A couple of years ago we were cleaning out a mature bin of compost to make another raised bed garden. We had gotten pretty much to the bottom and there was a mouse nest, with babies in it. Mom had scattered.

Since we caved in the roof with our digging we carefully gathered the babies, (all unharmed) uncovered the nest, put them in and placed a cedar shingle over the top in place of the roof hoping that mom would return and move the babies elsewhere. We quit digging for the day and stayed out of the area.

The next afternoon the babies were moved, we went on digging and thought nothing of it having rather large firewood stacks in the area, we thought that was where they had gone. A few weeks later we note mouse skittles in our greenhouse and a bag of grass seed chewed at the corner. They moved into our greenhouse!

No good deed goes unpunished.

We waited another 2-3 weeks until the babies were old enough to be on their own and cleared out the greenhouse completely, covering their entry points with steel flashing. I would till do the same thing, save the critters and fortunately we don't have lyme disease (or ticks) nor do we have hantavirus to be concerned abut but in Kansas we are getting outdoor (barn) cats to take care of those critters near the house.

I actually like rodents but I don't want them in my house or outbuildings. I think your friend was inhumane and what does she have against those neighbors anyway?

Not sure if I want to cry or vomit. Definitely cruel and COMPLETELY unnecessary... all of the stories here are so upsetting. I hate people sometimes!

I loved your story vintagecat. It really made me smile.
I've always loved animals and growing up I was always finding and caring for strays, injured birds or whatever else came my way.. and even made a pet out of a little mouse in the house once. LOL
If we found anything dead (mostly bugs and birds) me and my little brother would have a proper funeral for it..
Stories of animal cruelty really hurts my heart and makes me cry.

I'm an animal (any creature really) lover. Even my two year old now wants to bring any bug we find in the house outside to let it go. I have to agree with you GlamourGirl, I honestly think people who are capable of harming animals for fun have the potential to develop into full sociopaths, and I don't say this lightly.

Growing up my brother had a few incidents with family pets, starting from a very young age as a toddler when my Mom was out and came home to be told he had dropped a puppy and it had died. He also caused the death of his pet guinea pig by jumping on the bed with it. When we got older we had three small dogs and one was more or less my dog. I took him with me when I moved away to college but then didn't have the time for him, my brother had spent alot of time with him when we all lived at home and asked to have him. I agreed and a few years later he told us he had found the dog dead one morning. We learned later from his then girlfriend at the time that he had killed the dog. I actually feel really bad for his girlfriend because she is a huge animal lover, she left him shortly after.

It's been a few years and since then my brother has been under various meds for different things like add. I've had some conversations with him where he talks about how he doesn't understand where other people come from, he doesn't really have an ability to empathize. I don't doubt he's capable of developing serious problems.

Mice might be any easy one to understand not wanting around, but to throw a nursing mother and her babies over a fence.... that's got to take a cold heart.

Throwing a mouse over a fence is not going to kill it. It isn't nice and it isn't going to keep them from coming back. Mice are very hardy creatures. We live in the country where there is no shortage of field mice. When I was a kid we had some mice in our home...it is pretty common in old houses in the country. They would literally chew their feet off to get out of traps. A toss over the fence is kind of mean; but, it really served no purpose. Mice can climb fences and walls and I bet it survived and went right back in her yard if that is where it wanted to be. They can squeeze through a very small hole, like the size of a nickle or a dime. I am sure her fence has holes bigger than that.

I understand the damage that mice can cause, but I wouldn't want to remove them by hurting them.

We had a mouse move into our kitchen when I was in a student house at university- we knew it was there but it kept evading capture. One evening my housemate was cooking when the mouse came out, so he upended the recycling bin and trapped the mouse inside, kinda like you do with spiders and a glass. We put some cheese in for the mouse and then walked the bin to a local country park to set it free. Much more humane!

That is so Sweet! I've caught them like that and let them go outside. Hubby says "why'd you do that for? They will just come back inside" The other day we saw one eating the seeds dropped from our bird feeder. I asked hubby what he would do if he saw it out there again. (I've asked him not to hurt it) and he said he wasn't going to bother it.

It was definitely cruel, though pointless. The mom was most likely unharmed unless the fence blocks a huge drop off or something, the babies it depends on if she came back for them.

When I was still living at home, we ended up with a mouse problem. My dad got some tiny havahart traps and set it up to catch them. Instead of letting them free he kept them in an aquarium because it was cold outside. lol He fed them mouse food, got them wheels and such, and kept catching more. Eventually one made a nest and had a litter of babies.

I finally convinced him to let them go outside because the others would eat the babies, he tried to let them all out except for the mom, she managed to escape anyways with two babies still attached nursing. He tried nursing the ones she left behind but sadly they only made it a few days.

After that, he stopped keeping them in a tank, but I had to fuss at him because he let them go at the fence line, finally I had to paint one with nail polish to prove they were coming right back...Sometimes I wonder, who is the kid and who is the parent. lol

ok so the update is a few people replied to her that it was mean and she responded that she felt bad but was scared of them...

