Mouse? What breed? (closed)

[KimitsuKouseki]

Hi guys, found this poor little thing frozen in our empty recycling container on my porch this morning. Poor thing mustve though there was food in it and since it was emptied the day before she had nothing to grab onto and got stuck in there and then froze to death. Just curious what breed it is cause I think she's super cute.

 

[shazza]

deer mouse! the rounded face and two-toned tail are dead giveaways

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

Thanks! It's soooo cute. I know there's definetly more especially since I started rabbits, there's been many signs of mice or mole activity around the rabbit shelter, so I'm not sad for it, but it's still super cute :3

 

[MaggieJ]

Kimitsu, deer mice are very cute, but if you have them in your rabbitry, it is a good idea to learn more about them. Occasionally they can carry disease. It is rare, but you need to know about it. It is not a good idea to handle them with bare hands and you need to be careful when cleaning areas where they may have left urine or droppings.
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/p ... hanta.aspx

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

You're right MaggieJ, but my rabbits are outdoors and I live in the forest... Well not a "forest" forest, but I'm jack in a middle between a town and a village that are 15min apart by car and it's a very foresty area. Plenty of houses especially around the lakes but still. So although I will have to start taking measures, especially since one of their tunnels is bellow one of my cage and causing it to sink, I also need to consider it a losing battle I do not have the energy to invest into at the moment. Same thing applies to squirrels who were a nightmare last summer. I'd kill trap up to 3 per day when I was home and at least 1 if it was a work day. Those numbers were a constant for a period of 3 weeks straight. I even caught a **** one night x.x and saw another not too long after that was digging in the manure pile for bugs.
When the next set of cages are done, I will be able to start assembling my next setup and start securing more against roaming wildlife. I've already started with the meshes inside the new feeders and much sturdier cage designs but I need at least 5 more cages before I can do the setup. In it, I plan to have cement blocks as my floor insted of being directly on the ground too and will eventually raise mesh walls around the area and have study large running pens for my bunnies to play.
If squirrels keep being such a problem I will also invest in one of these kill traps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqlwUXP-ubI&t=381s
And yes I'm doing kill traps, there's been a boom in overall wildlife population latelly. Wich is good, I'm happy for them and I wish humans didnt cause so many obstacles to their lives. But there comes a point where things have to be done. Last summer **** roadkills were so comon I'd see at least 2 new ones per day when going to work. Squirrels were something out of nightmares too, they've even entered some of my friend's homes in the area. They woke up to their dogs barking only to see one hanging on their kitchen wall eating some bread slices. They chewed their way through their roofing...
Relocation would only transfer the problem to other people unless you'd drive hours to reach barelly frequented areas. With me at least if the catch it less then 30min old I'll even eat them if it's a healty specimen so they arent simply wasted either. I've even kept some pelts of more pretty specimens, I intend to add em to my plushie repertoir, might even use their tails in tandem with rabbit pelts to frankenstein a cat plushie.
I know.... many of you will want to yell at me about unsafe it is and all, I'm a weirdo who beleives if you have to kill something you should at least not let it go to waste if possible. I do have my limits too, if the animal doesnt look right or is older then 30min I wont touch it. I'm not starving enough to justify going too far. Also I'm aware they're rich in mercury, wich is why I cook em in a ton of water and throw away the broth.

 

[Ghost]

I know.... many of you will want to yell at me about unsafe it is and all, I'm a weirdo who beleives if you have to kill something you should at least not let it go to waste if possible. I do have my limits too, if the animal doesnt look right or is older then 30min I wont touch it. I'm not starving enough to justify going too far. Also I'm aware they're rich in mercury, wich is why I cook em in a ton of water and throw away the broth.

It seems odd that squirrels would be high in mercury. I don't want to go into a chemistry of mercury "deep dive". But there are different forms of mercury some forms are execrated quickly and some are stored on the body. Both can be harmful in high enough concentrations, in toxicology the saying "the dose makes the poison". The difference is that the "hang around kind" has more time to do the damage. The hang around kind also moves up trophic levels. That in to say when animal A is eaten buy animal B, then B is eaten by C, the majority of mercury from animal A is transferred to animal C.

Because meat is a very small component to a squirrel's diet, they do not tend to be "magnets" for mercury. Squirrel meat would contain much less mercury than bear meat (living in the same area). I would not expect squirrel to contain much mercury unless there are living near a coal power plant or mercury smelter.

