Phone call

[den]

"I have some mice. can you collect them from me?"

"Um... you have then in a container?"

"No, I trapped them."

"I'm afraid we don't handle dead mice. Why don't you-"

"No, no! They're still alive! I trapped them in a live trap. I want someone to take them away and kill them for me. You have snakes, right?"

"Uh... I don't have snakes but I know someone who does. These are normal house mice, right?"

"Yes, little brown house mice. I wanted to get rid of them but I couldn't stand the thought of hurting them, so I got some live traps and caught the mice but now I still have to get rid of them. Can you do it?" long pause "Please?"

And that's why I have three fresh, killed-by-chloroform mice in the freezer, wrapped in plastic and placed in the container with the echidna food and pee wee mix, right next to the frozen chicken.

I must remember not to get confused when I want the chicken.

(It was a man on the phone, btw.)

Comments

[lonita.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the same bluse with the frog issue, was it?

[aint2nuts.livejournal.com]

I thought feeding snakes wild food was a no no because of parasite problems.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

No, different blouse

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

It's illegal to feed the snakes live food so it's all killed and frozen, then warmed for feeding. The snakes my friends have are all wild anyway, rescued and being rehabbed for release. They're used to wild food.

Chances are these mice could go to a kestrel or kite.

[accessingname.livejournal.com]

how kill w/ chloroform ?

[accessingname.livejournal.com]

kestrel or kite?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

They were in a cloth bag and placed in an air-tight container with a small dish containing about 20cc of chloroform. the container was placed in a quiet, dark place and left for an hour.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Very small hawks.

Oh, and...

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Chloroform only works with mammals and birds. It's a really BAD way of killing reptiles. It takes too long.

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

Once when I was tending my folks place when they were gone, we had a critter that was eating all the leaves off the young bean plants. I set the haveaheart trap (no kill) that night and baited it with a large carrot from the garden that had a slug in it.

Next morning the trap contained a fast asleep, stuffed young possum. Probably had a gut ache from that carrot:). I then had to lug the trap out to a local creek area with a city park wildlife refuge feel to it and let it it go.

Mice are one thing, marsupials that can rip your face off while smiling are another:).