how to catch a mouse without a mousetrap

Gwen Lynn wrote:


Kid has a full drum kit, plays it in the house, but the house ain't sound proof. Yeesh! 

well.....mabye he will chase off the gophers at least

Haha! I didn't think of that! Maybe that's why there seems to be more gophers than ever. He's scared them all..over here!

Couple of thoughts:



1. This is the best mouse trap I have ever used

You just put it about an inch from a wall, no bait.  The mice step inside out of curiousity, step on a trigger, and a spring-loaded paddle knocks them into a chamber that is about 6"x8"x6".  If you want them alive, just check the trap once a day and let the little guys out.  If you leave it for more than a day, they will die, of exposure I guess.  Note that once a mouse it caught, this attracts other mice so you can catch a bunch of them at once.  One time I caught 20 in one night.  When you're not using it you should put it somewhere that mice cannot reach, otherwise it will continue to catch mice, with pretty disgusting results (e.g. cannibalism, maggots, etc. - yuck).

Reading the Amazon reviews, some people claim that the paddle can trap or even decapitate the mouse - but I find that hard to believe.  I certainly have never experienced that.  I suspect that they overwound the spring and it spun with too much force.  All it takes is a a few cranks of the handle.

If you have mice in your house, you can hear when it goes off with a gentle "clunk".  Then you can immediately go relocate the little creature.


2. Allowing cats to go feral (or dumping cats) is bad news for the cats, songbirds, people, etc.  e.g. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/the-truth-about-cats-and-birds/

From Plants for a Future (pfaf.org):

"The plant [peppermint] repels insects, rats etc. Rats and mice intensely dislike the smell of mint. The plant was therefore used in homes as a strewing herb and has also been spread in granaries to keep the rodents off the grain."

I found these pics from a couple of years ago.

I set this up and 20 minutes later I had one mouse.  An hour later I had the second mouse.

I tried it another time and the mouse was able to jump back out.  So I smeared the peanut butter on the side and put about an inch of water in the bottom.

I don't think it's very humane to let those critters die by drowning but a deep bucket and a looooong hike from home seems a good routine to me!
I have no experience in this but other ways that occured to me regarding keeping the rodent population down would be
1. A body of water or a pond, attracts amphibians and reptiles and birds and probably also birds of prey.
2. Lots of rock piles, again to attract the amphibians and reptiles
3. Piles of brush and woody material, once again a good place for the amphibians and reptiles, especially for nesting and overwintering.

i saw in an old mother earth news magazine that you can just bury a deep bucket or small metal trashcan in the ground with the lip just above the soil line, put a small amount of a dry food source in there, and leave it be. i did this and pretty much every morning i would find at least 1. sometimes i would find like 5 or 6. i am surrounded by forest and eventually came to the conclusion there is so many mice around that there's no point in trapping them. that and i got tired of having to deal with it.

but it works great!

reducing the mouse population neer my barn and making them availble as chicken food by trapping sounds like a win win to me, though I'm keeping the barn cat i got this spring, I've been seeing a lot of skinned mouse carcasses around the barn since he got comfy

I wanted a cat, but I like all the birds, lizards, frogs and wildlife in such abundance around the house so I ruled him out.

I heard of the bucket ideas including just using a ruler as well with bait on the end.

I am thinking of heading down this route as I bought all the standard traps including the new live-no-kill traps which don't work! And I'm getting tired of the money spent on traps and have switched to baiting poisons which I want to get off of as fast as possible because my dog eats rats and mice and I have to keep a sharp eye out to make sure he doesn't find dead ones around the house and has a feed.

Buckets, here I come! Then the dog can go back to having a big feed of rodents.

Cheers,
PeterD

I've always contended that if you "build a better mouse trap", then better mice will evolve.

Just make sure you use a tall enough bucket, mice can jump pretty high about 12-14 inches.

A more recent variation by Fred up at wofati 0.7:

quote=Leah Sattler]...if you view wild cats for what they are...wild animals....its not so hard.[/quote]

Cats are NOT wild animals. They have evolved around humans since the beginning of agriculture 10 thousand years ago, when we started having a rodent problem. Ok, normally we don't breed them (except tralala cats which are a special case) and we didn't used to feed them much (catfood was not nourishing to cats till we found out about Taurine, in the eighties I think). But Felis catus is already a distinct species, different from european or african wild cats, evolved almost entirley from the middle eastern wild cat, Felis sylvestris lybica, with probably a few genes from elsewhere.

