Uninvited guest

charlesanto

I spotted an uninvited guest scurrying about my home last night.
I guess it was a field mouse wanting out of the fields for the winter.
Any advice on how to shift it (hopefully not them) will be appreciated. The old style neck cracking type mousetrap is what I have in mind, maybe one with cheese and one with ham.

Blub2k4

I used a safe mouse trap a short while back, it works like a seesaw with a trapdoor that falls when the mouse runs into the end of it and slams shut. Peanut butter is very good in it. I put it down in the morning and by that evening there was a mouse in it, I brought him out and dumped him fairly far away from the house. He never came back.

I dont think that a forum for animal lovers is actually the most sensitive place to post asking for advice on how to kill mice as some will definitely be offended by it.
Use a humane trap it is no skin off your nose.

Shewhomustbe...

Blub2k4 wrote:

I dont think that a forum for animal lovers is actually the most sensitive place to post asking for advice on how to kill mice as some will definitely be offended by it.
Use a humane trap it is no skin off your nose.

I agree, you said yourself they're only in to get out of the cold so why kill them?

newgrange

My brother had a mouse in the house a while ago. He didn't want to use the old style traps so he tracked down a humane one and waited ages for the mouse to go into it. He picked it up and carried it quite a distance to a piece of overgrown land nearby, released the mouse, only to look on in horror as a bird swooped down and attacked it.

Fate.

charlesanto

Animals/Pet Issues hardly translates to animal lovers.

Thanks for the advise, I too am a animal lover and don't mean to offend anyone.
The mouse will get his playground seesaw, thanks again.

Blub2k4

newgrange wrote:

My brother had a mouse in the house a while ago. He didn't want to use the old style traps so he tracked down a humane one and waited ages for the mouse to go into it. He picked it up and carried it quite a distance to a piece of overgrown land nearby, released the mouse, only to look on in horror as a bird swooped down and attacked it.

Fate.

Lol, definitely bad luck.

peasant

Cheese doesn't really do it for mice ...apparently they're even lactose intolerant :rolleyes:

Peanut butter or the sticky inside of a mars bar are great bait though.

I'm all for the no-kill traps ...but I'm also very much for getting the mice out of the house.
They can do a lot of damage by chewing and gnawing in the most impossible and inaccessible places. Think about all the electrical wiring hidden in all the cavities that make up the mouse-hideouts ...and then think broken insulation ...short circuit and FIRE :eek:

So ..out they go ...

charlesanto

Freddie Field Mouse received his seesaw, primed with chocolate sauce at 1am. At 7am he was released safe and well. I got the trap in woodies but it was the last one.

Blub2k4

charlesanto wrote:

Freddie Field Mouse received his seesaw, primed with chocolate sauce at 1am. At 7am he was released safe and well. I got the trap in woodies but it was the last one.

Nice one Charlesanto, the traps are effective and no one lost their head

tallus

used one of thoe traps myself a number of years back, they work very well. The best thing to bait them with is the rind off a rasher, mice go MAD for it. Released mine miles from the house too..
Now I have a cat 'nuff said :-)

Blub2k4

tallus wrote:

Now I have a cat 'nuff said :-)

That is what I would call a natural remedy to the situation, it's darwinism, the smart fast ones will get away and your cat strengthens the herd so to speak

morgana

Right. So if cat brings in mouse, then looses it and mouse is now in house, but cat has lost all interest, how does Darwin come into this? . Hopefully other cat - who applies herself with much more vigor and dedication to her mice catching duties - will see to this mouse ...

tallus

He catches all ! including rabbits, rats and birds too. He's the most prolific hunter I have ever seen in any cat, no exhagerration he kicks ass, even scared a much larger dog off yesterday I laughed my ass off when I saw it.

Sigma Force

We're having fierce trouble with field mice, there is no decent wildlife or enough cats in the area to keep them under control and the offspring and coming into the house (old house).
While I have no problem with using the regular traps, hubby does esp. when one was still alive *yuk!* so we now use humane traps, you need to fill them with chocolate, they work just as well but you have to travel a bit to let them loose.

