Single hen

[HENthusiastic]

Mice, I tell you! We have got mice! They are soooo cute. Little brown lads and lasses with big geeky ears. The first one I saw I thought was a baby, but the second one was the same size. Soooo cute. But, sadly, I guess I must do something about it!

 

We have been finding poo in our top oven for about a week ( dont tell Mostin and ShaunW - they came for Tea ). We have one of those plug in thingys, so I plugged that in and gave the oven and everywhere a good clean so it smells nice and fresh and unappealing to the little meece folk.

 

This morning, I went to top up their feed from the plastic bin I keep it in, and there was a little chap sat in there, unable to get out! Well, what was I to do??? I thought he was a youngun, so I gently tipped him out, into our understairs cupboard where all their feed and corn is stored (accessed from outside the house). I couldn't turf him out into the cold with no family, what with him being a littlun and all .

 

ANyway, about half an hour later my partner sees another little meece trotting along the kitchen floor! Well, he was the same size, so either he found his way there fairly quickly, or the first chap wasn't a littlun at all!

 

Anyway, we are off to Ikea tonight to invest in some of those lovely metal bins with lids that omleteers were discussing a while back.

 

Just wanted to share!

[The Dogmother]

Oh dear HEN, they are lovely but you need to get some bait boxes out or you'll be infested before you can say 'pussycat'.

 

I can lend you Biscuit if you like; expert mouser... when he's not asleep!

 

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

They do look adorable. But...

 

One pair can breed every 3-4 weeks. Each litter can have anything from 2-20 mice in it. Then ALL those mice can breed every 3-4 weeks. You must kill them. They are cute but you must! Humane traps are totally ineffective. Poison works well. They won't be so cute when they're everywhere and spreading disease.

 

Pretty cat, Claret!

[Egluntyne]

dont tell Mostin and ShaunW - they came for Tea

 

They were saying how lovely the Eccles cakes were.

 

 

Do get rid. They will take over.

[Alis girls]

No, no no please get rid of them - they look cute but a anything but. Our last house had mice and I was a wreck by the time we got the cats who did a brill job The mice packed their bags and left. THEY ARE NOT CUTE They stink, their wee stinks and they eat everthing they can get their paws on. I am getting a bee in my bonnet, but i dont like mice. no no no

[Helly Welly]

We had mice in our shed last year, nowhere near the chicken feed, and i thought they were adorable. I used to have a pet mouse. OH was the sensible one who put traps down, i knew they had to go but i wanted nothing to do with it.

[bluekarin]

I know what you mean, they are cute but they do wee everywhere.

 

I cleared out our 'shed' today as when my hubby took out some gardening gloves they had droppings all over them! I saw something move and then a few minutes later the cutest mouse you ever did see popped its head round the mower, then realised I was there and scarpered. So, I am going to put down some poison tomorrow But I have decanted the feed into buckets with a riddle for a lid (hopefully the hoes in the riddle are too small even for an ickle mouse to squeeze through) and even put the hemcore and mixed corn into an old metal dustbin.

 

Just remembered; I left half a sack of mixed corn (the bottom of the bag got a bit damp, so I took as much as I could off the top) out for the rubbish. Its going to be like the pied piper out there tonight. Mice running everywhere! Hopefully no rats

[The Dogmother]

Mice can get throuhh a gap just the width of a pencil, so they will get into anything and can gnaw through plastic too.

 

I love mice, and always give the live ones a stroke when the mousers bring them in, but they have no place in my home so out they go.

 

We were plagued by mice and rats in London (pre-chicken days) and I was always on to the council to come and re-bait the traps and boxes.

[sadietoo]

We used to have a problem with mice in our old house...but I did find the humane traps worked quite well, as long as I used Cadbury's Dairy Milk as bait! ...Better on the meece hips than mine anyway

 

But they did become quite a problem before we caught the little devils....some managed to get into the lining of my old oven...and a couple more had run underneath the ceramic hob and electrocuted themselves on the switches.....the smell was awful, and I had turned out every cupboard looking for what could possibly have gone off before I realised it was coming from the oven. .....so my advice is if you find your kitchen is getting a bit niffy check out your cooker for mice

 

PS....if you do use the humane trap route make sure you let them go a long way from your house, or they will be back indoors before you are!

 

Happy hunting

[Redwing]

dont tell Mostin and ShaunW - they came for Tea

 

They were saying how lovely the Eccles cakes were.

 

 

ewwwwww

[The Dogmother]

Get a cat!

[Plum]

I was looking at some in a pet shop on sunday and they are really cute. You could trap them, sex them and seperate into seperate homes. (quick before they breed)

 

No t'others are right you'll have to send them packing. I bet you did when you turned the oven on. That lovely smell was probably roast mouse.

 

[HENthusiastic]

I was kind of thinking if I just put the chooks food in metal bins and kept the kitchen superclean and tidy, they'd kind of find somewhere else to live of their own accord?? Our neibours cat comes in a lot, but he would probably be terrified if he saw a real live mouse. He spends his entire time sleeping contentedly under our bed.

Claret, biscuit looks fab. He would be very welcome to come for a working holiday!!

