My efforts with a couple of mouse traps baited with various combinations of cheese, chocalate, and syrup (to make removal of the fragments of food difficult), have been spectacularlly unsucessful. The traps seem reasonable sensitive, I find it diificult to bait them without 'catching' my fingers, but the remaining mouse (mice?) seems able to remove every last vestige of foodstuff. One has paid the price, but that was early on, ( but at a scoreline of 4 -1), so have the others learnt, or have I just been unlucky?
Any other advice on on a quality final solution?
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Traditional sprung traps really only work for heavy blundering fat house mice or rats. Deft light dainty field mice will always avoid it.
You need the humane traps, and kill them yourself. If you can look into the eyes of your victim and do it that is.
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>>You need the humane traps, and kill them yourself. If you can look into the eyes of your victim and do it that is. <<
I dont go near them, leave that to SWMBO. Why? - that is another story.
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>> Any other advice on on a quality final solution?
Neosorexa bait blocks. www.ratbait.co.uk/neosorexa-bait-blocks-25-kgs-126-p.asp
This is what our local council's pest control officer uses.
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We're having a similar problem. You set them on a hair trigger and they still manage to remove the bait. I've had more success putting the bait further in instead of on the designed holder (black plastic snap traps) I think that makes them crawl over the bait holder and set it off. We are besieged just now.
Use lots of traps.
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We've used peanut butter successfully in the past - it sticks to the trap, obviously, so they can't scurry off with it.
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>> We've used peanut butter successfully in the past .............
Peanut butter is beneficial to the health of rodents. tinyurl.com/cahongn
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Not if they eat it from a mousetrap it isn't - I hope!
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Agree with crankcase - I have had success with peanut butter, on some bread to give one something put on the bait spike
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Rodents like to eat all sorts of stuff, some of the houses in our batch were built with plastic plumbing. A neighbours combi boiler would not maintain its pressure and kept shutting down, it was discovered that a pipe under the floor had been nibbled and punctured.
My pad is all copper plumbing, an optional extra during build, not my choice, it was two years old when I bought it.
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Place the traditional break-back trap in a tube. The sort that malt whisky comes in are idea and along their run , normally along the edge of the room. The mice will then hit the trap nice and square head on. Oblivion is guaranteed. Mice will eat virtually anything so don't worry too much what bait you use.
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I have had total - and spectacular success with mouse traps baited with bread: BUT - attached to the trap bits with a rubber band . No way can a mouse remove bait without springing trap.
Score three year ago was:
Me 14 Mice 0
Not seen many mice since although they still exist in our garden but no longer in garage /greenhouse or daughter's bedroom..(!)
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I will resurrect this old thread as we are having mice problems.
Dog sleeps in the utility room and has done since we got him 2 + years ago.
About 4 weeks ago he started occasionally barking at night in his bed, couldn't understand why but just let it be.
A week later and I finally decided to call a man out about our washing machine that leaks almost every wash now. He looked under the sink at the connections and informed my wife that we had mouse droppings in there!
So thats what the dog had been hearing at night!
Anyway bought a couple of traditional traps and a humane one out of Homebase. Baited them all with peanut butter. Both traps successful first night but humane wasn't (and I struggled to actually keep the door of the humane one opened)
So back to Homebase and bought another couple of traps and this time set these outside by placing a long line of bricks like a tunnel and the trap at the end of them.
The following morning I had 4 mice (all field mice). So that was 6.
Rebaited and the following morning one of the traps had vanished! Disappeared off the face of the earth. Whatever it was, it had managed to pull the trap out from a space the exact width of a brick and about 10 bricks long!!
Local Council environmental health came out, put down a couple of the boxes of bait that they eat and go away to die. He also advised me to plug all holes with steel wool as they cannot eat through this which I have done.
So haven't caught any mice in the house for well over a week now but still catching one or two each night with my traps outside at the end of my decking.
I reckon they were getting under the house via the underneath of the decking - I have blocked this up now as best as I can.
Anyone got any other tips they can give me? What I would like to know is where are they coming from?My back garden is enclosed with fence and so they are basically coming in one of the three sides but I would like to try and find out where it is (it may be all 3 sides). Is there any way of doing this? I was thinking something like talcum powder or something that might show a path through (but there again on one occasion I did catch a huge slug in the trap) so they also could leave a trail?
Any ideas?
I have lifted a couple of planks of the decking and placed mousetraps underneath so I will see if anything appears tonight.
It is one thing trying to block all the holes up into the house, its another to think that there are hundreds of the mice running about in the house foundations and nowhere for them to go.....
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>> Anyone got any other tips they can give me? What I would like to know
>> is where are they coming from?My back garden is enclosed with fence and so they
>> are basically coming in one of the three sides but I would like to try
>> and find out where it is (it may be all 3 sides). Is there any
>> way of doing this? I was thinking something like talcum powder or something that might
>> show a path through (but there again on one occasion I did catch a huge
>> slug in the trap) so they also could leave a trail?
>>
>> Any ideas?
Yes, you are wasting your time. Its completely pointless trying to bait and trap field mice outside. Its also completely pointless and and impossible to stop them entering your garden.
All you need to do is stop livestock outside, getting inside. Thats achievable. Steel mesh over air vents, and all other holes sealed up.
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Mice can have up to 10 litters a year and each litter will be around 6 - 8 young. Trying to kill off all the mice in an area is liking bailing out the ocean with an egg cup. Just keep them out of your house.
