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I don't trap anything at all, ever. No need to torture.
If we get a mouse in the house, I set up a trail of sunflower seeds to a cardboard box, let the box drop when the mouse goes inside, then take the box outside and let the mouse go on its merry way.
The best solution to controlling MICE is a CAT. A spayed or neutered Cat on a skimpy diet and Mice problem is solved. The big bonus is having a warm cuddly buddy to play with.
My mouse problem is in the garage, not the house. I don't think a cat is going to be happy living out there all the time. Not to mention the Lab isn't going to want any competition when it comes to play time or snuggle time with the humans.
The glue traps are cruel. I know big strapping men who hunt who won't use glue traps.
This is my experience:
Snap traps: 1
Enclosed traps: 1
Glue traps: 12
I'm going with what works, plain and simple. I really don't care what others think. This isn't about big strapping men or those who hunt. This is about eradicating rodents. And glue traps have clearly been the most effective at eradicating these rodents.
I don't trap anything at all, ever. No need to torture.
If we get a mouse in the house, I set up a trail of sunflower seeds to a cardboard box, let the box drop when the mouse goes inside, then take the box outside and let the mouse go on its merry way.
And you don't think that it will put two ad two together and see your home as a free food zone? I want the problem solved permanently.
I don't trap anything at all, ever. No need to torture.
If we get a mouse in the house, I set up a trail of sunflower seeds to a cardboard box, let the box drop when the mouse goes inside, then take the box outside and let the mouse go on its merry way.
There is no such thing as "one mouse". If you see it, or hear it, you probably have DOZENS of them, just seeing or hearing "one" at a time.
Also, they are not in the house at all times. Some will leave, while others stay, then come back again.
I would go with a rodenticide (poison). The vast majority will not die in the house. Once they get sick, they "know" it was something in YOUR house that did it; they leave, then die.
If you have any trouble getting rid of them (and it is them, not it), poisons are what the exterminators use. They can get rid of the worst infestations. So, use their method of choice - poison.
Sometimes there is just one mouse in your house. I get one about every five years. Snap.
So you poison your mice. And the neighbor's dog sees the soon-to-be-dead mouse in his yard. And the sick mouse doesn't escape from the doggy, who gobbles it up. Dog dies.
So you poison your mice. And the neighbor's dog sees the soon-to-be-dead mouse in his yard. And the sick mouse doesn't escape from the doggy, who gobbles it up. Dog dies.
Don't be an earth hole.
Maybe that was an issue with early mouse/rat poisons, but modern mouse poisons are such low concentrations that the neighbor's dog would have to eat a ton of dead mice to be affected.
"The chances of a pet to consume enough carcasses of a dead rat to accumulate sufficient poison for secondary poisoning would be low. It is more likely to occur with a high population of dead poisoned rats that are accessible, coupled with pets or non-targeted animals that are foraging for food due to hunger. Most pets are loved and fed well. They would need to be very hungry for them to eat many dead carcasses of rats."
One, despite the old cartoons, mice don't really go for cheese. They will eat what is on offer, but it isn't something that magically attracts.
Peanut butter OTOH is catnip to rats and mice. Trick is *NOT* to huge dollops of the stuff when baiting traps. Doing that only allows rodents to "eat" bait without setting off the trap.
What you want is to use a tiny smear of PB; just enough to give the scent. This is enough to lure and (hopefully) get a rodent to set off a trap.
For snap and other traps when it comes to mice, placement matters more than baiting.
Mice do not have great eyesight and tend to run along walls/baseboards, etc.... So you need to place the trap where the business end is perpendicular to the wall or whatever so it is in the path mice use. Idea is they will run into the thing and set it off. That and or attempt to take the bait..
Seems like good tips. My reasoning for putting a dollop of peanut butter was so the mouse would spend more time around the trigger. But that didn't work. The tricky mouse ate the peanut butter clean off twice without setting off the trap.
I next used the piece of cheese because I could wedge it into the trigger and my thinking was the mouse would set off the trap pulling the cheese loose. That didn't seem to work either for a few days. Maybe the mouse wasn't willing to work that hard to get the cheese. I noticed it appeared the mouse was able to take a path around the trap. So I moved the trap to a spot I saw him run where he'd have to go over the trap. And within a few hours the mouse set off the trap.
I'm not sure if the mouse tried to get to the cheese bait or just ran over the trap, but I think placing the trap perpendicular to the wall and in the path of the mouse is key like you mentioned. It does seem they like peanut butter and I never really thought using just a smear of it.
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