What mouse traps are pet safe?

Question

We recently discovered that we have another mouse in our apartment. We also have a cat.

Now, our cat has caught a mouse before, and has shown interest in doing so again, but we don't want to encourage her to eat a mouse - we don't know if other people in the apartment use poison or not. And we aren't keeping her just to kill mice.

So, we'd like to get traps, safe traps, that can kill the mouse but not harm our cat. What sort of trap can we get that would do this?

We don't care if the mouse lives or dies - we just want it caught and gone.

Answer 1

I'd simply buy a live trap that won't kill the mouse.

There are many different makes available, but in general it should be impossible for your cat to get hurt by them.

As an added bonus, once trapped, the mouse will be isolated, i.e. making it impossible for your cat to eat the mouse.

Just for clarification: Do not use poison in a live trap. The cat might be able to open it and/or get poison to drop out, which you don't want.

Answer 2

As the previous answer says you can buy live traps. They have them at many home improvement stores like this one at Lowes. They sell in many "no kill" or "pet safe" formats. Ive even seen a poison trap where the mouse gets poisoned inside the trap so it is still "pet safe" because the poison is not exposed to the animal. If these get to be expensive I am posting some links to homemade mouse traps. Depending on how curious your cat is, they may or may not work for your purposes

If you need a cheap alternative from items around the house here are a few suggestions: This is one using a mug and a nickel (that i have used before and it works surprisingly well) if your cat is not nosy enough to knock it down that is a good cheap alternative to a bought trap. The caveat is that the mug needs to be fairly shallow (for the mouse to reach) and heavy enough to trap the mouse under.

Here is a video on how to make a water bottle trap for a mouse/rat. Ive never used this so I cant verify that it works but it is an option.

This one shows you with pictures using a basket and roll of cardboard This one is not as good for a cat because the cat can just jump into it and attack the mouse, or knock the catching container over to play with the mouse. Im putting here for reference.

If none of these work you can always get a snapping mouse trap then make sure to put it in places your cat cant get (behind fridge, etc.)

Answer 3

A very common thought that will come to mind when dealing with unwanted wild rodents in your dwelling are the very popular warfarin-like rodenticides (i.e. Rattax). Although I disagree a bit, but can't find my official sources to back me up, the concern about secondary poisoning for your cats are raised by the public. Although not cats so much, the biggest danger is primary ingestion by pets (mainly dogs) of these poisons. Rats can bump them off the shelves or carry them to more exposed areas. The humanity is also questionable, but see later as well.

In your situation, live traps are better. Commercially available, but you can also use, for example, one of those olden days 1L glass milk bottles placed at a +- 40 degrees angle and put some mouse treats in it. Place it where you see the droppings. The mouse will go in, but due to the slippery nature of glass won't be able to escape again.

The thing is, when relocating it to a nearby veldt or outside, being dwelling loving creatures, the mouse will either come back or very likely go and bother someone else, who might not be so kind.