# Mice and cheese **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285 "2000-09-23T18:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Scribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribe)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/1 "2000-09-23T18:46:29Z")
Is cheese really a favorite mouse food, or are there things to eat that your average mouse likes much more? Is the “mice love cheese” idea just folklore? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/2 "2000-09-23T18:58:05Z")
I’ve always heard that peanut butter was your best bet for baiting traps. I’m sure that mice will eat cheese given the opportunity, but it’s by no means their favorite. In the wild, their diet consists mostly of seeds. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/3 "2000-09-23T19:00:25Z")
but saying “Cheeeeeesy Mice” makes you smile 😃 Seriously, IME, rodents will eat just about anything, including paper. The peanut butter sticks real well to the traps (those pesky corn nuts slid right off). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/4 "2000-09-23T19:00:25Z")
Well, they don’t turn it down when it’s offered to them. We’ll throw some cheese in with a mouse that’s just had babies to help her keep up her calcium and stuff. The mice go after it pretty thoroughly. As to why mice are associated with cheese in literature, I would guess that it was a matter of opportunity. People eat bread within a day or so of cooking it. Fresh vegetables are also eaten pretty swiftly (root cellars nothwithstanding). Other foods that were kept a long time tended to be stored in clay jars or other containers that were somewhat mouse-proof. (Hard) cheese, on the other hand, was simply coated with wax (if that) and set on shelves–a pretty tempting target for mice. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/5 "2000-09-23T19:56:14Z")
When I first moved into this house I noticed mice were gnawing on my Ivory soap bars and leaving marks with their tiny teeth. since then I have baited all my mousetraps with soap and it is very effective. They can smell the stuff from miles away and it will not go bad so I routinely set traps in hidden places even though I have no infestation. Just ready for their arrival. When a mouse wanders into the house it is trapped and does not have the opportunity to go and tell the rest of the family it found such a nice place for all of them to live. I also thought of putting up notices saying “any rodents caught in this house shall be required to pay rent” but I wasn’t shure it would hold up in court 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/6 "2000-09-23T20:59:26Z")
I find that a little bit of dry oatmeal sprinkled on the trap works even better than peanut butter. Maybe the mice around here read that PB is used as bait and avoid it. Cheese does not work nearly as well as either. Anise is said to attract mice, but I’ve never tried it. ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/7 "2000-09-23T22:25:10Z")
From **tomndebb** > [@](#): > > We’ll throw some cheese in with a mouse that’s just had babies to help her keep up her calcium and stuff. The mice go after it pretty thoroughly. Judas H!! That’s where these little bastards are all coming from. **STOP** feeding them Tom and Deb. They’re vicious, mean, vile, little creatures that need to die! Why on God’s green, mouse infested, earth, are you feeding them? **Stop it!!** ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/8 "2000-09-23T22:26:16Z")
The pet mice I had as a kid ignored cheese. They loved sunflower seeds, though. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/9 "2000-09-23T23:14:30Z")
Get an uncut loaf of bread at the bakery. Make a whole along the middle inside of it. They love to make a house from it by eating it some more. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/10 "2000-09-25T17:59:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by coffeecat \* > \*\*The pet mice I had as a kid ignored cheese. They loved sunflower seeds, though. \*\* My guess is that mice by nature are omnivorous scavengers which would tend to favor high protein and fat containing foods including many sorts of cheesy comestibles. Coffeecat, I imagine your mice didn’t eat cheese because they either had just gorged on sunflower seeds, or anticipated getting them in the near future. They’re not all that stupid… ---
**Author:** ![Nimue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Nimue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nimue)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/11 "2000-09-25T18:23:59Z")
I’ve always heard that mice in general don’t particularly like cheese, but really go for a mixture of peanut butter and bacon. ---
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/12 "2000-09-25T18:34:36Z")
I have the sneeking suspicion that the idea that mice like cheese comes more from the fact that in much earlier times you were more likely to have cheese to bait traps with than, say, Ivory soap. ---
**Author:** ![Tabithina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f04885/32.png) [@Tabithina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabithina)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/13 "2000-09-25T19:49:05Z")
Peanut butter is the “last meal” of choice for the mice that sometimes invade our home in the fall. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mice-and-cheese/34285/14 "2000-09-25T20:56:18Z")
For what it’s worth, in a compendium of little-known facts, I recall reading that the most-favored flavor for mice is that of lemon drops. Bet it’d be hard to bait a trap with a lemon drop, though.