HELP! unwanted friend!

[zeebington]

My little girl Titania has a new unwanted friend in my apartment. I've seen the cheeky thing around her cage, and i'm reeeally worried it's been n there with her. Regardless, I want to get rid of the little (spikeless) thing without hurting or upsetting my quill-ed friend. (i've set out gluetraps. peanut butter isn't an option, so I put her food on them, thinking that's what the things going for anyway. Should I just sort of wall-to-wall with gluetraps? 'cos I will!) Pleeease give me a better hedgie-safe suggestion!

[HedgeMom]

If you're talking about a wild mouse/rat, then you want a neck snap trap. Glue traps are horrid (they starve the mouse or peel his skin off) whereas neck snap traps are usually quick.

You really need to get the cage up and away from where a rodent can climb on/in it. Wild mice carry bacteria and disease that may prove deadly to a hedgie.

[OnAnAmbulance]

Your best bet is probably a traditional mousetrap along the edge of your walls. If you want to know if the mouse has been in with your spiky friend, check for mouse droppings. They're very easy to recognize compared to hedgie droppings - they look like black pieces of short grain rice.

Like HedgeMom said, glue traps are quite bad. I've known mice to gnaw their own appendages off in order to get away from the traps. Other times, they actually do pull from them so hard that they "deglove" their own bodies.

Or you could just get a snake.... :) :)

[zeebington]

I've had a pet snake before, that wouldn't bother the Lady Titania...? I figured they'd fight or something...

[Jeanette]

Yea, I wouldn't want to find the mouse in the glue trap then have to just kill it. (I would rather trap it then release it a couple of km away... but not everyone is that much of a baby, lmao.

Another point to bring up:
I've heard of hh's escaping their cages... it sometimes happens. What would happen if your Titania got loose while you had those traps out! Not a pretty picture. Maybe I'm just a worry wart... but I would keep her under close lock-and-key.

[ebengston]

There are also live traps that you can buy. I found mine at a local feed store. The trap door is too small for hedgie to get in.

[Ododad]

I agree with Hedgemom. This unwanted critter can be carrying diseases. I also agree with everyone else on the glue traps. You need to get rid of the little bugger but please try to be humane about it. A live trap would be great, then take the little darling and let it loose. Away from your home. lol
Hedgehogs have been known to kill and eat small snakes in the wild. Some of you old timers here may remember my Odo's fight with a small black snake in my back yard. I killed it for her but she was all over it. *Sigh*, I can't help but to tear up everytime I think of her.
Daddy misses and loves you little girl.
Billy

[HedgeMom]

I've had a pet snake before, that wouldn't bother the Lady Titania...?

She'd probably find it quite tasty. Can't imagine the snake would enjoy it though. Hedgehogs are extremely resistant to venom but I'm not sure I'd want to put it to the test.

[Sterlingspider]

I have used this homemade humane method with a bent wire hanger and some peanut butter with MUCH success multiple times now.

http://www.smithsax.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm

If you don't plan to eat it or wear it I figure preserving a life is entirely worth the very slight extra effort of releasing an animal far enough away that it won't come back.

[Sterlingspider]

I second the feeling that gluetraps are a horrible way to go.

Glue traps work either by starving the pest to death or capturing it so that you have to deal with it when it's scared and trapped (and probably badly hurt already), if you are going to go with a lethal trap please at least make it quick and get a spring trap.

For future reference soaking the trap in vegetable oil is apparently the best way to free a creature from a glue trap.