Found blood on the kitchen floor. You guessed it, cat had caught and consumed a mouse.

A short time later, the cat was getting very sniffy around our recycling boxes. Pulled them out and there was a little grey mouse. Luckily they freeze when they are scared, so I was able to drop a humane mouse trap I had in the cupboard over the top of him. He seemed uninjured, so this was clearly a second mouse and the first probably inside may cats stomach or crawled away behind the fridge.

Luckily we have a cliff walk nearby, so I popped the trap in a bag and took him onto the cliffs. Found a safe place for him and let him go. 

 

Edited August 24, 20232 yr by martin-w

Time to start checking around the outside for entry points!  🐭🐭

Could only be from below I think. Another property. They are such tiny guy's they can get through any minuscule gap.

The cat parks himself in the kitchen all night on patrol.

 

And the mice are probably tiny too.

Still better than the half eaten sqirrel under my bed one time...... 😼

10 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Still better than the half eaten sqirrel under my bed one time...... 😼

 

Yikes! I had a female cat who was a prolific hunter. She was only small but her capability to catch large prey was quite a phenomonon.

I had installed a cat flap through the garage wall, and then another in the door to the house. The garage wasn't used to house a car, I was a fanatical bodybuilder at the time and had converted it into a gym.

One day, my former wife and me came home from work and there was a big Magpie flying around in the garage. I had to open the garage door to let it out. I was stunned that such a small cat had managed to catch such a big bird and get it through the flap.

On another occasion we too had a Squirrel incident. She had caught a Squirel almost as long as her and dragged that through the flap too. There it was, lying on the floor, dead, and with fleas jumping off it.

 

The cat I was babysitting for a few years rewarded me several many dead, headless rats left on my front porch.  One neighbor said she saw her dragging a rat almost her size home in her mouth! 🐀

On 8/25/2023 at 1:22 PM, charliearon said:

rewarded me several many dead, headless rats left on my front porch

 

Well I hope you had then for your dinner. That's what your feline wanted. 

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Well I hope you had then for your dinner. That's what your feline wanted. 

Uhm.....no!  Plastic bag and then the garbage bin!

18 hours ago, charliearon said:

Uhm.....no!  Plastic bag and then the garbage bin!

 

Well that just means that when the Zombie apocalypse comes, your cat wont bother to feed you due to the lack of appreciation you displayed for this recent rejected feeding.

 

Building work in the neighbourhood has led to rats frequenting the local gardens, including mine over the past year. Mostly, I'm not overly bothered as rats are usually (unseen) neighbours to most people. But, as they had supplanted the much more welcome wood mice in my garage (who occasionally found their way into the kitchen until I found the potential entry points*), it was time for humane traps. I dislike killing even what are usually considered pests as they are just doing what is natural to them. Whether it's a mouse or rat, I usually cycle to the edge of the city and release them in woods or fields. Usually they will survive a night in the trap unless it is particularly cold, but one poor soul didn't have the nicest of ends. At most, I only seem to have a pair at a time and then obviously some young if I don't catch the adults in time.

On this occasion, there were 3 or 4 young and one ended up in the trap. I went out the next morning and found it, or rather half of it!🤢 Fortunately, the wildlife camera I had been monitoring the trap with had run out of battery so I missed what must have been the trapped rat squeezing halfway through the bars, getting stuck and then being eaten by its own family.😶. 'Luckily' they did such a good job that there was literally half a rat in the cage and nothing outside it - it was as though it was a stuffed toy which somebody had perfectly cut through with a knife - strangely a lot less gruesome than it sounds.

 

* The potential entry points, for anyone wondering where to look were the air bricks in the bottoms of the walls round the house (tiny holes, but big enough for the contortion artist that are mice) and the hole in the wall for the sink drainage pipe (turned out the hole was significantly bigger than the pipe🙄. Simple job to buy some very fine wire mesh and use 'No Nails' glue to stick it over each brick, allowing them to still do their job without inviting visitors inside.

35 minutes ago, 109Sqn said:

The potential entry points, for anyone wondering where to look were the air bricks in the bottoms of the walls round the house (tiny holes, but big enough for the contortion artist that are mice) and the hole in the wall for the sink drainage pipe (turned out the hole was significantly bigger than the pipe

I'm wondering if mice are getting in through attic vents. Ours are old fashioned wooden grilles near the top of the gable end wall. After seeing the following video, I'm thinking they may be an easy entry point if the wood is damaged.

 

 

Edited August 28, 20232 yr by dmwalker