Kim at LiaS has rodents.

[Want More Babies]

As many people are stacked in that tiny house I am surprised there is any room available for rodents. :lol:

[SealFan1963]

Can squirrels have rabies? I am not afraid of rodents and have had my share of hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and rats, but if it's wild and it comes in my house and starts pooping all over the place - I want it dead.

We have a rescue kitty that is a wicked hunter and often leaves her dead prey on our back patio. Mice, moles, shrews, voles, small snakes, small rats. . . if it moves she kills it. She hasn't quite figured out birds yet (for which I am grateful). She hasn't figured out how those mice can fly.

[Witsec7]

At the farm I had cats who would stare hypnotically while mice fed on their kibble and never make a move to kill. At the same time I had two fine mousers, so the universe provided balance. The mousers would go after anything, size was never an issue. One made several attempts at a deer one day and she just shrugged him off. Another would go after quail and young wild turkeys. They would never touch my ducks or ducklings and both had learned painful lessons when they attempted to hunt my geese. My old boy will still kill a random mouse outside. All were neutered males, and the oldest wisest hunter took the kitten and taught him to hunt and kill. All would rotate their sleeping arrangements, beds, couches, goat stall.

[Patsy]

When I had a job that included taking care of a corn snake, he would only eat if you warmed the mouse (I would drop the baggie in a beaker of hot water 5-10 minutes before Houdini ate) and then you had to grasp the mouse by its tail and wiggle him until the snake struck. I did it with those llloooonnnggg tweezers that we had in the lab.

So. damn. gross. I am forever grateful that I never have to care for a snake again.

[Conuly]

Can squirrels have rabies? I am not afraid of rodents and have had my share of hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and rats, but if it's wild and it comes in my house and starts pooping all over the place - I want it dead.

[Deleted03]

We have huge wolf spiders at home, and my cat, always indoor cat, can stay the whole night in front of the spot, waiting for the spider. If I try to take her away from it (silly human) she goes back running. and then we find a cadaver in the morning lol. I saw her eat a fly once. My roomie does not realize she does kill the insects, in the morning they're never there anymore.

Can you imagine adding cats to that crazy overheated and overpopulated house? I'm sure they'd go on strike!

[Kitty]

Can squirrels have rabies? I am not afraid of rodents and have had my share of hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and rats, but if it's wild and it comes in my house and starts pooping all over the place - I want it dead.

We have a rescue kitty that is a wicked hunter and often leaves her dead prey on our back patio. Mice, moles, shrews, voles, small snakes, small rats. . . if it moves she kills it. She hasn't quite figured out birds yet (for which I am grateful). She hasn't figured out how those mice can fly.

[MamaJunebug]

It's rare for a rodent of any kind to carry rabies, scientists aren't really sure why. The only rodents that do have rabies are groundhogs, and even then that's rare. According to the CDC there has never been a documented case of a rabid squirrel.

[Brainsample]

Where was everybody when we talked before about San Antonio and the burbs being rat infested. It's a wicked problem there. I know indigent families would report waking up with rats in the bed with them in the morning, eating their hair. A friend of mine from Bastrop talked about this all the time. too.

Did she say they were the rats that invaded (they love to get into animal feed, too), or was it just generic rodents? She's the one who poured boiling water in the walls to kill them, isn't she?

Old news, just seasonal.

[ilovetchotchkes]

Yes, mama has to teach them but a well fed house cat also makes a good mouser. Cats hunt for food but also for fun. Our fat male kitty is an excellent mouser/birder and has in one afternoon caught 12 rabbits, 9 birds, 2 gophers and what seems to have been about 30 different mice but it was hard putting the pieces back together to know for sure. My one neighbor was so impressed with that day of bloddy carnage that he took photos. Now I keep my killer inside.

My sister's one cat caught and killed a hawk once and not a baby hawk either. :shock: She had to keep that killer inside too.

