Bloody Rodents

[KISSMAD (Bruce)]

I bought some mouse traps the other week. I've managed to trap 2 mice so far. Now they are setting off the traps and stealing the peanut butter.

[deanm (Dean)]

Brace yourself: next they'll be stealing the traps, too!
Dean

[KISSMAD (Bruce)]

They have already tried, the cheeky buggers.

Maybe I'm putting too much peanut butter on the trap.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by KISSMAD

They have already tried, the cheeky buggers.

Maybe I'm putting too much peanut butter on the trap.

That's usually the issue. I've always said, "make the little bast*ards work for their execution..."

[Nebulous (Chris)]

Originally Posted by KISSMAD

I bought some mouse traps the other week. I've managed to trap 2 mice so far. Now they are setting off the traps and stealing the peanut butter.

Welcome to the subtle and ancient art of Mouse-Fu , Grasshopper.... They are indeed sly and wary opponents with a touch as gentle as the wind...

Your trap setting must be as light and sensitive as the falling dew, or verily the cunning little devils will guzzle thy carefully applied peanut butter and never disturb the mechanism.

Good luck.

[billdan (Bill)]

I got too frustrated with traps and I now use Ratsak instead, they're usually dead in 2-3 days.

[KISSMAD (Bruce)]

I use to use Ratsak. I got sick of looking for the smell to find the dead mouse.

[sharpiel]

Originally Posted by billdan

I got too frustrated with traps and I now use Ratsak instead, they're usually dead in 2-3 days.

Ratsak and most other rat poisons load the rats with such toxicity that anything that then eats the rat carcass dies from secondary poisoning. So pythons, kookaburras, butcher birds, magpies and all the raptors which normally help to control rat populations in the wild will die.

Many users of rat poisons need to have their own cats and dogs rushed to vets for treatment due to consuming poisoned rat carcasses. Have a look at "rats secondary poisoning" online for further info.

The only rodenticide that has low secondary poisoning is Racumin which you may need to source online or at a produce supplier. In my experience your local shop and bunnings etc don't stock Racumin. But for the small extra effort involved to get Racumin you'll save the lives of a lot of wildlife and maybe your own pets.

[rrussell1962]

Thanks for the info Les. We have chickens which attract rats, we have resorted to using and burying mesh around anything they might be attracted to. Didn't stop them chewing the master board inside the air con inverter though. Oh well, 200 years of free eggs will see that paid off. I've finally accepted that, whether you see them or not, you share your property with other animals and once in a while they will do something inconvenient. Most animals are territorial, kill one, another one will move in. Best to just live with the fact that they are there.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I have my own Rodent catcher .....

[ZeroID (Brent)]

I'd loan you our two Bengals, they are expert mouse catchers but I suspect Aust Customs might not be too happy about it ...

[billdan (Bill)]

Thanks for the info on Racumin Les, I'll see if I can get some next time the rodents visits the house.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Originally Posted by KISSMAD

I bought some mouse traps the other week. I've managed to trap 2 mice so far. Now they are setting off the traps and stealing the peanut butter.

A method I have found works well is the old long-neck beer bottle and the bucket of water. You lie the bottle on its side on a benchtop or whatever so that the neck end is sticking out over the edge and so that the very end is over the middle of the bucket. Put a healthy dag of peanut butter on the end of the neck of the bottle and brace the bottle well so it doesn't either overbalance or roll around on your bench. The mice/rats can't maintain a grip on the glass neck and never reach the peanut butter before they fall off into your bucket. No worry about having to reset the trap after every capture.

Peter

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

Get a pet python.
Grapes weigh quite heavy and don't pierce easily with mouse teeth. So they engage the mouse more and make the trap more easily tripped.

[Nebulous (Chris)]

Originally Posted by jenchris

Get a pet python.
Grapes weigh quite heavy and don't pierce easily with mouse teeth. So they engage the mouse more and make the trap more easily tripped.

Never tried grapes - that sounds interesting.

When I used cheese I used to wrap a length of cotton round it in random directions (it will partly sink into the cheese) and that used to interact with the mousy teeth to help set the trap off. Or so it was alleged....

[speach (Simon)]

I found bacon rind the best it's stays on an needs a good tug to get it off

[deanm (Dean)]

Warfarin (i.e. 'Ratsack') poisoning is horrible - it causes the poor animal to bleed to death internally. Not quick, not painless.
Snap traps are probably worse - they often don't kill outright & the unfortunate mouse suffers for hours - or will chew off a trapped limb.
There are humane alternatives:
https://www.ebay.com.au/p/?iid=26258...hn=ps&&&chn=ps
Dean

[Nebulous (Chris)]

Originally Posted by deanm

Warfarin (i.e. 'Ratsack') poisoning is horrible - it causes the poor animal to bleed to death internally. Not quick, not painless.
Snap traps are probably worse - they often don't kill outright & the unfortunate mouse suffers for hours - or will chew off a trapped limb.
There are humane alternatives:
https://www.ebay.com.au/p/?iid=26258...hn=ps&&&chn=ps
Dean

I agree Dean, that's always it's good to try and minimise the suffering. But I simply can't have rodents using my kitchen shelves and drawers as a toilet. They have to go. I've tried blocking every possible entry point I can find but they still get in somehow.

I have a couple of very similar 'humane' traps that are supposed to contain the whole mouse unharmed. What you are supposed to do with them then is not specified. Find them a good home somewhere? Give them a lecture on the hygiene rules in my home? Drown them? Release them in someone else's yard? Fortunately, I've never had to find out because they were completely ineffectively and I never caught single mouse with either of them.

However, I did also buy a much larger trap that was basically a metal box with a glass viewing panel in the top. It has two angled entry ramps that are supposed to tip the mouse into a larger 'room' with a glass viewing panel in the top, when they climbed up to get the bait. It was very difficult to entice them to make the climb but eventually - after weeks of waiting, and a wide range of bait strategies - I did catch a lone mouse. I took the box 100 metres or more from the house, wished it well and tipped it out to take its chances in a new environment. Since then the trap has remained unvisited but the mice keep coming. So its back to a form of trap that 9 times out of 10 kills them quickly and cleanly. And I almost always hear them go off, so I can dispatch them quickly if they're not quite dead.

That's the best i can do. Sorry mice, but I won't live with the damage you do or the health hazards.

[deanm (Dean)]

Fair enough Chris - I'm impressed that you did try alternatives.
And I understand how a plague of mice pissing, chewing and crapping in your pantry isn't nice: been there, dealt with that!
Dean