Anyone else enjoy this game in the sixties? It promoted the idea that catching mice was fun.
Well it's not.
Many of my friends have a mouse story to tell at the moment. Here, we've seen - and caught - the occasional intruder since the first one was sighted on Christmas Day, usually by setting traps over night and disposing of the body the next morning.
On Mothers Day I was sitting in the Comfy Chair reading when one brazen rodent trotted happily past, just a couple of feet away, and disappeared under the fridge.
I found a trap, baited it with a choc bit (cooking chocolate for the uninitiated) and went back to my book. A short time later, the mouse ended up with its head clamped in the trap.
But it didn't die. And this was the worst part. I was alone without backup, and worried it was going to escape and crawl under the fridge to die a slow and odorous death. I once killed a rat with a broom handle (because my boys were at risk) and was not keen to repeat the experience. I debated using the dust pan and brush to move it, trap and all, outside, admittedly to avoid having to witness its demise, but even as I moved closer to consider this, the poor creature gave its final death throes and passed into the rodent afterlife.
I found this really disturbing, and it put me in mind of a conversation with a young lad at work a few weeks ago who it seems "loves his shooting". Nothing better than a weekend with a gun and a few roos for target practice. When I expressed distaste he immediately trotted out the arguments about them being vermin, providing food etc.
But my issue is that people who shoot have no problem watching animals die. It doesn't matter why they're shooting, but that moment of watching a living, breathing creature suffer and become still, is not something anyone should relish.
I kill mice because I will not have them in the house and they haven't left when I've asked them nicely.
But I do not enjoy it.
I'm doing it by remote control - with Ratsak. Small dish of pellets left alone in the dark workshop - a week later an empty dish in the dark workshop. The pellet consumers have decamped to their nests and expired rapidly in private. Don't expect they enjoyed it either but at least I don't have to watch or dispose of the evidence.
ReplyDeleteBeth are you turning vegan or just opening the plane door? Roo meat is the most tender because the animal never knows what hit it as opposed to the lambs at the abattoir that toughen up as soon as they smell a rat.
ReplyDeleteI had to dispatch a rat with a hammer once-it was sleeping peacefully in my pantry. I protected myself with a samurai war cry and eyes wide shut!!
PS they do like chocolate : )
Mary, I'm very firmly carnivorous and enjoy kangaroo.
ReplyDeleteMy point was more about people who enjoy the process of killing.
I'm happy to eat it as long as I don't know how it came to be dead and don't have to be involved in the killing. Some may call this hypocritical.
I like your war cry approach!
Interesting that stressed animals are tougher. Temple Grandin, a woman with Asperger's, has made a career out of designing cattle pens that lead cattle to slaughter in a happy frame of mind!
Mount Gnomon Farm is an example of ethically raised animals in North West Tassie. Great for the pigs...great pork for the table.
ReplyDeleteI have met a lot of hunters. I couldn't do it myself but they all love their animals be they horses, sheep, cows, chooks, dogs, cats, pigs,...
Mice are up there with spiders...!