 

Egluntine; Ive got some of those ecclescakes left over, if you PM me your address, I'll pop them in the post for you

 

A friend of OH's said that meecey hate peppermint oil. Going to try to get some of that and some humane traps. I just don't think I can kill them . Maybe, if plan A. doesn't work, I'll have to reconsider.

 

P.S. got lovely cream metal bins from Ikea, and a nice footstall that matches our sofa and a nice plant for MIL, for M's Day.

[Plum]

.S. got lovely cream metal bins from Ikea, and a nice footstall that matches our sofa and a nice plant for MIL, for M's Day.

 

and lots of mice still.

[Olly]

this has made me laugh - but sorry to say that I don't think keeping the feed in bins and cleaning up everywhere will stop the mice. They are bound to find food somewhere unless you have everything locked in metal boxes, and they obviously have a well-used route into your kitchen!

 

I use humane traps for the ones my cat brings in, because I know they've only got in through the cat-flap; I don't think there's much point in humane traps if you have mice coming in of their own accord, they will just come back again. Poison is the answer.

 

Do you really want them weeing on your worktops and draining board, chewing your cereal packets and pooping in your oven?

 

I love the Eccles Cakes idea, Egluntine ....

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

A friend of OH's said that meecey hate peppermint oil. Going to try to get some of that and some humane traps. I just don't think I can kill them . Maybe, if plan A. doesn't work, I'll have to reconsider.

 

HEN this is just wishful thinking. You have to kill them. You don't need to chase them round with a knife, just leave poison/bait traps/blue poison corn round and about (but out of the range of any domestic pets). They'll crawl off and die. It must be done. They're probably already breeding. The problem can get massive within a couple of weeks. There is no time to try smelly oil and other stuff. It doesn't work!

 

You should disinfect everywhere. Rodents can't control their bladders so they just do their business everywhere - huge disease potential.

 

If it helps, think of it as saving yourselves and your chooks - mices are cute but very bad for diseasing everything and eating all your stuff (chicken food) which would lead to chickens to starve to death if mice had their way. Boo to mice!

[Egluntyne]

They'll stay.......and breed.

 

I once thought I had a mouse in my kitchen. I caught 17.

 

You need to get a man in.

 

Poison will fettle them.

[Alis girls]

They really are nasty little blighters no matter how cute!! And that cat is gorgeus - his/her name reallly suits her - she looks like a shortbread biscuit. Really lovely.

[The Dogmother]

And that cat is gorgeus - his/her name reallly suits her - she looks like a shortbread biscuit. Really lovely.

 

 

Thanks, I will tell Biscuit - he already knows though!

 

HEN, have just stuck a stamp on his bum!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

dont tell Mostin and ShaunW - they came for Tea

They were saying how lovely the Eccles cakes were.

 

Yes, they were asking where you managed to get those tiny little choccie drops from .

 

We get the occasional mouse in our garage but it's never developed into an infestation. (Is that because they're field mice?)

[Falkor]

Well my cat Oscar isn`t much help at ALL! He brings them in alive and then pops them in his food bowl for us! The only problem is they wander out of the bowl pretty sharpish and find a cosy hole! We had the fridge out yesterday trying to find one cos Oscar was guarding it but couldn`t see it.

 

All i am saying is i got a surprise when i opened the tumble dryer this morning!!!!

 

Said mousey has been relocated to the far end of the green accross the road!

 

I love my cream bin from Ikea!

[HENthusiastic]

We get the occasional mouse in our garage but it's never developed into an infestation. (Is that because they're field mice?)

 

Perhaps I've got field mice???? What if they are field mice?? ?? Then can I just leave them alone to return to their fileds, becuase they dont like the peppermint oil, and all their food supplies have been put in metal bins???

 

Egluntine: "fettled"?? What does that mean? Does that mean that poisen will make them cross?

 

Claret, thoroughly looking forward to Buscuit being delivered by the postman! Especially as packages that wont fit through the letterbox, get put straight in the understairs cupboard; so s/he can start work straight away under there!

 

Seriously though, I do hear all your points, mice, sweet though they are, will piddle all over everything and will breed. I will take action

[The Dogmother]

Glad to hear it Hen.

 

Biscuit is far too *erm* 'traditionally built' to fit through any letter box I'm sure that he'd love to visit though, just so long as there's something for him to kill and a bed to sleep on, he's happy.

[Sheilaz]

Egluntine: "fettled"?? What does that mean? Does that mean that poisen will make them cross? (

 

This is one of my favourite words having first heard it when watching Postman Pat 20 odd years ago! He took a watch or clock to be fettled, which I understood to be a "Northern" expression for mended or fixed. My Yorkshire relatives use this expression for this too.

However, I suspect Egluntine was meaning fixed as in "got rid of" which is a closer true definition.

From MiddleEnglish it can also mean keeping well, as in being in fine fettle, and also a word to describe preparing an area for metal casting.

I use the word as often as possible, much to the surprise of the locals, when referring to mending items.

 

But, def. get rid of mice in the kitchen!

[The Dogmother]

It's also an industrial term for when they knock or smooth the rough bit off something that has just come out of the mould.