Mailbox Mice

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,220
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
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.

My point is to minimize suffering on the prey animals or on pest species that need to be eradicated. At my ranch we are constantly killing off problem pests, and we make every attempt to do it humanely. If live food is necessary for one reason or another, I have no problem with it at all. I'm pretty sure Jaimie's tort would still have eaten the pinkies if they were dead. I think he should have stomped the mom too. On the occasion that I happen to find a rodent nest on my ranch, I attempt to immediately kill all of them in whatever way I can. Its got to be done, but it can be done quickly to minimize suffering. This is how I see the matter.
 

Chubbs the tegu

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 9, 2019
Messages
9,579
Location (City and/or State)
Ma
id say a pinky is gonna die pretty quickly from a adult redfoot bite. Pretty sure ur rabbits will suffer more from the hawks
 

tortlvr

Member
Today is my birthday!
Joined
Apr 17, 2020
Messages
86
Location (City and/or State)
San Diego Ca
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
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.
 

Yvonne G

Old Timer
TFO Admin
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
93,449
Location (City and/or State)
Clovis, CA
When I was a whole lot younger we had a red doberman, Ida, who wouldn't allow ANY one or thing on our property that didn't belong. We lived in the country on 5 acres and never had a stray dog or cat or ground squirrel on the property. She even chased the airplanes away (or so she thought).

We had a couple cows and horses and we bought our hay 10 tons at a time. The hay was on pallets and that made a great place for mice to live. To keep Ida from tearing the hay apart we had to keep the barn closed up.

We had wood for our wood burning stove and Ida tore the stacked wood down to get the critters that lived under the stacks.

By the time she died of old age her front teeth were worn down to the gumline, but none of our mice or squirrels suffered. Ida killed them with one bite and a quick shake, then dropped them.

Jamie: you need to get a mailbox guard dog!
 

MenagerieGrl

Well-Known Member
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 11, 2020
Messages
1,159
Location (City and/or State)
El Sobrante, CA.
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.
Emmawilly, your a kind soul!?
 

TammyJ

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2016
Messages
7,079
Location (City and/or State)
Jamaica
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...
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.
 

Emmawilly

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2020
Messages
161
Location (City and/or State)
Plymouth
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.
Man alive, I did not know this.
So in my ignorance, I've actually been condemning the little blighters to an even worse fate than death by tortoise! This forum continues to teach me things every day, even if the lesson is a bit uncomfortable.
 

Emmawilly

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2020
Messages
161
Location (City and/or State)
Plymouth
Emmawilly, your a kind soul!?
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!
I'm yet to find an equivalent forum for furries that's as good as TFO.
 

COmtnLady

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
1,450
Location (City and/or State)
Colorado
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.
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.

I only have a tough time with this philosophy when I encounter a bear or big cat because then I'm the one on the menu. Then I'm not so ok with it.

But it IS a good thing to do with abandoned or hurt dying critters. I'd rather feed a tort than the insects wherever the carcasses might have been disposed of otherwise.
 
Last edited:

COmtnLady

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
1,450
Location (City and/or State)
Colorado
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.
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.

With hamsters, the ONLY way you can have more than one in a cage is if they are males, from the same litter, and like TammyJ said, they are NEVER separated for more than the time it takes to clean a cage (5 minutes, maybe).

We did discover that gerbils will adopt/foster hamster babies. (But even that got tedious, so we would take any live damaged critters to the biology Prof at a nearby college and her snakes would eat them.)

Its just how it is.
 
Last edited:

willee638

Active Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
283
Location (City and/or State)
HK
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
 

willee638

Active Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
283
Location (City and/or State)
HK
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.
 

Rambow

New Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2020
Messages
1
Location (City and/or State)
Tracy
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.
 

MenagerieGrl

Well-Known Member
Tortoise Club
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Nov 11, 2020
Messages
1,159
Location (City and/or State)
El Sobrante, CA.
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.
Yes, Given the chance, these lil guys & gals CAN skedaddle! Just another Houdini, Like Maggie3fan's lil one...
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,953
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
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.
 

willee638

Active Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2020
Messages
283
Location (City and/or State)
HK
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.
Exactly, you can't mention killing or harming any living thing anymore without backlash even with pest or blood sucking ticks.....
 

Jan A

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2021
Messages
1,813
Location (City and/or State)
Boulder, CO
Exactly, you can't mention killing or harming any living thing anymore without backlash even with pest or blood sucking ticks.....
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.
 

New Posts

Top