Only good mouse is a dead mouse, yes, but how to get there?

[hallerb]

like I said close all openings and DONT leave a food source around espically in the basement.......

I live trap, if i can move the mice baCK OUTSIDE WHERE THEY BELONG, THEY ARE AGAIN WILDLIFE

[Ernie Willson]

I can attest to how convenient these traps are. They pose no danger to the user, as the older "spring-snap" type did.

are easy to bait and catch a lot of mice. If you put peanut butter on the trigger you can catch several mice before you have to re-bait the trap. You can cleanly open the trap (without touching the mouse)and drop the little bugger in the toilet for flushing.

Occasionally the trap will only grab the mouse and not kill it. This is awkward. I solve it by dropping the trap and mouse into a bucket of water. When you pick the (trap/live mouse) up you have to be sure you don't open the trap and let the little bugger get away. The whole thing sinks and drowns the mouse. Not the best scenario, but it works.

HTH, EJ >

[cavedweller]

Agree wholeheartedly!! I love it when I get double headers. Triples even!!

[Jim Elbrecht]

We once had a cat that was a great hunter *outside*. She caught tons of mice, chipmunks, rabbits, and even brought home a mink one day. But 'inside mice' were beneath her. I've seen one run over her paw. She let them stuff her favorite chair with cat food.

Jim

[Van Chocstraw]

Trouble with cats is the also go after the birds. If you hate birds then it's ok.

[Norminn]

No......they are vermin who know a good food source inside your home. I don't know what kind of bacteria you might brew in your bucket while you compost rodents, but it seems really disgusting :o)

[Rick Brandt]

A few years back the BBC aired a program where cat owners retrieved and kept (frozen) all of the birds that they could from their free-roaming cats. Every owner was astonished at the number and variety. Keeping in mind that the cats likely captured many others that the owners never found out about.

The majority were song-birds and they showed footage of cats capturing many of these both from branches and actually plucking them from the air. You grossly underestimate cat's skills if you think they can only capture slow birds on the ground.

[E Z Peaces]

My BIL had outdoor cats and an indoor cat and still had mouse episodes. He didn't understand why one invasion ceased. Several months later he pulled out the refrigerator and found a five-foot snake skin.

[terry]

_____________________________________________________________________

Somebody here suggested 'peppermint oil'.

That leads one to ask; "What about those strong smelling camphorated 'moth balls'.

They any good to deter mice????

Cheers. Greetings of the Season and New year.

[clare]

Wrong. They get thirsty as all getout - at least with certain of the poisons.

[trader-of-some-jacks]

I've adapted this. I have a string running from the points that the handle attaches to the bucket, and I have an empty orange juice concentrate can slathered in peanut butter on the middle of the string.

Four hours into this experiment, no mice, but maybe they're waiting for the house to be quiet.

My only concern is the board; the one I have is probably at a 30 degree angle and I hope that's not too steep.

Sounds like it will work. Fingers crossed.

Although not sure if I want there to be mice (proving the thing works, but confirming I have mice), or no mice (possibly indicating poor execution on my part, but maybe indicating no mice left in basement), when I next check it.

[hallerb]

most mice never drink liquid water, they get moisture from their food. my best friend used poison, they crawled away and stank up his home

[clare]

Red squirrels kill more birds than do cats in our area by a factor of more than ten to one. They will clean out a nest faster than you can blink - and NOTHING is out of reach to them.

Too bad the little buggers are so viscous that not many cats will take THEM on.

[HeyBub]

You're probably right. I've seen my cats interact with Mocking birds. After a few desultory lunges, the cats try really, really hard to ignore the pest. It seemed to me that going after a bird was calculated as almost futile.

There was an Animal Planet show a bit back ranking the top ten feline predators based on what they hunted. As I recall, number ten was some obscure Indonesian cat that had only two prey: mud turtles and fungus. The list went up through lions, cheetas, bobcats, and so on to number one. The most ecumenical hunter of all the cats was ... wait for it ... the domestic house cat! Yes, your ordinary kitty has over 10,000 enumerated species on its menu, including small birds, rodents, insects, worms, snakes, small mammals, amphibians, larger birds (like chickens), moles, spiders, and toilet tissue.

[Rick Brandt]

Don't forget the odd set of toes that happen to make the covers move. I swear when we had cats I was tempted to wear my slippers to bed.

[trader-of-some-jacks]

It worked - caught my first mouse last night. I still probably need a longer (less steep) approach to the bucket.

[The Daring Dufas]

I've been told to put out a pan of water for them and that's where you will find the bodies after the poison takes effect.

TDD

[pkarl]

I use this kind of trap, but rather than baiting with peanut butter, I superglue a couple pieces of mouse bait to the trigger. I can get

12-20 mice in a year this way without having to rebait the trap. The bait I use is greenish, comes in a little cellophane bag, and consists of little cylindrical pieces about 1/2" long and maybe 1/8" in diameter.

[Steve]

Good for you! I even keep a bucket out in my garage and during the winter I will use RV antifreeze in place of water. Works great! I have far fewer mice around than I ever used to BB (Before Bucket). The fewer there are mice outside, the fewer that will be trying to get inside!

Steve

ps Once and awhile I will get a squirrel in the bucket. So if you're after squirrels, it will work great for them too!

[Red Green]

Norminn wrote in news:xOOdnZnKk5luHNLUnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

Hmmm... Since they live in your house it must be where they get the alleged diseases from. ???? :-)

Once you've pulled a toilet and scraped off the old wax gasket, getting rid of a dead mouse in a trap barehanded ain't squat. Soap & water hand washing works for both.