Best Mouse Traps???
Dec 15, 2003 at 8:10 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 30
Gariver

Gariver

1000+ Head-Fier
Joined
Jul 15, 2002
Posts
1,021
Likes
11
My next door neighbor is a good-looking, blue-eyed blonde who has two little Chihuahua dogs in her patio. Great! The problem is that the dog food attracts mice (rats).

At the moment, I have a mouse in my house, and I can't catch it! I have tried VIC's bait-type mouse traps, but the little mouse avoids the mouse traps. He is too smart! What can I do? Do you guys have any suggestions?

Rat poison is out of the question. I mean, if the mouse hides somewhere to die, the smell would be terrible.
frown.gif
 
Dec 15, 2003 at 9:08 PM Post #3 of 30
try using only smaller bits of harder bait.(try stale bread with some olive oil) The mouse will eventually chew it almost all up and then itll start chewing upon the metal. Then youll catch small mice too. We just caught on today this way. It was eating the bait for a couple of days.

Try this and then report and well see what can be done next.
 
Dec 15, 2003 at 9:52 PM Post #4 of 30
On a more serious note............
rolleyes.gif


I know a person that as one of his various enterprises is state liscenced for nuisence wildlife control-such as rats,mice,bats,racoons,etc

And what he uses for most of his work are catch alive traps baited with peanut butter.

seems the little critters like it and the smell is strong so it acts as a fine atractor as well .

Plus it is a highly durable bait lasting for days without losing much in the scent area

Where the problem comes in is the actual trap .

Mice are amazing climbers and any home brew recipe will most likely fail

The trap itself must have a "keep him in the damn trap" mechanism of some kind,either a slick surface or a door

BTW-the "cat" suggestion was partly serious .

I have a cat the size of a small dog (Trouble by name) that is the most determined predator i have ever witnessed close up

Not content to bushwhack the average mouse or rat he has moved on to bats (incredible to witness a cat nail a bat out of the air) and squirrels . Dogs have no shot , he toys with them

This very same cat was once after my python and well..one had to go...the cat stayed
 
Dec 15, 2003 at 11:00 PM Post #7 of 30
Glue traps are good, but a bit messy.
 
Dec 16, 2003 at 12:10 AM Post #8 of 30
Does anyone sell electric mouse traps commercially? A few years ago one of the electronics magazines here published an electric mousetrap. It works a little like a "safety switch" or Residual Current Device (RCD) except that instead of turning off the power it turns it on - so when it detects a current leakage between the bait electrode and the plate on which the rodent must stand to get the bait it dumps a couple of very large capacitors worth of power into the rodent. "With automatic reset" it claimed, since the rodent is thrown quite a way from the trap when it goes off - this is probably more humane than the steel trap variety since a clean neck-break is certainly not a guarantee.
 
Dec 16, 2003 at 12:43 AM Post #9 of 30
Quote:

Dogs have no shot , he toys with them


Yeah, as much as I love dogs, they're pretty helpless against cats. One dog we had when I was a kid by sheer luck once magaged to corner a cat. In all the years, this had never happened to her before, and she had really not the slightest idea what to do now (allright, why again was it we chase them cats?). The cat on the other hand did, wasn't too pretty. From then on she would still engage in pursuit (to the sound of dogs' claws searching for traction on asphalt), but when the cat made a turn she would pretend to not see it and just blast straight on for a few hundred feet (hey, where did that cat go? Anybody seen that cat? Ok, get her next time...).
Her father was really the sweetest dog you could imagine, except for if you were a dog yourself. He was constantly in fights with other dogs three times his size (and won...). When we had mice in the cellar he of course felt obliged to hunt them down and bring them to justice, but to tell the truth he was utterly useless. He actually once besieged a mouse behind the fridge. We saw it walk out right between his legs. He still stayed there for hours, waiting patiently...
He also played soccer with hedgehogs, but that's another story...
 
Dec 16, 2003 at 12:57 AM Post #10 of 30
THe glue ones are nice if you prefer not to kill the mouse. You can take it far from your place and knock it off the glue. (Or leave it on the offending neighbor's doorstep).
evil_smiley.gif
 
Dec 16, 2003 at 1:01 AM Post #11 of 30
The best mouse trap, & humane, looks sorta like a small metal box, with a passage through the middle. It has a wind up key on one side to power a spring powered revolving door.

The mouse walks through the passage, attracted by the smell of PEANUT BUTTER, steps on a spring loaded lever, and is swept by a revolving door into a holding area. The good thing about this trap is it can catch more than one mouse at a time.

I was once woken up in the early am by munching sounds (the little fellow picked up a pecan in the kitchen and decided to feast behind my wifes nightstand).

I woke up, saw him, pursued him & lost him near the kitchen. Pulled out the ol' trusty trap, made a litttle Peanut Butter sandwich and put it in the holding area, left it in the kitchen & went back to bed. Not 10 minutes later....CLUNK!!!!! Got im!

I have caught almost a dozen mice with this trap & have never failed to catch one when there was evidence of mouse. Once, I caught two (we used to get quite a few in the garage since our area was still being developed).

After catching the little guys, we used to take them for a ride & let them go in a field. My daughter really used to enjoy this.

Good luck!
 
Dec 16, 2003 at 1:14 AM Post #12 of 30
A friend of the family used to do exactly what Larry is describing except he did it with squirrels. He had a balcony outside his apartment with a small garden in it and squirrels would climb from the trees and eat his plants, so he set up the type of trap Larry described, caught a squirrel every time they came up to his apartment and then drove half an hour out to Maryland and let them go.

It was funny to hear him describe it. He said that he didn't feel bad about letting them go in Maryland because "Anyone who would live there deserves to be pestered by squirrels".
biggrin.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top