Mice can carry all sorts including meningitis they really drive me bonkers urgh!

tallus

a lot of US troops were afflicted with an unknown disease in certain areas during the Korean war in the 50's can't remember all of the details but the diseases were caused my mouse droppings that were disturbed as a result of constant shelling, that was in the countryside and I can't imagine out mice being any different

Blub2k4

tallus wrote:

a lot of US troops were afflicted with an unknown disease in certain areas during the Korean war in the 50's can't remember all of the details but the diseases were caused my mouse droppings that were disturbed as a result of constant shelling, that was in the countryside and I can't imagine out mice being any different

Are you sure they weren't using Depleted Uranium shells back then as well?

tallus

Blub2k4 wrote:

Are you sure they weren't using Depleted Uranium shells back then as well?

It was mouse sh*t they proved it beyond a doubt.

luckat

I caught a well-nourished mouse (+RIP+) in a trap the other day. My dog is hoovering around the cracks in the floor so I guess there's more.

I have the strongest objection to mice sharing my living quarters, because they pee as they go - they don't have a closed-off bladder, and the constant trail of drops of urine marks their way in a scent trail for them. This can transmit various infections to humans and other animals. They also bring in fleas.

What I'd like to know (and have asked on the DIY forum) is whether there's some way of seeing this trail, perhaps under UV light.

The trap was unbaited; my dog always manages to set off the baited ones, then licks up the jam, peanut butter, rasher rinds and other treats.

tallus

try keeping the dog in another room when the traps are baited ?

luckat

My mice are *smart*! I have traps all over the place, so the poor dog would be trapped in the hall all day.

Baldie

I trapped a rat this morning, with the old fashioned neck breaking traps. He was a good 6 inches long with a long wirey looking tail!! Yuch!!!

I opened the press under he sink yesterday and saw that he/she chewed a bottle of shoe polish to bits. The polish was all over the place. Anyway, down with two traps. One in the press and one under the press. He/she ate the rasher off the first trap in the press so i set it again. Checked this morning. The trap in the press was untouched. The trap under the press was gone!! I searched for it and it was under the cooker, rat intact! He tried to get out but failed miserably!! I must invest in some poisin now and make sure their is no more.

I know this is a animal lovers forum, but rats are horrible disease carring b*****ds!!!! I have a 6 year old son so Im only looking out for him.

Now i have to go home and scrub all the pots and plates and whatever else was in the low presses!! oh joy!!

iguana

What kind of traps did you use? Mousetraps or full sized rat ones? If you were just using mousetraps you should get the biiger ones.

You shouldn't really use poison though, the rat will eat it and then crawl away somewhere to die. It is likely it will be somewhere that you can't get it and it will stink the place out for about 6-8 weeks. Also if you have an attic with an open water tank it may fall into that while trying to get a drink, contaminating your hot water supply.

If you want to kill it you should look for something that kills them as humanely as possible. These are supposed to be excellent, www.ratmousezapper.com I was thinking of getting one for future use.

Baldie

I used a big rat trap which i got in B&Q. Hopefully there isn't any more anyway. I saw one run across the road last night. Hopefully that was his buddy, and he's f'd off to find another, less lethal house to live in!

dark_jedi_ire

Hiya All

As With Everyone here its seems we have a couple also,

We have tryed cheese and peanut butter but when We get up in the Morning and look At the traps the Cheese is gone or the peanut butter is gone,

??????

Doing our heads in

Using standard mouse traps,

Any other ideas?

Rob

iguana

Mice are quite clever. Get something like cooked bacon rind. Wrap it tightly around the spike/catch so that it will not release without a good tug. Pull at it yourself a few times before setting the trap.

Find a tight spot that you can wedge the trap into. Somewhere like between the fridge and the wall so that at at least both sides of the trap are surrounded. That way the mouse can only get at the food if they access it head on. If they can get at the side of the trap they can get away easier.

However there is also the option of this www.ratmousezapper.com which electrocutes the mouse/rat. I am considering getting this as I recently had mice, and occasionally the traps splatted the mouse. With the first one the mouse was lying in a pool of blood, and once I found a trap snapped with no mouse but when I went to re-set it there was blood soaked into the trap. My big problem is that I'm in an apartment building and the mice get in at the ground floor where the tenants are very dirty and even when I get rid of the mice in my apartment the ones on the bottom floor keep moving up through the cavaties.

dark_jedi_ire

Hiya All

Thanks for the Advise it worked , got some parma ham and rapped it around the bit on the mouse trap And within 30 minutes of laying traps we got one,

Havnt heard anymore scratching or moving about so fingers crossed it was just the one,

Sorry to everyone who is offended by using a real mouse trap but we didnt have much of a choice,

Thanks

Rob

Blub2k4

Baldie wrote:

I know this is a animal lovers forum, but rats are horrible disease carring b*****ds!!!! I have a 6 year old son so Im only looking out for him.

