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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill
#10895877 - 08/20/09 07:41 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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My neighbor is a bird enthusiast, and I have a small but lush garden. Result is that we on occasion have a mouse problem.
My cat used to police the area in years past, but alas he died some time ago. Now we are having a long warm summer and... you guessed it.
I tried mouse traps with peanut butter, an exterminator favorite. It isnt even touched. Two brands of storebought mouse/rat poison went entirely untouched.
Some time ago I sat on the loo and to my horror heard two rather big mice (I like to think they were mice, and not the roofrat, Rattus rattus, of bubonic plague fame) fight a territorial supremacy battle in my wooden ceiling 
Enough is enough. I decided for an extermination program.
I researched mouse/rat poisons one afternoon and came up with the most lethal one I could find. It turns out there are a lot of differences between the brands as to lethality - with the more toxic brands in the same price range being 3-7 times more lethal than others, so buying one container of the strong stuff is like buying 3-7 of the weaksauce.
Like some Nazi I was comparing lethalities, concentrations of toxin, number of mice killed per container, persistence in the organism and the most economic means of exterminating as many mice as possible. 
I settled on a pelletized preparation containing 0.005% Brodifacoum (Klerat, Ratak Plus, Talon, Volid, Havoc), containing an added substance that made the bait intolerably bitter to nontarget organisms (you never know)
Damn I knew it was hardcore but is that stuff ever lethal! an 800 gram tub of the stuff can put 100kg mice and 150kg rats into the LD50 range. Should they not die at once the stuff stays in their system 1-4 months awaiting their second nibble.
To my dismay I discovered that most mouse / rat poisons work by multiple feedings, meaning the critter walks around sick for days before it accumulates a lethal dose. Not very humane, and not very effective if they develop bait shyness because of it.
Not so with 0.005% brodifacoum. Its one of the few "single feed" rodenticides, the stuff exterminators use in locked bait boxes. Rats and mice take a test nibble of a new food, then wait hours to see if they get sick before eating more of it. With this stuff however, that test nibble is enough to kill them outright. Obviously, a single lethal dose is much more humane than a chronic poisoning lingering for days.
Moreover, fewer days of mice crawling around sick means less time for the neighborhood cats to catch them. Even though cats would have to eat a few dozen times their own weight in lethally poisoned mice in a short time period to reach their LD50 (a kilo of pure bait per cat which is not going to happen in any conceivable scenario) I obviously want my friendly neighborhood kitties (and allies in controlling the local mouse population) unharmed.
I implied to be licenced (not illegally so) and obtained the bait, put on latex gloves and got to work a few days ago.
I saw evidence of nibbling on two floors (a few crumbs among the pellets) and today I have my first confirmed kill, a beautiful adult gray mouse had dropped dead apparently while crossing the 3ft open space between a closet and my couch. I put a little extra bait of in that area.
We're in a heatwave so I hope I can find them as they drop, or I'm in for a weeklong treasure hunt in a smelly house 
Well, for so far my treatise on killing mice with science. I loathe killing, but I can't have mice pissing, shitting and nibbling all over my house. One of the more common causes of houses burning down is mice nibbling electric cables, for one. I can't have mice die slow dragged out deaths by weaksauce poison either - shits not ethical.
I'm scouting my house for points of entry, but its likely that the majority of em enter through the roof I share with my neighbor. So far I kitted a few suspect openings shut and stuffed steel wool in my wall ventilation slits.
Anyone dare to admit they got or had a mouse problem? If you DON'T have a cat, 0.005% brodifacoum (pellets or bait block) is the stuff you want.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
Edited by Asante (08/20/09 07:48 AM)
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filthee
DWWP


Registered: 10/17/08
Posts: 4,257
Loc: australia
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10895909 - 08/20/09 07:52 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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mice you say?
our ferret has caught and killed two rats as big as your hand in its cage
he played with its corpse for awhile too cause it was soaking wet
thats a cool nazi system for killing rats thi 
what about roaches man? everyone has those
my system is to spray the long lasting surface spray all around the skirting boards in the whole house and bomb every room and surface spray the verandahs and dorr ways but i only use the shelf stuff and have no idea what the best nazi spray is
i usually start my cycle of destruction when i start seeing the german roaches ie the little bitches
research that one for us shroomers man cause i bet we have a roach prob more than mice or rats overall
i have a fucking scary story about roaches that makes my hair stand up while i type this and it had to do with wiccery but i wont go into it at this moment accept to say i killed over fifty huge cockroaiches from thousands that totally covered our windows and doors and attacked us man,it was like the scene out of amytiville horror with the flies and the priest
woah that was one fucked up night
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10895911 - 08/20/09 07:52 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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We had a HUGE mouse problem in one of my old houses. Tried all kinds of bait in the usual mouse traps...they only seemed to work for a day or two, then the mice would get wise to our tricks. They started to get all the bait off the trap without tripping it! ()it was stuck on with peanut butter, too!)