[MaroonMandy]

When I was in junior high, we had a cat that fancied herself quite the hunter. One night she came home with a bird that wasn't quite dead. My dad heard her scratching on the door, but was so engrossed in the basketball game on tv he opened the door without even looking at her. I was in the bathroom taking a shower and when I came out and went into my bedroom there was a battle to the death going on in the middle of my bed. :shock:

[starfish]

I've also heard the theory about how rodets, etc smell the cats and stay away, even if the cat is not a great hunter. They can smell them. When we lived at the lake, we had heard that the house we bought had a lot of snakes around it and that the previous owner, a cat-hating older woman, constantly had to shoot the snakes. We moved in with our cadre of cats and dogs, we only saw one snake the 8 years we lived there. It boogied away when it saw me. I think our menagerie kept them away. One of my dogs also caught a beaver once too out there.

[Deleted03]

Where was everybody when we talked before about San Antonio and the burbs being rat infested. It's a wicked problem there. I know indigent families would report waking up with rats in the bed with them in the morning, eating their hair. A friend of mine from Bastrop talked about this all the time. too.

Did she say they were the rats that invaded (they love to get into animal feed, too), or was it just generic rodents? She's the one who poured boiling water in the walls to kill them, isn't she?

Old news, just seasonal.

[Austin]

Depends on the cat.

Due to a combination of factors such as ill-fitted doors, roof damage, and a current plague in NYC, we have a mouse problem. We can get rid of them, but only until new ones come back in. (And forget glue traps. Last time I saw a mouse in there I spent 20 minutes with vegetable oil and a toothpick, carefully releasing the terrified creature.)

We currently have a cat. Haven't had one in YEARS, but we got one this summer. She moved in on her own, her and her pregnant self! So we have a cat and a small kitten infestation. At any rate, this cat is dedicated. I have seen her spend days patiently doing nothing but sitting outside a specific hole or nook where a mouse was hiding. She killed several within two weeks, and suddenly our mouse problem got a lot smaller. Mice are smart enough, I guess, to recognize the terrifying smell and sound of the furry apocalypse!

It seems to be an inherited trait. Her kittens haven't caught mice (although it's strangely endearing to watch them play with the dead mice their mom brings them), but I've seen them jump and catch flies in mid-air, flies that were twice their height up.

In the past I had cats that could bring down squirrels and pigeons - and these were small cats! They were just that good.

Of course, a well-fed kitty who has never had to hunt mice and was separated from her mama too early to learn from her (a common problem, but you don't want to hear my commentary on when kittens REALLY should be weaned or adopted out as compared to what Google tells people and appears to be "common knowledge") won't be as good a mouser as one who has spent a full three or four months at mom's side (or more!) or who has spent years living on the streets by his or her own wits. (And that's not a bad thing, necessarily. We want our pet cats to be loved! Feral cats have miserable, short lives - if they even survive kittenhood. But if you want to raise a mouser, don't overfeed and don't separate too early.)

[Sinister Rouge]

My grandmother was likewise blase about rodents in the house, and it actually scarred my mother - she has a major phobia about vermin and 'animal germs', and if she were to suspect a rat in her house, she'd probably have to move out because she wouldn't be able to eat or sleep until it was gone. She says that when she was a child, her parents were extremely poor; they had 6 children and they all lived in a tiny 2-bedroom house somewhere in Essex, England. Mice would crawl over them at night, and there were always droppings in their cupboards. She had a vivid memory of her mother making breakfast and finding mouse footprints in a frying pan full of grease, but she just warmed it up and used it anyway. My mother had to eat it, too, because it was the only meal they could count on. To this day, if their family dog or cat licks a dinner plate she has to throw it out. She'll tolerate animals in the house, but barely. I can't say I blame her.

Also, all this talk of cats is making me sad. I adore cats but I suspect my 4 year old is allergic, so I'm stuck with my stupid stinky dog (I love him really, but he's a major PITA!)

[emmiedahl]

I have found that the best mousers are mutt kitties (no pedigree) taken a bit late from their mama. Someone else said that mother needs to train them and that makes sense. My cats were all pretty sturdy, maybe half-grown, when I took them; it was always from someone I knew that had a cat that had a litter and had planned to keep them but could not handle so many cats.