I watched a YouTube video explaining a camp for mercury prospectors, in use until the 1950's. They mined the ore, then did a rough smelting to produce liquid mercury, they sold for a living. The equipment was so primitive you would have to be craze to use it today. Just guesstimating, I would say that for every kilogram of mercury sold, 500-1000mg mercury was released into the environment. Under those conditions, I would think deer or squirrel would have a concerning level of mercury. I would not eat the meat unless the meat was lab tested, probably way too expensive to consider.

As far as handling/processing wild animals goes, using gloves and making sure the meat is well cooked will drastically reduce the threat associated with virus and bacteria. If you plain on processing lots of wild meat, you can always get reusable groves and wash them with bleach after each use. Could be cheaper than disposable gloves.

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

It seems odd that squirrels would be high in mercury.

You make interresting points. I researched about squirrel meat and some of the sources I found said because they eat tree bark they can have higher concentrations of mercury and eating too many could be harmfull. So that's why I've been careful of it. One thing I already knew is, when river dams are built and a forest section gets flooded there are always warning of mercury high content in the water because it seeps out of tree bark so I beleived those sources. It's also why some kinds of fish are known to be higher in mercury then others. So it just made sense to me :/

 

[Ghost]

You make interresting points. I researched about squirrel meat and some of the sources I found said because they eat tree bark they can have higher concentrations of mercury and eating too many could be harmfull. So that's why I've been careful of it. One thing I already knew is, when river dams are built and a forest section gets flooded there are always warning of mercury high content in the water because it seeps out of tree bark so I beleived those sources. It's also why some kinds of fish are known to be higher in mercury then others. So it just made sense to me :/

Humm, I suppose if exhaust from coal plants were in the air, the tree bark could collect the mercury. I think, I remember hearing that lichen (on tree bark) can absorb many types of pollutants. That could make since how squirrels could get mercury. <br /><br /> __________ Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:20 pm __________ <br /><br />

If squirrels keep being such a problem I will also invest in one of these kill traps
<video link>
And yes I'm doing kill traps, there's been a boom in overall wildlife population latelly. Wich is good, I'm happy for them and I wish humans didnt cause so many obstacles to their lives. But there comes a point where things have to be done.

I watched the a24 video before. It sees like a fast humane way to dispose of rodents. I'm a bit sentimental about squirrel and I would definitely want to be quick and humane, if I were to kill a squirrel on purpose, so as to eat it. The one time I eat squirrel was an accidental roadkill, only the head was hit, I was going to put him out for the caracaras to eat. I then noted how his body felt nice and meaty like one of my fresh-killed rabbits, especially around his muscular hind legs and saddle region.

I think I remember an a24 model with a counter. I wonder if it could be modified to include an alert like ring a bell or something. That way, even if you were inside, you could retrieve the carcass soon enough to properly butcher it.

I thought about making my own lethal squirrel trap, so that I could have a humane source of squirrel meat. I thought, I would like to have a remote switch and a trigger, that way I could be more selective in the animal I took. The idea is that, there would be a trigger, but the lethal device would only engage when the switch was on and the trigger activated. If the switch was off when a non-target animal activated the trigger, it would not be killed.

In the spring, I would worry about taking a female caring for young. I couldn't bare the thought of a nest of babies dying of hunger. The males don't contribute to raising the young, so if a male was effectually removed from the population, the process would be humane. One moment he was looking for food the next instant totally black.

Gbov uses a live trap to obtain squirrel meat, and that is for sure a good way to selectively target animals. Also the price is very reasonable on the live traps. So I definitely don't have a problem with that. The only down side for me is having to dispatch a panicking squirrel inside the trap. I would feel better with a selective lethal trap, so the animal would not experience being trapped and I would not have to kill an animal in distress.

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

Ghost I think this thread has gone off topic a bit too much by now and it's not nescessary to continue it since my original question has been answered.
I linked that video because for my situation I think it's the best choice. The squirrel population hasnt been normal for a few years and it's the most expeditive with the least amount of resetup to do. I have a kill trap snap jaw style, it does the job, but needs to be reset every kill and even then I'd catch up to 3 per day. Tells you how bad it is, this is not a normal situation and should be considered as such. We've been here for 15 years and this situation has started 4 years ago. Even before I started breeding rabbits I kill trapped about 10 in a single week and back then I didnt eat em.
As for you, search the channel of the guy I linked, he reviews traps every week and I do remember watching one that had a wireless connection that'd alert you when the trap was triggered.

That said let this comment be the last. And if you wish to continue this topic with others you can make a new thread dedicated to that.