Mind you things can get out of hand
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOwinLWrEIw
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Yeah you have a point.
When we got the extension built on the side of the house, this meant that our house was the full width of the property so can only go from front garden to back garden through the house.
At the rear, we got decking put up which was also the full width of the house and garden.
I realised when we had the mice that one side of the decking was completely open - it stops about 6 inches short of the boundary fence so everything could have been going in there.
At the other side, my other neighbour's fence is butted up tight to our decking but I will need to check if their fence is solid all the way to the ground or whether there is also the chance they could be getting under there.
Tried removing some of the decking panels but was only successful on 3 of them which didn't really give me much access to see fully under but I am thinking if the decking is sealed now, then by placing traps within the decking I can maybe kill off what is left underneath. Problem is to fully reach vents etc then will need to pull up the vast majority of the decking!!
And of course, most of the screws are rusted into place.....
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You seem to have built ideal winter quarters for mice. You are going to have to get access to the vents and make sure they are properly sealed rusted screws or no. You need metal grills as Zero said. These look like they will do the job well.
www.mousemesh.co.uk/index.asp
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The cat sometimes brings fat innocent cute field mice into the house to torture and partly eat them, later throwing them up undigested on the kitchen floor. It isn't nice at all. Even worse when it gets naive young songbirds.
It hasn't done it for a while though.
Herself hangs plastic cylinders full of seeds from a nearby apple tree to attract small songbirds. Work well and have a pair of great spotted woodpeckers that live in a Corsican pine 100 yards away among their clients. The odd jay and crow - not all that welcome as the small birds fear them - and pheasants too... they aren't really a problem and peck up fallen seeds from the ground.
The real nuisance is a pair of grey squirrels that make holes in the plastic cylinders and gnaw through the string holding them up. She got a metal mesh one and that simply vanished. The damn squirrels had taken it back to their gaff to blow it open with gelignite probably.
She is in two minds about making me shoot the squirrels and I am in two minds about shooting them. They are pretty animals from a distance and I am a less eager murderer than I used to be. 12 bore is overkill and so is the .22 rabbit rifle. Even a .410 is liable to splatter them. But they are a nuisance. If we had a .22 air rifle with a scope I would try to make my granddaughters do it. Put iron in their nice little souls.
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Sorry Pat but I'm with AC on this one. Grey squirrels are just cute rats. I justify it because they also make good eating though you need a brace to make the cooking worthwhile.
Mouse and rat control chez HM is taken care of by the trio of moggies; I don't interfere as the more mice they catch the more birds they leave alone.
Crows and magpies are the biggest pain round here. The latter are smart enough to tell the difference between a .22 and a broom handle; if they see the rifle they scarper off next door whereas they will happily sit within range if I go outside with the brush, even if I'm holding the damn thing like a rifle.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Tue 11 Jun 13 at 07:17
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>> Don't you dare AC!
What mustn't I do Pat, shoot the pesky squoils or train my innocent granddaughters as snipers?
:o}
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Neither AC, there is nothing as nice as looking at yourself and knowing that you've been kind to something. Try it....it's a lovely feeling.
Pat
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>> nothing as nice as looking at yourself and knowing that you've been kind to something.
So I can be kind to the squirrels by not shooting them, or kind to herself by shooting them... a bit of a dilemma but an easy one to resolve. The squirrels' surviving relations won't be much of a problem, but herself is in a good position to be unkind to me. So it's no contest really.
As for the little girls, they can only benefit from some early weapons training. I have high hopes of the youngest, now five, who is already adept with a ratchet spanner and may well prove adept with other machines including weapons.
Heh heh... you soppy old pudding you... hey, what are you doing with that length of fourbytwo... aaargh!
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>>Heh heh... you soppy old pudding you... hey, what are you doing with that length of fourbytwo... aaargh!
More likely to be a ruddy great wheel brace - she can throw a skein of rope further than me!
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That's because for years I had to !
AC
>> or kind to herself by shooting them<<
I had you down as a man who could put his foot down with firm hand, so now looks like the time to do it:)
Pat
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>> a man who could put his foot down with firm hand,
An authoritarian contortionist Pat? Not fit enough.
One of the squirrels wandered along to see how things were going under the feeder apple tree today. I pointed it out to herself. She told me to make it go away. I opened the door and stepped out. The squirrel looked round at me irritably. I uttered an angry roar. It lolloped slowly a few feet, turned round, shook its head sadly and strolled off round the corner, undoubtedly to be seen again.
If I'm that frightening to squirrels, you can imagine how terrified of me herself must be.
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>> They are pretty animals from a distance
Vicious vermin close up though. Watch your nuts!
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>> Any ideas?
Put Neosorexa bait blocks where you find the mouse droppings indoors. Fix them onto a vertical nail (point uppermost) knocked through a piece of wood. www.ratbait.co.uk/neosorexa-bait-blocks-126-p.asp
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>> Put Neosorexa bait blocks where you find the mouse droppings indoors. Fix them onto a
>> vertical nail (point uppermost) knocked through a piece of wood. www.ratbait.co.uk/neosorexa-bait-blocks-126-p.asp
>>
Two issues to be aware of:
(1) Before the beasties die they get dopey and wonder around in daylight etc. We get mice like that in the office. Don't know how Bobby's family react to mice but we used to have an Ozzy Lawyer at work who did a Dame Edna type squeal if she saw one.
(2) Even one decomposing mouse smells quite a bit.
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Mice 14 pmh 1 - Zero
