"The Original Jake" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:54:25 +0100, "Christina Websell"
wrote:

I'm having a bit of an argument with the Americans on another group..some
seem to think it's Ok to get them on glue boards and then drown them.
I disagree. I favour snap traps.
What do you all think?

Resident cat (in between making sure that no alien cat craps on the
property) does a pretty decent job of catching rats and mice (and
moles in season) and leaving the bodies as tribute in the porch each
night. I will not mention the occasions when he offers us the chance
to enjoy the thrill of the hunt by delivering a live one somewhere on
the human side of the front door.

But I would not use glue traps. Mice and whatever are not in-sentient
beings. A quick (relatively painless I hope) kill is delivered by
snap-traps. The thought of drowning anything (other than a slug or
snail in salted water) gives me real shivers!

We do have a rat problem here (living next to farmland). I have paid
over the odds for a type of rat poison that (a) kills rats with a
single feed and (b) doesn't present a danger to an animal killing a
rat. I suspect that the bait sort of sends the rat to sleep a bit when
it will succumb easily to the nip on the back of the neck that
resident cat delivers (before delivering the body to the porch for
counting).

I have a good cat too, although he isn't so stupid as to go for big
grandfather rats with huge teeth, time for the terriers
for those, and they give the dogs a run for their money. However, the
terriers don't seem to mind a big rat hanging off their nose with his teeth
in there.
They seem to find it amusing and he is soon snapped up.

I remember insisting on antiseptic once for a badly bitten terrier at my
house. I dabbed her nose for ages, and the terrier men allowed it and
snickered.
No working terrier worth its salt is allowed such a thing.
FGS the rat had taken a bit of her nose off - but she didn't mind, she
wanted me to stop attending to her nose so she could get out and kill a few
more rats.

I have to make certain that Boyfie is inside the house when the terriers
come - otherwise he would be an ex-cat. They kill anything in their path.
They aren't like normal terriers that you might have as a pet. They are
killing machines.
I would not trust them anywhere near a child.