Cats and buckets
Until our cat died last year, we never realized how many mice he'd been keeping away. We never had a problem with them, as long as he was around. When he smelled mice in the basement he'd sleep down there. He was a big male cat who was gentle around people but he loved to hunt. Whenever we turned on the Discovery Channel to a program about lions he'd be fixated on it for several minutes, and then he'd want to go outside.
To ensure that a kitten becomes a good mouser I think you have to play with it regularly.
When I was in the UNH Outing Club, the cabins managers used the "bucket o' death". It's a trash barrel, with a ramp leading up to the top. There's food inside. The mice crawl up, jump in, and can't get back out.
If you feel like letting them live you can put enough food for them to survive until you have a chance to check the bucket, and then transport the mice to another location for release.
If you want them to die quickly, use only enough food to attract them, and keep the bucket in a chilly (or cold) location. Mice lose heat quickly because they're very small. Hypothermia is usually a humane death because once the brain starts to cool, it's like being drunk (for people as well as mice.) In Wilderness EMT class they taught us to expect hypothermia victims to be dilusional, often to the point of thinking they're not in trouble at all.
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