I'd qualify that by saying that wild rats can carry Weils disease which is not very pleasant. Captive stocks do not carry any diseases apart from a rat lung disease called myco (short name).

hadook

I've no problem with the use of lethal traps for mice & rats in a lot of circumstances & I take in/rehome pet ones. Wild mice & rats carry disease. They are a threat to people, dogs, cats & even other small rodenty pets.

Personally I tend not to use lethal traps - I have pet rodents. I don't use poison because I don't agree with it. If I notice a wild mouse in the garage I'll usually use a humane trap or JD - one of my cats. I'll attempt to (humanely) trap any rats I see but if I can't catch them then it's time for a lethal trap or the cat.

I don't have a problem with mice/rats in my house & am unlikely ever to. I have 7 indoor cats

dark_jedi_ire

Yeh We have guinue Pigs so We didnt want to use Any of the sonic stuff thats on the market , And this guy was everywhere in the house behind fish tanks And
cabinets etc, So We had to Wash down everything and after aweek of laying traps were where getting Concerned about health and safty As much As anything, So we went with the lethal traps,

ho hum,,,

had To be done,

Rob

craggel

Well we're having a bit of a problem with these little guys aswell. We had an extension put on last year and in the last three months we've had a lot of scratching going on under the floors, in the walls and ceilings of the new part of the house and a little under the floor of the old part of the house.
Anyway I have trouble accessing where the blighters are since the entire downstairs of the house has wooden flooring down and don't really want to start ripping that up just yet. I have a few small areas where I can get in (under the stairs etc.) and have had considerable success as I have caught about 8 mice and 2 rats! However there are more there as I can still hear some scratching behind the new kitchen presses. I paid a whopping 180 euro for some guy who came out and placed poison around the place. I checked one of these trays tonight only to find that all the poison was gone so it has been taken by them.
I've had the builder back out again trying to find where they are getting in and lo and behold there was an old drain pipe leading directly from the sewer to the underfloor of the extension. :mad: Anyway closed that up and I have since caught another Rat and two mice.
Firstly how possible is it that these feckers have set up camp under the house and if so do mice and rats tend to live in harmony together or am I still looking for another way that they are getting in? My original plan was to target the ones already there and then get a couple of the sonic deterrents and use them. At this stage I really need to get rid of them as we have two little boys and the thoughts of them playing in the house and these other dirty little gits running around is a tad worrying to say the least. Anyone any ideas?

hadook

Rats kill & eat mice so generally speaking they don't tend to live close together.

I really hate the thought of poison being used, especially around small kids & pets. Rats & mice are becoming immune to a lot of the "traditional" poisons due to overuse anyway. Also, rats will watch & learn so if one rat dies from eating poison the others in that rat family will avoid it. Lastly - if the rats & mice are poisoned & are living under your floor where are they going to die?

I'd suggest you search out all the ways the rats & mice are getting in, block them off & then trap every single one still in the house. Make sure all food is cleared away & kept rodent safe 24/7 (nothing in presses, breadbins, on counters etc. Everything sealed tight if possible) - that way the traps are the only source of food. I'd use a mix of humane & non humane traps - that way you'll get the trap shy rats too. Peanut butter is a good bait - as is rasher fat & cooked chicken.

Rats can eat through concrete so look for unexpected holes as well as pipes etc. If you do find any you'll need to get some wire (chicken wire etc), scrunch it up & stuff the hole before repairing it.

You need to stop this now - it's winter & they have heat & a food source. They will breed if allowed. Each female rat can raise a litter of 15 in 4 weeks. Each of those 15 is mature enough to breed at approx 4 weeks of age.

Have you considered a house cat btw?

Oh - I don't know how likely this is but if you know of anyone with a ferret ask them to bring it around & take a walk around the outside of your house with the ferret on a harness & leash. Ferret urine & poo is a wonderful rat deterrant. I've never met a ferret owner who had a problem with wild rats or mice

gonker

A mouse can get through any hole that you can get a ball point pen through so seal up even the tiniest holes....and get a cat seriously.