I'm not saying feed your barn cats enough to make them want to stop mousing, and I agree a good mouser will probably be taught by its mother. And I can understand that one must not be too sentimental when it comes to farm cats.

But that doesn't mean that your common or garden shorthaired tabby can be abandoned, or its offrspring abandoned, without unneccessary, inhumane and [b]human-induced[/b] suffering. That's why I don't like to see "cats are wild animals" on forums - I'm afraid it will induce innappropriate behaviour in humans. Cats have been around humans for a long time and are dependant on us.

I'm not a farmer but I've seen a barn cat teach its kittens to catch rats (in the farm kitchen). She was a barn cat AND a house cat. Not fed much, but given vetinary care. She liked humans and liked being petted, when she felt like it. And she was a good mouser AND rat-catcher.
And I've seen an urban feral mother start to teach its kittens how to mouse (before we took them away from her to go to their adoptive families). She was a good mother and would be a good mouser if we didn't feed her, even though from her behaviour she is probably only first generation feral.

So I'm not convinced it takes many generations of being feral OR being unfriendly to humans to be a good mouser.

If I had a barn and mouser cats I like to think that I would check that the cat and mouse populations were compatible. That I would give them essential vetenary care. That I would spay the poor mousers and give them away, and let the good one(s) reproduce once. That I would feed my cats kitchen scraps, which are an incomplete food for cats but otherwise good quality. That I would buy good quality cat food to complete their diet, in small quantities, rather than poor quality catfood in large quantities. And I would hope they would get the main part of their diet from mice.

I think the mouse traps are amazing.

we have a version of this trap and it works pretty good:

we dont add water to the bucket, so the mice are alive when we (my dog) find them. we put a few of these around where we store our chicken/turkey feed.

another version:

I once thought that my cat had magical powers. He had detected a mouse in the closet and started sniffing under the door. Then he started breathing hard and loud. The mouse came out from under the closet door and walk right to the cat. I thought it was the coolest thing! Then I read this post. It may explain why this occurred and also why there have been much fewer mice in the house since the cat died last year.

A great article about it here in The Atlantic magazine.

Buy this on amazon:  http://amzn.to/2zSnDpc

My new mouse eating friend.
The black racer is the state reptile of Ohio.
😀

On ebay.

Andreas Brevitz wrote:I don't think it's very humane to let those critters die by drowning

i just wanted to address this real quick.
if you arent putting water in the bucket you have to check the trap EVERYDAY. if not the mice will become so hungry that they will eat each other - the "winning" mouse normally doesnt wait until its friend is dead to start eating. normally starting at the eyes.

we now keep water in the bucket to prevent this as to me, drowning is better than being eatin alive

on ebay

Just saw this video. Those mice sure can fit in tiny places!



I like to have a bucket trap set up even when I don't see any mice, just in case one finds a way to squeeze into my house. I love that bucket traps also don't have to be checked and reset nearly as often. When we had a bunch of mice in our garage last year, we set up the bucket trap and would empty it every few days. It was much easier than having to check 12 different traps, dispose of the mice, apply more peanut butter, and reset each trap.

live mouse trap with just a bowl and a little peanut oil.

A method I have tried with mixed results is...

Balance a coin on its edge
Put peanut butter in the bottom of a glass
Turn a glass upside down
Balance one edge of the glass on the upper edge of the coin
Mouse walks under glass to get to nut butter, nudges the coin and bam. Live mouse under a glass.
This isnt as successful as other traps but fits in tiny spaces such as behind the fridge

paul wheaton wrote:A more recent variation by Fred up at wofati 0.7:

Am I the only one reading these posts who thinks these little guys/gals are adorable?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them making a nest in my car engine or in my home damaging things or ruining my garden or food storage. However, I still think they are pretty cute.

I’ve relocated mice I’ve trapped or I’ve used my mousers to get them out of unwanted places.

I put out unlimited expensive dry food and filtered drinking water for my kitties and Katrina, the grey kitty, would still catch and eat almost 2 mice nightly. I know because most nights she’d bring them to the front porch to show me before devouring them. The crunching of bones, though natural, is not a sound I think I could ever fully get used to. She hunted and ate rabbits too. I think the rodents and rabbits were much more nutritious for the cats than any food I could buy, so I was happy to see them eating them.