EEK! a Mouse!

[so lucky]

We haven't had any mouse issues here for several years, but when we were cat-sitting this winter, I sprung all the mouse traps so Max wouldn't get hurt accidentally.
Yesterday when I was about to feed the chickens, I found that a mouse had fallen into the bucket that holds the BOSS and hen scratch mix that they get a little of each morning along with their pellets. I put the lid on and carried him out across the yard, and let him go at the gravel road. I watched him scamper across the road, and through the field.

About an hour later, I was standing in the kitchen and saw another mouse run along the base of the cabinets, and into the laundry room. DH set a trap in there.

This morning, there was a mouse again in the chicken food bucket in the basement! I did the same release for him, but I think if it happens again, I will start spraying a dab of paint on his back, to see if it is the same dumb mouse, or if there is a whole big family in the basement.

I'm thinking we need to set more traps, too. DH always uses peanut butter. Do you have anything more effective?

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Well it's a crappy way to go - but you can fill a bucket up halfway with water and float bird seed on top. They find the seed, try to get at it, fall in and drown.

 

[thistlebloom]

Mice never live alone unfortunately.

I was amused at Kid#1s story of the mouse in his house. He even had a name. Kid#1 is a pretty tenderhearted guy, and he was relating about this mouse he saw now and then, but assured me that the mouse was not causing any problems and "it was only one". Right. I just smiled at him.
Not too long after I was hearing about how Gomez or whatever he called him had peed in his cast iron frying pan, and soon after he found droppings on the bed..... He did the catch and release thing out in the woods. Unfortunately Gomez had a large extended family..... I think Kid#1 is now a believer in snap traps.

The advantage to the bucket of water method is that you can catch multiple mice at one place. @Ridgerunner has a good method for the buckets.

When I use the snap traps i like to wedge a walnut into the bait hole. There always seems to be a mouse that can lick PB off without triggering the trap.

My great grandma always ran a match over the trap before reusing it. She figured the mice could detect a death smell on them when they had been used.

 

[so lucky]

Interesting about the death smell. May be something to that. DH just saw another mouse run from kitchen to livingroom.
He is using some of my good organic raw cheddar cheese in the traps now. Nothing but the best for our mice!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Last mouse that showed up here was caught in a trap in our kitchen about a month ago, to out complete surprise (surprise, because the trap that caught him or her had been sitting there for many, many months; by that point we don't expect the bait to still be attractive.)

That one actually was a nasty shock to me since it had enough life to crawl out from under the radiator dragging the trap before it gave up the ghost, and I am afraid of dead mice and other vertebrates (I think it is a disease related phobia given that I am 1. not at all afraid of living mice/rats etc. 2. not afraid of dead invertebrates (in fact I have a collection of insects crustaceans etc. in my bedroom that I persevered myself) and 3. not afraid of dead vertebrates if I know what killed then (in other words, a slaughtered animal elicits no fear response in me. Oh and I also am not afraid of skeletal remains (if they are clean))

We've had a trap down there since then, but have neither caught nor seen any more mice since then so that one may have been a solo, against the normal pattern (see below)

I Did find some mouse dropping in a corner of my room when I was cleaning a few weeks ago, but based on their appearance and some questioning of my parents, it seems more or less certain that those came from the mouse that was in my room many months ago (the one that tried to make a nest in my bookcase)

The usual pattern we see is about five mice when they show up. First after seeing some sign (usually droppings on the back corners of the kitchen counters*) and setting the trap under the radiator we first catch two normal sized mice (presumably the parents) then a few smaller ones (half grown juveniles) what happens to them depends on how smart they are. The smart ones who follow the adult plans (hide most of the time, only come out after dark, stay in the kitchen) usually also get hit by the trap. However every now and again we get one so young it's too dumb to remember and winds up trying to come out from the radiator in the dining or living room (this is dumb because 1. there's no food there and 2. the cat can see them more readily, and has more space to chase them.) on rare occasions they also croak (there is one that the cat apparently scared so bad it got under one of the love seats and then actually had a heart attack. But usually I hear the cat, and am able to get her away and catch the mouse alive (most are so inexperienced that if you put a cracker down on the floor and sit quietly with a container over it they'll come out and get so absorbed in eating you can trap them easily.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

PT.2

Those ones do get taken outside and released.

Since I don't like dealing with dead mice (and therefore cannot kill them myself) I also had to use live release traps when I had mice in my college apartment.

As for bait, we USED to use peanut butter (in my apartment I used to make "bait balls by rolling peanut butter in stale parmesan cheese.) But since the mice now are good at licking that off without tripping the traps, Dad now uses some piece of something greasy, like chicken or turkey skin. In fact at the moment, our traps are being bated with fragments of an elk's meat salami I bought and didn't like the taste of.

* not always easy to determine since mom makes a lot of coleslaw and tends to spill a LOT of caraway seeds on the counter and not be great about cleaning them up. Then there was the time in my apartment I wound up saving some mouse dropping I found in my dresser, since I thought they were grains of forbidden rice I had spilled!

 

[catjac1975]

You let a mouse go? They just come back into the house.

 

[Carol Dee]

Every fall we battle mice. Many years ago we thought we had finally mouse proofed the hose. Finding and blocking all ways in. (Cat did not deter them!) Then when DH added the Master bedroom and basement, there are new entries we have yet to find or able to get to. Grrr. Snap traps seem to do the best job for us. Sticky traps leave them alive and I hate having to dispatch them. Or dumb dog will step on one or get his nose in it! Good luck in the battle.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

You let a mouse go? They just come back into the house.

Like I said, I am afraid of dead mice so I CAN'T kill them if it's just me (and no, in this case the "not if I know what killed it" doesn't work). Plus, I do usually take them many miles away before releasing them back outside (preferably in the woods, so they don't get in anyone else's house either.)

 

[Nyboy]

Weekend house gets mice when weather turns cold. Because my dogs don't come there I put out poison. I know a lot of people freak out about using poison, I only use it inside, sorry I willn't live with mouse droppings.