I have heard that big ears and short fur are the secret to good mousing, but I had one that was half Maine Coon and looked all Maine Coon (super long hair, average ears, huge cat, we named him Gandalf the Gray!) and it hunted anything. He tried to go after our neighbor's lab puppy. He would kill birds and pretty large rodents to leave on our doorstep, and he also would get in territorial scuffles with raccoons and skunks.

[Kitty]

They carry plenty of other viruses, though, non?? I keep an eye on the petdoor when I start to glimpse or hear unusual squirrel activity -- my home is my refuge and I do NOT want any undomesticated animal inside it. Sounding catty: from what we've seen/heard of Kim's home, rodent damage wouldn't make that big a difference. *shrug* She and he choose to have a very basic home for their brood, and that's fine; even if I didn't have curtains and upholstered chairs to think about, I wouldn't want wood surfaces gnawed upon, and the droppings, oy vey!

I think when patriarchy + quiverfull gets together, a certain number of braincells get sacrificed. Or at least, common sense decreases (by whatever measure we measure common sense). Perhaps this is because the participants are so preoccupied trying to justify their less-than-sensible decisions in childbearing, childrearing, education and income streams that their reasoning skills just get dulled overall in the process.

If any of that makes sense. Need. Moar. Coffee. Today.

[Knight of Ni]

I have found that the best mousers are mutt kitties (no pedigree) taken a bit late from their mama. Someone else said that mother needs to train them and that makes sense. My cats were all pretty sturdy, maybe half-grown, when I took them; it was always from someone I knew that had a cat that had a litter and had planned to keep them but could not handle so many cats.

I have heard that big ears and short fur are the secret to good mousing, but I had one that was half Maine Coon and looked all Maine Coon (super long hair, average ears, huge cat, we named him Gandalf the Gray!) and it hunted anything. He tried to go after our neighbor's lab puppy. He would kill birds and pretty large rodents to leave on our doorstep, and he also would get in territorial scuffles with raccoons and skunks.

[Black Aliss]

Can squirrels have rabies?

[emmiedahl]

No way! Our family's cat is a grey Maine Coon and I named him Gandalf the Grey.

[Feberin]

We struggle with mice in our house constantly. I spoke to an exterminator and they said in this area we live the best they could do is keep it so we only have some mice. We're already doing that so we didn't take them up on the offer. We did have problems with rats outside but out neighbor had an exterminator come out and they never came inside. I do think cat smell helps since my next door neighbor (in a townhouse so our houses are connected) with a cat has never seen a mouse. Although I hate the mice they mostly come out at night so in the morning I clean up the droppings and wipe all the counters even the ones that didn't get droppings. We've found block poison to be the most effective method of killing them. We have a few traps set up on our counters (little hands can't reach them and that's where they seem to be most active) but have only caught a couple.

[ladypuglover]

I don't think they carry rabies, but at least in the Western states they sure as heck do carry bubonic plague, or rather they carry fleas who carry bubonic plague and there seems to be some evidence that they can carry hantavirus, which is rare, but can be deadly, especially in young people for some reason. Mice and rats carry hantavirus also.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

I've kept rats as pets for years and years, as well as an assortment of other pet rodents. (Mice, flying squirrels, gerbils, hamsters, etc. Rehab'd a few baby squirrels but returned back to the wild. Squirrels generally do not make good pets.) I really, really enjoy rodents as pets. Like, some people are cat people and some are dog people (we have both as well) -- I'm a rodent person.

But we finally had to fumigate for rodents in my house. Sad face. :(

[ladypuglover]

I've kept rats as pets for years and years, as well as an assortment of other pet rodents. (Mice, flying squirrels, gerbils, hamsters, etc. Rehab'd a few baby squirrels but returned back to the wild. Squirrels generally do not make good pets.) I really, really enjoy rodents as pets. Like, some people are cat people and some are dog people (we have both as well) -- I'm a rodent person.

But we finally had to fumigate for rodents in my house. Sad face. :(

[godlytomatosoup]

We had pet rats for a few years and loved them so much. They are really a neat and loving pet. Sadly I couldn't cope with them only living for 2-3 years and decided to call it quits after our second set of ladies.