So I got a cat, and...
HOLY SHIT! My cat started catching (and killing) 5-8 mice a day! Went on like this for about 2 weeks...then we never had a mouse problem again!
Cats > mouse traps! Plus you get the entertainment of having a cat
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: filthee]
#10896035 - 08/20/09 08:29 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Don't want a cat anymore, I love them but when my cats died it was quite a loss, don't want to go through that again on short notice When I'm over it I'll be heading for the shelter though, looking for a big Maine Coon, preferably a stray cause they know how to mouse and won't take food & lodging for granted . Gotta love a 15-20lbs cat 
Quote:
i killed over fifty huge cockroaiches from thousands that totally covered our windows and doors and attacked us man,it was like the scene out of amytiville horror with the flies and the priest
Yukk!! Fortunately I never had those, sounds like a nightmare.
Quote:
what about roaches man? everyone has those
Everyone you visit perhaps 
For roaches I'd really call an exterminator because it requires surface treatment with strong insecticides, often in the kitchen.
If you want to go the home route I would recommend spray of natural pyrethrins found in any garden center for spraying the problem area (which will stay "hot" for a few weeks) and the following home remedy:
Take 1 heaping teaspoon of boric acid or borax and dissolve this in a pint of water adding 10 lumps of sugar. Then, soak this into cotton balls or toilet paper and let this dry. Spread the cotton balls/crumpled up pieces of TP in the problem area. Roaches and ants will eat it and die. There is no resistance to the poison. Borax can often be found in the cleaning products isle.
I would not use fluoride roach poisons, because fluoride is dangerous to humans too as an accumulative poison. Borax is a weaker poison and also persistent, but to humans and pets its little more dangerous than salt.
Rodent poisons are in a fixed position, but sprays etc are all over the place, especially indoors - so for spray go for biological pyrethrin and still wear a mask while applying it.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10896063 - 08/20/09 08:37 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Gotta love a 15-20lbs cat 
We just weighed my bigger one the other day...19 lbs!!!
He's a Bangal-Tabby mix.
 
A Maine Coon would be sweet though!
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: trendal]
#10896089 - 08/20/09 08:43 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Beautiful cat, bit fat though, that will be a problem when he ages.
I researched it sometime and found the main cause of fat cats was them being fed dry foods which invariably contain loads of starches alien to a carnivore.
Its less convenient and more expensive but its best to keep cats on a canned/fresh meat and fish diet. Like people on atkins, cats tend to selfrestrict their portions when on a carnivore diet.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10896122 - 08/20/09 08:51 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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We feed our cats canned tuna 
Though we leave some kibble out for them to munch on.
I really don't think he is fat, though, he just has a LOT of skin. I read somewhere that Bengals have more skin than the more domestic variety. It practically hangs off him...at least when he isn't in full gallop!
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: trendal]
#10896212 - 08/20/09 09:13 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Let me put it like this.. has he just eaten prior to taking the picture? 
My cat used to be slender like a panther but at dinnertime he wolfed it down and was quite round for a few hours. The measure of a cats body fat is to look straight down on him when he stands. If his flanks clearly protrude, he is obese.
My cat trained me not to feed it regularly throughout the day, like vets recommend, but instead feed those portions into one or two big meals when he came meowing. Trying to balance his feeding habits resulted in him not touching the food.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10896325 - 08/20/09 09:42 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Oh, about rodent control, this is very informative:
PART 1
PART 2
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10896372 - 08/20/09 09:54 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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As I said...LOTS of skin
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 87,006
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: trendal]
#10896413 - 08/20/09 10:01 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Aye thats one healthy kitteh 
Looking very much like mine (at 6 kg/13lbs)
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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RupturedHernia
NOM NOM NOM'er.
Registered: 03/17/09
Posts: 11,887
Loc: :ɔoן
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Re: Of Mice and Men - first confirmed kill [Re: Asante]
#10896480 - 08/20/09 10:14 AM (14 years, 6 months ago) |
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Please check your PM's when you have time.
Handled!
Edited by Wiccan_Seeker (08/20/09 10:26 AM)
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