In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

Monica, what's you're view on mice. We've had a number of them get into our home, chew up walls and clothing and leave a lot of mess.

We never had a mouse problem until recently. I always assumed it was because we always had lots of cats, but no.... Recently, ever since we've had a garden, we've had mice. I've also seen some rats in the garden eating the tomatoes, but thankfully, no rats in the house!

I noticed the cats playing with something, but too late - it was already dead. I figured they might as well eat it, since they'd already killed it, but nooooooo...all they wanted to do was play with it! Ugh.

A few days later, the cats caught another one, but this time I rescued it and set it free outside. This happened a couple more times, but of course it was pointless, since they just kept coming right back in. It's bad enough they cats catch the mice, but they aren't even the least bit interested in eating them! Now what do you make of that? Either my cats are too fat and well-fed, or...Could it be possible they are losing their taste for bloody carcasses? Hmmm...

Even my outdoor cats won't eat the mice they kill. They just leave them on our doorstep. (Ugh.) It's like, they still have the predator instinct, but no longer have the taste for bloody raw meat.

This was all in the last couple of weeks, so your timing is uncanny! We just got a humane mouse trap. It's just a box. You put in the bait and catch the critter, then set it free...far, far away! We live on the edge of town, so we plan to set the trap and then set the mice free in the woods a mile or so down the road.

Easy and cruelty-free solution!

http://www.havahart.com/

We got ours at the local hardware store.

I googled the spiritual implications of killing them, and found that in Islam it's ok to do so, and recommended:

That's rather curious - why scorpions but not mosquitoes and cockroaches? Mice are a nuisance but not exactly life-threatening like rabid dogs.

If those are the only 5 critters that Islam says it's ok to kill, then I wonder why Muslims aren't vegetarians.

At any rate, I personally don't consider the Koran, the Bible, or any other religious text to be authoritative. I guess if there were a Bubonic plague and mice and rats were carrying the plague, it could be justified.

But we don't have a plague right now...and we do have humane mousetraps!