Lucky little guy.

[esoxlucius]

Our cat, Diego, is forever fetching "presents" home for us. Most are dead on arrival but this one miraculously seemed to escape any injuries. He dropped it on the floor and it began scurrying away! So I rescued it.

It's a little field mouse I think, it's the most adorable thing you can imagine and my lad asked if we could keep it.

I'm going to set up an old fish tank I have and do a nice scape for it. I've had it in my hands and it has already taken a liking to patè, eating it out of my fingers.

I want to introduce you to Teddy the field mouse.....

 

[Backfromthedead]

He mustve made a bargain with your cat. Probably told where all his friends and family were hiding.

One of our cats will bring birds in the house and let them loose. It was cool the first time.

 

[Deadeye]

Cute little guy!
Just make sure to keep it away from the cat (or snake)…

 

[esoxlucius]

After a couple of days deliberation I managed to talk the little lad round into letting Teddy go back to the wild.

He was doing well in his little tank, and eating well, but the fact remained he was a wild mouse, not a tame shop bought one.

So this morning we took him to some local wasteland, lots of trees and long grass etc, and let him scurry away into the undergrowth.

The right thing to do in my opinion. Goodbye Teddy.

 

[fishguy1978]

Mice never tame even store bought. Rats on the other hand make excellent pets and are very social. We have had near a dozen over the last 22yrs.

 

[jjohnwm]

Ya know, I quite like Gerbils, Hamsters, Guinea Pigs; I say that only to illustrate that I don't have rodentophobia or whatever a "fear of rodents" might be called...but I just can't do Rats or Mice. I agree that rats can be beautifully tame pets, but I recall several pet rats owned by various friends over the years, and it always seemed to me as though those dang things had an irresistible urge to produce a couple drops of pee just about every 60 seconds or so. Mice? Forget it.

In the interest of honest disclosure, I will admit that back in my snake days I went through likely a literal ton of rats and mice of all ages, using them as food for Kingsnakes, Bullsnakes, assorted Rat Snakes, Sand Boas, Pythons, Boas, etc. Most of those were purchased frozen, but a fair number were...oh, let's call it "DIY euthanized"...a task which I did not enjoy and which did nothing to endear those hapless critters to me.

 

[esoxlucius]

Rats on the other hand make excellent pets and are very social

Well, one of the conditions pressed upon me by the lad when he reluctantly agreed it was the right thing to let Teddy go, was that I replace it with something else!

At the moment a couple of rats are looking favourites. I love rats, the nice tame clean shop bought ones that is, and certainly not the dirty common brown rats that we have scurrying all over the place at work!

 

[esoxlucius]

let's call it "DIY euthanized"

The dilemma with "DIY euthanasia" for the squeamish is whether you could do a quicker, more humane job than the actual animals the sad candidates are meant for!

I would say feeding live in those cases may probably just edge it, lol.

 

[jjohnwm]

The dilemma with "DIY euthanasia" for the squeamish is whether you could do a quicker, more humane job than the actual animals the sad candidates are meant for!

I would say feeding live in those cases may probably just edge it, lol.

No, feeding live would involve watching the critter struggle and kick while being strangled and squeezed fairly slowly; it's not even close to humane, and also runs the risk of the snake receiving one or more nasty bites from the prey item.

I'm not squeamish, and I make sure that the critter is dead Right Now, Immediately. No suffering involved. This extends to anything, even small fish and insects that I freeze to feed my fish today.

 

[esoxlucius]

No, feeding live would involve watching the critter struggle and kick while being strangled and squeezed fairly slowly; it's not even close to humane, and also runs the risk of the snake receiving one or more nasty bites from the prey item.

I'm not squeamish, and I make sure that the critter is dead Right Now, Immediately. No suffering involved. This extends to anything, even small fish and insects that I freeze to feed my fish today.

So you only had the "squeezey" snake variety, and not the "bitey" variety? I must admit having the life slowly squoze out of you mustn't be much fun. I'd take a sharp quick whack on the head over that anyday!

The "bitey" variety of snake must be somewhat quicker though? Some of those guys have some pretty toxic stuff at their disposal?