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Mice, or just a mouse.

A few months ago I heard a little mouse scratching about, I borrowed a humane trap, we called it the mouse cafe, I tried bacon, different fats off different meats, cheese but no, mousey was either too stupid to find the entry to the cafe or too clever to fall for it even though he/she had pooed on top of it. A few nights later in the dim light of the evening I was getting the cat some food, as I opened the door to the utility room there was the mouse, I didn't see it at first, Kitcat did, one swipe and it was all over for the mouse.
Previously one night in the workshop I heard a scratching noise, a little mouse had got stuck on the sticky glue of an open cardboard sleeve that records are posted in. I took it outside, got a little fairy liquid and water and washed his little legs and set him free. Although I don't want mice in the house or workshop, I'm not comfortable with killing them, I always think of Mrs Frisby. I'm surrounded by fields & trees where I live, plenty of room for mice outside and plenty of natural predators hopefully enough to keep the balance of nature.
 
Best bait is generally peanut butter (cheap - what I use), or chocolate (not cheap - not used by me).

Peanut butter is best thickened with flour of some kind. I also mix sunflower seeds into the peanut butter in the bait pot - they are very easy to stick on the trap bait spikes.

Garden snails home from several hundred yards, I wonder how far mice can manage?
 
The potential damage to wiring is not to be underestimated. We had loads of problems in our henhouses over the years. One henhouse was rewired using pyro cables. Newer ones were built with wiring in conduits.
 
I caught (and dispatched) a rat this week. Peanut butter worked well to entice the creature in to the cage.
 
Since blocking up the small gap at the corner of the garage door I've seen no signs of the mouse. I've swept and vacuum cleaned the garage floor including under the fridge/freezer washing machine and drier. The dog food is now in a plastic sack inside a plastic dustbin with lid firmly in place. No signs of droppings yesterday or today. The only food in the garage are tins and bottles and what's in the fridge/freezer so no bags or packets to be chewed through. The traps I set yesterday were untouched this morning. I reckon it pushed off under the garage door the night I saw it.
 
Durmbo said:
Shitting and pissing everywhere, which spreads disease. Chewing holes and wires. Also they'll get into OP's dog food, and there are no guarantees the house won't be safe either.
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Unfortunately they do this... found a very dead mouse in a shower control panel when we moved into our new house, could not make how it got in there.... then we had mice chewing electrical cables behind the cooker.... not good.:eek:

Saying that, folk reckon you are never more than 6 feet away from a mouse or Rat.:confused:
 
My parents have just 'enjoyed' an epic game of cat and mouse with some field mice over the last couple of weeks. The modern mouse seems both trap smart and a bit of a gourmet. In the end (smooth) peanut butter in a humane trap worked. All the interlopers have now been safely released into the wild. I agree with some of the others here - try to avoid killing them if you can.
 
The trouble with humane traps is they have to be checked very often which you probably can't. IME they will eat any flavour crisps through foil bags, and dried pasta. They won't touch oats or muesli.
 
Rockmeister said:
You should at least, discriminate over species before you go killing animals.

House Mice can become a pest, esp in old houses, so need control, but the rest. Please don't!
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More myth and legend...……………

Wood mice and yellow-necked mice are probably worse than house mice in a house. One bungalow that I lived in had a loft with masses (sacks-full) of wild nuts and berries, especially the hard "nut" from hawthorn berries - wood mice or yellow-necked (long-tailed field mice to the older people brought up in the countryside) will have been the culprits - yellow-necked are totally notorious for it.

When I first moved here 20 years ago, all I caught were house mice, but that quickly changed - I rarely catch them these days - almost all are wood mice. Now, if ever there was a rodent to melt your heart, it would be wood mice - gorgeous things - I have watched them by torch-light collecting food, utterly gorgeous things, but inside a building, a total, complete and utter PITA.

If you can direct me to a trap that discriminates, I would be interested to learn.
 
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