Cat brought home live mouse

One of our lovely cats brought home a live mouse the other night.

Surprisingly everytime it is 1.30am exactly!

Anyway the last time he let it go under my study door and by the time I had got the catching device, (a colunder and a piece of cardboard) I couldnt find the mouse!

Now I looked everywhere, and dont think it would have come out again under the door as the cat would have got it!

So it must have been in the study. I put a trap in the study to cathc it alive but have not had any luck.

We have no idea where it could be and both cats are not doing the usual sniffing around looking for it either.

I am a bit worried about it dying somewhere and making the house smell.

Any advice welcome.

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

If the cats aren't on mouse patrol I suspect it's dead. It doesn't get as hot in the Summers in the UK as it does here in Washington; it's been my experience when one of Leia's mice eludes her and dies it dessicates rather than becoming smelly. I often find a small dried out mouse that she's found somewhere and brought out in plain sight. So I hope yours, if dead, doesn't go the smelly route! Good luck.

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

I agree, the last thing you need to worry about is it becomming smelly, it won't. Today I removed two from the cellar where I had traps in the winter and had forgotten to check them in the spring They were 'dried out' not sure if that's the same as 'dessicates' but I think it is.

The amazing thing about mice is the size of hole they can get through, if there's any hole in your study where you can poke a pencil then a mouse can get in there don't know how they do it but they do

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

Yep, sorry, Losos, dessicates is a two bit word for dried out! You're right, they can get into unbelievably small spaces.

This is Leia with an itty bitty one

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Re: Cat brought home live mouse

No need to say sorry Eileen, I would have used dessicates had I known it's meaning, I do now, so thanks, I've learned something today, I firmly believe we should never stop learning

I wish Leia some happy hunting too

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

Poor Leia's hunting days are over, I'm afraid; mice aren't likely on the 5th floor of my retirement community. She's going to miss them,

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

You may be right there Eileen but they can get into some incredible places, our house was built in 1920 the outer walls are sandstone blocks about two foot thick, the inner partition walls were mostly thinner and made of two layers of six inch blocks and I'm sure I've heard them climbing up the gap between them

I try not to think about where they may end up if they ever find an 'exit' hole upstairs If Leia ever wants a hunting type holiday she can come here anytime

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

I've never known any of my male cats to hunt - too lazy I guess - but Pepsi was the great white hunter/huntress?

She would bring in birds, both dead and alive, mice, voles, worms, you name it. She was so proud of her catches, but it was a torment to come home to feathers all over the kitchen and a poor dead bird, or one too terrified to move.

She once brought in a mouse and my partner at the time tried to catch it, but it disappeared behind a cupboard in the kitchen which couldn't be moved. For hours she sat and waited for it to come out, but it didn't as far as we knew. There was no smell from the poor little thing and it must have died there.

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

Sparky is thirteen and still brings in mice and birds, I wish he wouldn't. He eats most of it but always leaves some of their internal organs on the carpet, right by the kitchen door so I have to careful where I step in the mornings. Once, while I was taking a joint out of the oven for Sunday lunch, he pushed himself through the catdoor with a live wood pigeon. The poor thing escaped and flew around the kitchen, feathers flying everywhere even getting stuck in the hot beef dripping. Had to throw everything out and have a sandwich instead. We let the pigeon out and it was so stupid that an hour or so later it perched on the fence right outside the back door. Before I could stop him, Sparky leapt up, grabbed it around it's neck and it was a gonner. What gets me is, he is supposed to be in kidney failure and on a special low protien diet and there he is chomping away at birds and the like!

Re: Cat brought home live mouse

kizzy dosn't seem to be inyterested in hunting, she likes the ducks that visit regulary and comes and tells me when they arrive so I can feed them, she also likes to watch the birds that come to the bird table, none of my cats have been hunters