I caught some mice and now I feel so bad

I’ve been vegan for six years now, and recently, I moved into my own apartment with my boyfriend, which has been great. I set up bird feeders on our balcony, and it’s been wonderful seeing them come by every morning.
Unfortunately, the building has a mouse problem, and with the bird seeds on the balcony, they’ve started showing up here too. We bought some humane traps, hoping to trap the mice without harming them. But we had the traps for weeks, and nothing happened. We forgot to check them regularly.
Yesterday, I checked the traps, and we had caught two mice. Sadly, they didn’t make it. I feel horrible about it. They might’ve frozen or died from lack of water. I really tried to be kind and humane, but they still died. I feel like we could’ve done more by checking the traps more often. I don’t even want the mice on the balcony, but now I feel awful about what happened.

If it didn’t make you sad, I’d be more worried. People who don’t care about animals don’t feel bad about them dying.

Mice are pretty smart and can get to food in those traps without setting them off, especially if they’re light. I fixed this by putting peanut butter under the trap’s lever.

Also, remember to check the traps often and relocate them quickly. Mice can get really stressed in traps in just a few hours. I even covered the trap with a towel to keep them calm when moving it. Not sure if it helped, but it made me feel better not scaring them more.

The best way to avoid mice is to stop feeding them.

If the bird feeders are bringing them in, maybe it’s time to stop feeding the birds.

Some people think using humane traps is actually cruel. When you release mice in a new place, they don’t have their families, and they might starve or get eaten by predators. The ones that survive are stressed.

Rather than go through all this, it’s better not to attract them in the first place.

@Xander
I’m dealing with this right now too. We have chickens and ducks, but the mice keep coming. I’m really scared of them, but I can’t kill them. I also don’t want to take away their food source because that would mean no food for my chickens either. But I don’t want mice around either, and I’m too scared to go to the chicken coop now.

@Xander
I read that if you move them more than 20 meters from your house, they get disoriented, but if it’s closer, they’ll survive the move.

Ori said:
@Xander
I read that if you move them more than 20 meters from your house, they get disoriented, but if it’s closer, they’ll survive the move.

They might survive and come right back to your house though.

Poor little mice :frowning:

When I went on vacation to France with my family, we had mice in the vacation house too. The owner put out kill traps right away, and it really upset me. But my parents were determined to use the traps. There were also free-roaming cats nearby, but not in the house (luckily, since my family has allergies).
In the long run, it’s probably best to just get rid of the food source. Store everything in sealed boxes or the fridge, and maybe consider moving the bird feeder somewhere else, like the garden.

@Eliot
Good idea! Moving the feeder sounds like a good solution.

Put some food and a little water in the trap, maybe even a bit of bedding, and you’ve made a kind of mouse hotel for them. That way they can stay comfortable until you can move them somewhere else. But make sure to check the traps more often.

Either feed the birds or deal with the mice, can’t do both.

Mice are cute, but they can be a problem. They damage things, spread disease, and leave droppings. You’ll have to find a way to deal with them.

Don’t feel bad about killing pests.

Don’t worry. For every potato you buy, many more mice die during the harvest.

Sawyer said:
Don’t worry. For every potato you buy, many more mice die during the harvest.

And what about the soybeans used to feed animals that are killed for meat?

Sawyer said:
Don’t worry. For every potato you buy, many more mice die during the harvest.

Exactly. Vegans conveniently ignore this when they lecture everyone else about being cruel for eating meat.

@Reign
We don’t ignore it. We just have to eat to live. This argument doesn’t make any sense, and it proves you don’t understand basic logic.

Flint said:
@Reign
We don’t ignore it. We just have to eat to live. This argument doesn’t make any sense, and it proves you don’t understand basic logic.

Oh, so you’re admitting that you need animals to die to eat? So you’re just as much of a hypocrite as the rest of us.

@Reign
Nice try, but you’re missing the point. If you can’t see the difference between these two situations, there’s no point in discussing this with you.