I still think she's full of poo because she wasnt too scared to scoop them up in something a throw them over the fence. And someone actually commented "They are rodents. Not cute, not sweet, just lice ridden, flea bitten disease spreading rodents!"

What is freaking wrong with people? Why so much hate for an animal minding its own business? How much energy do these women waste hating small animals? And what kills me is the OP is always posting god stuff, love god, god loves, she's all about god...I don't think god would appreciate you chucking one of his creatures over a fence ( with new babies too)...that is definitely not something Jesus would do!!

I don't get it. Personally I'd rather spend time with a mouse ( I think they are cute!) or a frog, snake, lizard etc then some people I know...what's that saying...the more people I meet the more I like my dog...I dont have a dog but I agree anyway!

I love animals, but I eat meat and am not ashamed of it. I consider nothing inherently immoral about hunting and killing for defense or food or even other reasons (whether it's done by humans or lions).

I do understand fear and revulsion of pest animals, because (even the cute, wee babies) CAN carry disease and parasites.

Personally, I believe killing the mouse and her litter quickly would have been more humane than dumping them over a fence or even relocating them to an open field.

Mice are prey animals for most carnivorous and omnivorous species. Luckily, or we'd be hip-deep in them. Predation is not always quick and rarely painless.

Even releasing a house mouse into a field increases it's chances for a painful, slow death, because the mouse's natural instincts would prevent it from "choosing" to be so exposed, especially with babies.

So, in that regard, relocating mom and litter to a park would probably be far more dangerous to them than dumping them over a fence or into a garbage can.

A mouse's life is a hard, painful, short one, so anything a human can do, short of deliberate torture is pretty low on the horror scale for a mouse.

A lot of things humans do out of sympathy for wildlife often make the animal's situation worse, so "leaving it alone" or even "killing it" are usually better choices than moving it, whether out of fear or a desire to help.

That is really sad I cant stand mice or rodents but I would never hurt them like that

I think that this is a very kind hearted position. I'm not saying my facebook friend has to love mice and keep them as pets, but its mean to throw them over the fence. In fact it takes an even kinder person not to hurt something (mouse or whatever) simply because they dont like it.

I understand and empathize with BOTH sides of this (and many other sides besides).

If humans (and only humans) stopped killing mice, we ALL would soon be overrun with them. They'd be spreading disease and parasites everywhere.

There are places where rodents currently do not carry disease, primarily because humans and animals kill mice in those places in great numbers. Stop the killing and you get more disease.

This is true for deer populations too. Stop killing deer and the deer overpopulate and then die of starvation and disease.

Parts of Australia have seen rodent and rabbit population explosions so great that the animals literally carpeted the ground over large areas and destroyed entire crops in a matter of hours or less.

There's also the double-standard of "mammalian cuteness." If we were talking about cockroaches, snakes or spiders, fewer people would sympathize. Even if it were a rat, it would be a different conversation (more people are afraid and hateful of rats than mice).

Responding in fear/revulsion, people often behave aggressively -very often it's instinct.

I love mice and always thought people who feared them were ridiculous. Then in college, some prankster let a half dozen or so loose on the crowded stairs to the cafeteria. These were white, pet store mice, so no threat to anyone, but having one crawl over my foot gave me heebee geebees I'd never imagined. I didn't try to kill the mice, but I did get a flash of understanding why some people did.

Then fifteen years later, I was living in a house in the country and got mice. My cats found the first one, but being city cats, didn't know what to do with it. I tried to pick up the cat (carrying the mouse) hoping to carry the cat outside (with the hope she'd drop it outdoors). Instead she dropped it the second I picked her up. Then I'd hop around trying to avoid the mouse while the other cat caught the mouse. So I'd pick HER up and try again. After a few minutes of this, I realized the attempt was futile and I bought traps. Killing traps, because relocating rodents in the country isn't a practical or particularly humane solution and I am convinced that a quick death is more humane than becoming a meal or play toy for a stray, feral, or wild animal.


It's "natural" for mice (even babies) to become food for other animals, so I don't feel too bad about their deaths (if I don't know the mice personally), but once I "meet" a critter, I feel responsible for it, but I don't think killing or disposing of rodents is necessarily immoral.

I felt responsible for the mouse my cats found, but killing it with a killing trap was the more responsible act, I firmly believe. I regretted doing so, but letting the mouse go would not have saved it's life or prevented it from suffering. Mice don't usually die of old age unless they're pets.

I respect life, but I respect death too, and its place in the natural order. I don't think a mouse has any more or less value in the world than a cockroach. I do place more personal (but not absolute) value on human life, but I consider that "species loyalty." I'm sure a wild gorilla places more value on it's fellow gorillas, especially those it knows than on mine.


Ultimately, humans are animals. We have the same instincts, and it's sometimes hard to override the destructive instincts, especially when fear gets involved.

I think it's perfectly understandable that a fearful dog might bite or that a fearful human might dispose of a family of rodents in a less than compassionate way.

Not exactly a pinnacle moment of human compassion, but not unforgivable in my opinion, either.