Absolutely true. I feed live insects to my animals daily that I breed from my own colonies, and I've fed lots of live fish and shrimps to my fish in years past. I've offered live rodents only in cases where a snake refused all other attempts at feeding and was literally starving itself to death, but then switched to pre-killed prey as quickly as possible.Tom, lets get real.. u know u have fed live prey at one point in ur life
I don't feed field mice to my snakes because they have mites. Caused a long and ardorous problem getting rid of them. I might treat them first next time since they repeatedly come back.View attachment 332471
Mailbox Mice:
It happens a couple of times a year... mice set up camp in my mailbox. They shred some letters and junk mail, the postal carrier refuses to leave our mail, I work to fix the problem
I've done traps and peppermint oil and mothballs and Irish Spring soap, and they still come back... a new encampment was there this morning when I went out to check on yesterday's mail and to run some chores.
I cleared out the shredded stuff with a stick (having been bitten once by an angry squatter, I now avoid jamming my hand in there), and today the mouse jumped out with a fuzzy still attached to her, nursing... I could see a couple of fuzzies still in the mailbox, so I called a temporary end to the forced resettlement, and left to do my chores, figuring the intervening time would allow the mum to retrieve her babies.
Only she didn't... I came back hours later and the mailbox was as I'd left it and the fuzzies seemed cool and lethargic. I did the only rational thing and fed them to my Redfoot. When cleaning out the mailbox, I found two fuzzies and gave them both to Darwin, who scarfed them down like it wasn't her first live prey.
I gave them both to Darwin because of my three omnivorous tortoises, she's the one who'll eat anything I put in front of her, and I didn't want to take a chance on hesitation or partial compliance in the feeding.
In general, I don't feed live prey, and wouldn't have done it today except that to not do so would have seemed wasteful, as the little mice were bound to die anyway.
Jamie
Or a raven. Someone brought me a raven that is unreleasable due to a messed up wing and that thing catches more mice than my cats do.Jamie: you need to get a mailbox guard dog!
Emmawilly, your a kind soul!?I'll have mice in my shed come winter. They have an old fleece in there which they'll use for a nest in winter. I'll chuck a fat ball in there when it gets cold.
When I had one in the house, we got a humane trap which we used to trap and relocate it in the local park.
Too true about the territorial aggression mice employ, they are much worse than rats in this. I breed mice and it is a fact that, if I take one or more mice out and have them away from the colony for more than a few hours, then return those same mice, they will be attacked as if they are complete strangers by the resident erstwhile neighbours! Since they cannot be chased away due to being enclosed, their former brothers and sisters will punish them sometimes to death by forced isolation (incarceration) in a corner with no access to food or water and keep them there, even posting a "guard" to ensure that they cannot help themselves, and will eventually die from their injuries, or dehydration.You should know and consider that relocation doesn't work. When you remove just about any animal from its known territory and plop it somewhere else, they will almost always die a horrible painful death in one of many ways. Doesn't matter how wonderful the new territory seems to us, the animal doesn't know its way around. It doesn't know where food, shelter, and water can be found. That territory is also likely already occupied by a member of that species who will attack and kill or drive away the territorial intruder.
Our local DFW (Department of Fish and Wildlife) has done studies on this. Bears will travel up to 300 miles to return to their "home" territory, and most of them die trying. Coyotes will travel 25 miles. Even rattlesnakes will travel up to 3 miles trying to get home. If they are more than 3 miles from home, they usually get eaten, hit by a car, succumb to the elements without their familiar shelters, starve or die of dehydration, so said the researchers.
Mice in a new and unfamiliar place will almost certainly get picked off by a predator, and if not they will be relentlessly attacked by the resident mice and driven away. Same with ground squirrels and most other rodents...
Man alive, I did not know this.Too true about the territorial aggression mice employ, they are much worse than rats in this. I breed mice and it is a fact that, if I take one or more mice out and have them away from the colony for more than a few hours, then return those same mice, they will be attacked as if they are complete strangers by the resident erstwhile neighbours! Since they cannot be chased away due to being enclosed, their former brothers and sisters will punish them sometimes to death by forced isolation (incarceration) in a corner with no access to food or water and keep them there, even posting a "guard" to ensure that they cannot help themselves, and will eventually die from their injuries, or dehydration.
That's nice of you to say, thank you. I'm a sucker for anything vulnerable. Seems like I'm on the wrong forum for mice sympathisers though! Ha, I have a lot to learn about mice behaviour it seems!Emmawilly, your a kind soul!?
Those babies were already dying. It was humane to end their situation quickly, and completely logical to make use of their demise to help another in the food chain.Jesus Christ! I wish you'd posted a warning on that post! I wouldn't have done that, what a horrible end to the babies lives.
