I'm not having much success luring poor innocent mice into my cruel old- fashioned mousetrap with a trigger and spring-loaded bale. I've tried raw bacon for bail with slight success, peanut butter with none. I've tried a newer trap that lets them in but not out. Worked once over many years.
Other traps? Bait you've used with success? Cats?(Mine died a few years ago and I've never replaced her - I'm too old. it would long outlive me.)
I made one trap, but it was pretty specialize. We probably could have peacefully co-existed but the mouse insisted on crapping on the kitchen counter. I figured I could let gravity do the deed.
The core from a roll of paper towels would work, but not having one handy, I made a triangular, mouse sized tube about 12" long. Mice love little spaces like that. Next step is to put the bait in one end. He'd chewed into a loaf of bread so I figured he liked bread and I sweetened up with a little peanut butter. Balance the tube perpendicular to the end of the counter and put a
13 gallon trash can (empty) under the tube. The mouse spots the bait, heads down the inviting tube, and eventually the whole thing overbalances and falls into the trash can.
It took about 2 hours until I heard the thud and squeaking. Being Christmas Eve, I just launched the mouse into the great outdoors.
Sadly, it didn't take the mouse too long to find his way back and that time I used a conventional trap.
I once read a magazine artice written by an old exterminator. He said that one of the reasons why traps become less effective over time is because people tend to use the same bait. In the case of peanut butter, the mice soon learn to be afraid of the scent of peanut butter because it kills. So, another peanut butter baited trap will only be effective against wild mice that come into your house looking for food.
Your best bet now might be to set poison out for them to eat.
But, even though you have the poison out, bait some traps with something else, like fried bacon and set them out so the mice become accustomed to eating fried bacon from the traps. Then you can start not only baiting the traps, but setting them too so that they kill the mice that go for the bacon.
KenK wrote in news:XnsA35A5DEB13FEEinvalidcom@130.133.4.11:
Mice are, by nature, herbivores, so one should not expect much success with bacon. And they can lick peanut butter off without springing the trap.
Try a raisin. Mash it onto the bait pan, don't just lay it there. Mice cannot tug it off of the bait pan without springing the trap. My success rate using raisins for bait is 100%.
I hear they make great cat food . Since we got chickens , there's feed and hay/straw around and now we got mice . Currently awaiting the delivery of 2 feline rodent control specialists . The day I opened my rollaway toolbox drawer to have a mama with 6 attached leap out at me decided me . They stay outside or they die . There's plenty of stuff out in the woods for them to eat .
I like the conventional snap traps that have a higher surface tripper that looks like a piece of cheese. They have a hair trigger and catch more mice than the old ones. Just smear with peanut butter.
bob haller wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
That's why you had to empty it twice a day: you kept catching and releasing the same ones.
Killing mice in your house *is* necessary. They spread disease. They carry ticks, lice, and mites.They destroy property by chewing. They pee and poop indiscriminately. They're vermin.
For bait, I've had good results with "Motomco Gel Mouse Attractant" (it also says Tomcat on the label). It's a gel in a small squeeze bottle, so it's easy to apply to the trap, plus the mice have to work a little to lick it out and splat. Then there is usually gel left in the trap for the next one. People on Amazon have widely varying results, but my particular mice liked it so well that when they got into my pantry closet, the chewed through the top of a bottle of it to get to it.
For traps, I've had decent results with the plastic ones that sort of look like big bulldog clips, that you just pinch at one end to set. I've also used ones that are in little plastic enclosures (good for keeping my dogs' noses out!) but haven't seen them around lately.
How many repeat offenders did you have? Sounds like mouse heaven to me. Eat the bait in the live trap, get a trip outside, rinse and repeat.
Fish & Game plays the same game culvert trapping problem bears, At least they tranq the bear so he wakes up with a hangover and splitting headache that slows him down on the return to his favorite bird feeder.
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