General Chat

Sue, I hope that they work for you.

Although I like cats, I realise that not everybody does, so hopefully some of the suggestions will work :-D

Glad the Vasse didn't overflow

LadyScozz, having worked in local government, we were not meant to talk of cat traps, but of animal traps: same thing but no discrimination

Well so far no more visits from cats

HOWEVER, on Sunday morning as the weather had brightened up a little, I decided to make some bread.

S*d's law came into play and as I was mixing the first batch of dough the sun disappeared so I decided to prove the mix in the oven. Turned the oven on low whilst finishing the batch, then turned it off and put the dough in.

Made a second batch, opened the oven to put it in and there's this bl**dy mouse looking at me: form INSIDE the oven.

It was a bit like a scene from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I was expecting the mouse to break into a big cheesy grin before clouting me with the roasting pan.

The mouse stood there for several seconds before scarpering off down where the gas jets are.

We have a wall oven and heaven knows how long the mouse has been in residence, but believe me it has it cushy. Nice and warm a constant supply of food and ready access to the pantry!

What Next??????

Next he will be bringing his relatives along to that little cushy number.

When renovating we had removed skirting board in dining area. We caught one mouse, then another and another... one night before I went to bed I said to himself there is another little mouse in trap.. he said he would get rid of it in the morning.

Next morning no sign of the trap or the dead mouse... I said to him have you got rid of it... No..

Then I looked further over to where there was this small gap (he had nailed over area for time being) another mouse had dragged dead mouse and trap to the wall but could not get it all through. He had taken part of the leg though as proof to the others.

New skirting board down .. thought that was the end of it.

Dishwasher stopped working, appliance chap turned up and mouse had built a nest in the warmth at the back of the dishwasher. It had also helped itself to kitchen rubbish including a large lamb chop bone from the bin.

Our disabled moggies could not catch mice or birds.. one of them did manage little geckos but they eventually got away either by my intervention or her amazed look at being left with a shedded tail.

Previous cat would toss baby mice in the air and then let them go.. had his own form of protection for wildlife.

Persie :-)

I'll swap with you.

I'll take your mouse if you take my snake!

I heard neighbour's dogs barking like mad.......... five minutes later neighbour came to our door........... the dogs had chased a big snake out of their yard into ours..........it's probably just a carpet snake, but they DO bite!

:-(

Here snakey snakey

Not allowed to have snakes in New Zealand, Scozz.

Nor your ruddy spiders Scozzie..

The snake is only a little one.......... about 2 metres long.

:-D

Neighbour on the other side is looking for it........... he regularly catches it and takes it to the lookout! Carpet snakes have a "territory", so Mr Snake will be back.... again.

If there was a snake, I'd move out and the snake could take over!

At least it might eat the mouse.

Don't mind spiders, but snakes.....!!!! :-0 :-0

Well you must have started something Allan because there were two little stories in our paper this morning.. the first one relating to cats:

Titled: Feline Protection

From a listing for a luminous Led cat collar on Trade Me (like E-bay) "We bought these to keep our cat safe at night from being run over, seems to have worked - he's still alive. I have also been told they make it harder for cats to catch birds as the light puts them off. This is unproven from me, however, as our cat has the hunting ability of a bowling ball."

Other one about a mouse:
Caught in a trap:

How to dispose of a mouse: "A while back I caught a mouse in my kitchen. It was just sitting on the worktop staring at me when I turned on the light, probably a bit too surprised to move and hoping I'd just go away. What could I do with it? Throw it outside? Then it would just come back in. No, I needed a humane way to kill it. I could have just left it in a jar with a lid screwed down until it suffocated but that seemed a bit cruel. I know car exhaust. Right, let's start my car. Battery flat after sitting there for weeks. Right, let's try my girlfriend's car. No, I can't find the keys they're probably in the bedroom. Let's not wake her up with a mouse in a jar, eh? Okay, and the van is diesel which has non-toxic exhaust fumes. So that is how I came to be standing in the back garden at 3am in my underwear trying to kick-start a recalcitrant motorbike, to provide some carbon monoxide to do away with a mouse that had probably already died of boredom."

LOL Persie...I love them :-D :-D :-D

Can I get a LED collar for Mr Snake?

:-D

I'd prefer one with bells on.

I've been listening in to you guys- very entertaining!!!!!! :-D :-D :-D

The place we stayed at last week had three cats roaming the garden, two ginger and a tortie almost identical to the tortie that adopted me years ago. They came into the rented cottage but wouldn't stay and hated it when we stood up or moved, they would shoot outside again. They would eat anything we tossed to them (I had some corned beef so tore that into strips) and they wolfed it down. We asked the owner of the property when she came back from her holiday if the cats were hers, she said Sort of, they are feral but we have had them neutered after a lot of trouble finding somewhere who would do them. Then one turned up with a kitten in her mouth and later two more kittens appeared. They were captured and taken away for domesticating and rehoming. Just as well or I would have been besotted, no doubt.

When we got home, there was a strange kitten on our step, it has a deformed tail but is obviously someone's pet, it has a collar and bell on. It dashed into the house and halfway up the stairs before o.h. shooed it back out, don't want to encourage it as we have no idea whose it is.

Hope you can sort out your problem visitor, Allan.

Lizx

PSD,

I suppose one solution would be to capture the feral cat (at great risk as it is a vicious thing) and stick it in the oven to catch the mouse.

Should this be successful we could then light the oven and have a cat and mouse roast along the lines of a quail stuffed into a chicken, which in turn is stuffed into a turkey.

I believe that in the UK in olden days the ultimate receptacle was a swan. But as all swans are now regarded as the property of the Queen that could be seen as treasonable (even if not reasonable)

We do have a breeding ground for black swans just down the road from us.....perhaps I could snare one of them :-) :-)

Who's a Republican!! ;-) ;-)

My apologies, Jemima, I didn't mean to ignore you :-)

I'm laughing at your snakes , my son emigrated a year ago to Brisbane, the first night there he was on Skype outside talking to us when his face froze and he went silent and I'm sure a deathly white he managed to move the laptop slightly so we could see his feet there across them was a 3ft carpet snake .... we nearly died . We watched it slowly wader away and son just gave us a look that said it all :-D :-D :-D

oooer Nolls :-0

Snakes are scary! Carpet snakes aren't the worst, I expect your son has been told about black & brown snakes, they are deadly!

I don't really mind having a carpet snake around, he will earn his keep by eating mice & rats.... but he has to share with the kookaburras.

He's in Brisbane? That's about two hours drive north of me.

:-D

Allan ~ I've heard of that bird-feast, can't remember the name of it..... the Aussie version finishes off with an emu.

Yeh, Scozz!

A budgie stuffed into a galah, stuffed into a corella, stuffed into an ibis stuffed into an emu

Boil it with a stone in the pot, and when the stone is tender, throw out the birds and eat the stone :-D

Carpet snakes are ok I've got thirty on my study floor ;-)

and ladders.

We had someone complain here the other day that she had a Moa in her garden. That would have been a first, needless to say it was an emu.

We do have quite a few ostrich farms... baked ostrich pie is very nice.

We have all sorts of birds here, kookaburras, ibis, bush turkeys, lots of parrots......... but no sparrows.

I'd try the bird-feast, but the oven isn't big enough.

:-(

My brother has eaten snake......... he said it was like fishy chicken. That doesn't sound appealing.