Once upon a time I raised hamsters commercially. The cute little furry beasties were some of the worst for attacking eachother. They are a female dominant society and we had to have dividers they couldn't see through between cages or they'd wear themselves out trying to attack eachother. Once in a while, early on, I'd find a baby that had fallen from a nest/cage, and, thinking I was helping, put it back into a cage. It wouldn't matter if it was originally from that cage or a different one, the mother would kill it and every one of her own nest that it had touched... Big time massacres because the outsider's smell was all over the place.Too true about the territorial aggression mice employ, they are much worse than rats in this. I breed mice and it is a fact that, if I take one or more mice out and have them away from the colony for more than a few hours, then return those same mice, they will be attacked as if they are complete strangers by the resident erstwhile neighbours! Since they cannot be chased away due to being enclosed, their former brothers and sisters will punish them sometimes to death by forced isolation (incarceration) in a corner with no access to food or water and keep them there, even posting a "guard" to ensure that they cannot help themselves, and will eventually die from their injuries, or dehydration.
View attachment 332471
Mailbox Mice:
It happens a couple of times a year... mice set up camp in my mailbox. They shred some letters and junk mail, the postal carrier refuses to leave our mail, I work to fix the problem
I've done traps and peppermint oil and mothballs and Irish Spring soap, and they still come back... a new encampment was there this morning when I went out to check on yesterday's mail and to run some chores.
I cleared out the shredded stuff with a stick (having been bitten once by an angry squatter, I now avoid jamming my hand in there), and today the mouse jumped out with a fuzzy still attached to her, nursing... I could see a couple of fuzzies still in the mailbox, so I called a temporary end to the forced resettlement, and left to do my chores, figuring the intervening time would allow the mum to retrieve her babies.
Only she didn't... I came back hours later and the mailbox was as I'd left it and the fuzzies seemed cool and lethargic. I did the only rational thing and fed them to my Redfoot. When cleaning out the mailbox, I found two fuzzies and gave them both to Darwin, who scarfed them down like it wasn't her first live prey.
I gave them both to Darwin because of my three omnivorous tortoises, she's the one who'll eat anything I put in front of her, and I didn't want to take a chance on hesitation or partial compliance in the feeding.
In general, I don't feed live prey, and wouldn't have done it today except that to not do so would have seemed wasteful, as the little mice were bound to die anyway.
Jamie
Free meals for the red foots, there must have been another entrance to your mail box because the slot at the top would have been too narrow to climb in.View attachment 332471
Mailbox Mice:
It happens a couple of times a year... mice set up camp in my mailbox. They shred some letters and junk mail, the postal carrier refuses to leave our mail, I work to fix the problem
I've done traps and peppermint oil and mothballs and Irish Spring soap, and they still come back... a new encampment was there this morning when I went out to check on yesterday's mail and to run some chores.
I cleared out the shredded stuff with a stick (having been bitten once by an angry squatter, I now avoid jamming my hand in there), and today the mouse jumped out with a fuzzy still attached to her, nursing... I could see a couple of fuzzies still in the mailbox, so I called a temporary end to the forced resettlement, and left to do my chores, figuring the intervening time would allow the mum to retrieve her babies.
Only she didn't... I came back hours later and the mailbox was as I'd left it and the fuzzies seemed cool and lethargic. I did the only rational thing and fed them to my Redfoot. When cleaning out the mailbox, I found two fuzzies and gave them both to Darwin, who scarfed them down like it wasn't her first live prey.
I gave them both to Darwin because of my three omnivorous tortoises, she's the one who'll eat anything I put in front of her, and I didn't want to take a chance on hesitation or partial compliance in the feeding.
In general, I don't feed live prey, and wouldn't have done it today except that to not do so would have seemed wasteful, as the little mice were bound to die anyway.
Jamie
Yes, Given the chance, these lil guys & gals CAN skedaddle! Just another Houdini, Like Maggie3fan's lil one...You might try putting dryer sheets in the mailbox. We tie them to the wiring in our car to keep rodents from eating the wire as they are now using a material made with rice to wrap them with. As far as feeding the mice to other animals the chickens love them. LOL. Have not tried to feed them to my sulcata tortoise, but he loves to chase the baby chicks, has not gotten close to catching one yet. Keeps him exercised didn't know that a tortoise could move that fast he corners around the pots pretty well. It is more entertaining then him sitting on my foot while I am picking veg, and cleaning. He lives in my 20 by 40 greenhouse, 10 years old, and about 40 pounds.
Exactly, you can't mention killing or harming any living thing anymore without backlash even with pest or blood sucking ticks.....I ran into some flack a while back when I posted I had killed some raccoons for the better good of my property and animals.
Anyone that knows me knows I'm an animal lover to a fault.
But sometimes you have to choose the best alternative. And in my case, there was no reasoning with the raccoons. And their destruction was amazing.
I bet Jamie didn't expect the commentary he got back when he first posted. That being said, I'm favoring Blackdog's coyote pee solution as the most humane I've seen thus far, but how you catch the coyote & get him to pee freely is another issue.Exactly, you can't mention killing or harming any living thing anymore without backlash even with pest or blood sucking ticks.....