Mouse House

     In the mouse house, we keep and breed live mice for some of the animals in rehab. Sometimes the animal just eats them better than say soak cat food, other times we are raising something that was orphaned and they need to know how to hunt. We currently have four fox kits that need to learn this, and a great blue heron that also needs live mice. I was sent to the mouse house to get 12 live mice for them.

     Catching them from their fish tanks was not easy, and I slid them down a cardboard tube to contain them. I had fed live mice to things before and had joked with the cardboard tube of mice, "If I cast the killing curse with this, would the mice inside die or would they be the murderers?" This time I had more guilt as the chooser of the slain. I do not envy the Morrigan or the Valkyries. One did manage to wiggle his way onto the floor and feeling that he had earned his triumph I let him go, then I dropped two more and said, "sorry guys only one free pass." But then four escaped the heron's enclosure so I had to go back for more and this time put them in the bucket.

     All of my guilt however dissipated when we let loose the eight mice into the fox kit's enclosure and stayed to make sure they hunted. one of them wiggled out of his burrow and joyously pounced on the mice, throwing them into the air and killing them. It was absolutely adorable and I was so proud. I silently tried to compare it to humans, in that maybe supervillain moms feel a slight twinge of guilt at choosing the things for their child to practice slaying but probably have this same happy moment, knowing their kids will be able to make it someday in the wild. I then decided for the 8th time, that day, that I probably shouldn't have kids.