It's getting cold early and the mice are moving into our garage en masse.
I've given up on trying to trap and release them. Half the time the traps that are meant to be kill-free end up mangling the mice and torturing them. They've also apparently learned to avoid them.
I think it's going to have to go back to snap and kill traps.
I won't use poison, glue, or anything that keeps me from easily seeing whether there's a mouse caught in it.
We've tried noise makers and pheromones. I think what they're seeking shelter from is louder than any of the things we're saying that should mean "bad place for mice".
They're sometimes running in past humans and animals trying to use the door, even. They do _not_ want to nest outside this winter.
I hope I figure out a way to explain it to them.
I even considered building something outside for them (I've bribed rabbits away from our garden via creating housing options), but if I do that, we'll just have a thousand more mice. Pretty sure that would count as "breeding vermin that pose a hazard".
I usually find some way to navigate this stuff without killing anything, if I can. I always feel like, if I can avoid killing something little, it's an example for maybe people not killing someone big.
In my childhood, my father created a very big, comfy cage of a no-kill trap that worked well, no harm done to the critters--but it took time and effort that most don't have.
Meanwhile, my sister was supposed to regularly check a smaller no-kill trap in her ceiling. She didn't, and I'll never forget the state of decay on the corpse I found within.
It is not ideal to kill. But if it must be done, the swiftest end is its own way of showing care for all creatures great and small. 💙
@MLClark I'll keep trying to find ways to minimize having to do this.
🖤