craggel

There goes the trap again and another mouse to add to the list.!!!!
Can't say I'm fond of cats but it's starting to sound like a plausible idea (the wife and kids would love it!!) The ferret thing sounds good also, unfortunately I don't know anyone with one. If any one out there fancies letting one off under my house for a couple of hours fun just give me a call:) .
As regards the the food side of it we keep the place pretty damn clean putting special effort into it (if thats possible) since the scratching started.
We have a dog for whats thats worth but to say that she's afraid of her shadow would be an understatement so not much of a deterrent there.
I've scoured the house for holes where they may be getting in and I think I've covered everything without going down the road of pulling up floors. I'm toying with the idea of getting some of those IR spy cams and shoving them down the back of the skirting to see what the hells going on down there.
Thanks for the advice and keep it coming - I'll try a few more things in the morning.
Cheers

gonker

My other half hated cats too. But we used to live in the country where a cat is nearly an essential part of the household so we got one from one of the farmers. Well... you should see him now since he has seen her in action. He loves her to bits. She is a great mouser.
We moved about a year ago and when we moved in the place was full of mice. Within a week there wasnt any left.
The other night I was pottering around the kitchen, cat following me getting under my feet when I walked past the patio doors the light was on in the kitchen and it was dark outside so I could see nothing outside but the cat stopped and started "barking" at the window (she was abandoned by her mother as a kitten and was raised with a collie poor pet thinks she is a dog she even barks when someone knocks at the door:D ).
I got a fright thinking there was someone in the garden so hubby comes in to the rescue and opens the patio door, cat flies out and sits looking up at the wall. There was a mouse climbing up the wall and she had seen it..... she got it....havent seen any since

boroughmal

The smart trap consists of a little slope with a razor blade across the top.
The mouse is so smart he runs up the ramp and shakes his head to & fro and sais " What no bloody cheeze"

dark_jedi_ire

hahaha funny,

Well got another one yesterday, seem to be coming in to the hotpress somehow, Anyone know What size holes these guys Can get through?

Am getting some expanding foam and going for all the tiny holes I can find at the weekend.

Cheers

Rob

hadook

Mice can fit between the bars on a standard hamster cage - so anything from a half inch to an inch gap should be enough for them to get in.

Rats need more space but not by much. A young rat would easily get through a 2-3" gap.

dark_jedi_ire

Righto,

Thanks for that, Will have to investigate more into it,

Didnt get any last year, So ,. but did get the oil heating in this year so maybe there is a Small gap Somewhere, that needs attention

Thanks again

Rob

gonker

Rats can get in through half inch openings....scary half an inch.....:eek:

Sigma Force

We have a fierce porblem with mice at the moment, it's gotten out of hand it's not just the occasional one now we are infested and it's not funny anymore, we do use the humane traps but they are too smart for them and to be honest they don't work that well in catching them. There is however a humane mouse trap called a trip trap that works a lot better but can be hard to get your hands on think it's available online. We now have to use a combination of humane, regular traps and unfortunelty a small amount of poison in non occupied sheds. I don't like using the poison it was a last resort and has to be carefully used as it's nasty stuff obviously pets and children can be at risk if it's left willy nilly and cats or wildlife could consume a poisoned rodent. However our problem is that there are no cats to kill the mice hence the infestation. Not that cats are always the most humane way esp. if they like to play with half dead mice. The regular traps are one of the most humane ways to kill a mouse it's quickly done esp. if you sellotape the bait to the trap. It's not a pleasant buisness at all though.
We currently have them in the sheds, in the attic, in the kids room, in our room in the sitting room in fact every room bar the bathroom at the moment. It's gone so out of control that I was going to get in some professionals.
If living esp. in the countryside your bound to get them but with no cats in our area..well ok theres one a few fields down and unfortunetly not much wildlife eg owls and foxes around here and no cats of our own plus having lots of pets outselves where no matter how well you clean there is always going to be bits of seed dropped etc.
They are doing my head in, the also spread all sorts including salmonella and meningitis so a rodent infestation is no joke.
They can also spread diseases to your own pets. I have wee pet rodents and guineapigs, rabbits, birds etc so it's I don't like having to do it but one of those things I guess.

morgana

GPR, we have some stuff called eradirat (got it in the local coop and is also available for mice) which claims to work by dehydrating the animal. It is non-poisonous (maize based) and safe to use around farm animals and domestic pets. There is no danger of secondary poisoning. We haven't had reason to use it yet but it sounds plausible. It is a foodstuff to be taken by the little buggers and won't kill them immediately. How well they actually take it and its success rate I can't say. But it might be worth a try.

RotalicaV

We get alot of mice in work during winter, we bought these like shoe polish tins, you open and are fillied with poison. Apparently it won't kill them till they've eaten it, then drank water.. so they die outside. It worked really well anyway.