When I lived in a trailer in a forest, field mice were regular visitors. I used snap-traps.
I only used a glue trap once, reluctantly. I had one mouse that, apparently, was snap-trap street-smart, and simply would not take the bait. At least, I’m pretty sure it was just one mouse. I finally broke down and got a glue trap, which caught that guy. It was thoroughly pitiful seeing the mouse (still alive, I thought) stuck in the trap. He seemed to be saying “Oh please, Mr. Huge Predator, just eat me now and be done with me.”
Do not depend on cats to fix the problem. I used to live in small place with the cat food about 10 feet away from the my bed. The same bed that the cats slept on. Wanna know how I learned that I had rodents in my home? Because of the rodent shit in their food dish. Fucking rats were having a party in my bathroom while we were all sleeping.
Terriers are great ratters, but they also like to sleep with their people, so the rats might be eating their food and pooping in their dishes as well.
I vote for snap-traps. And for stopping them from coming into your house. I understand that steel wool is good to stuff around the pipes and whatnot.
I’ve had some success with the battery-powered electronic traps. The mice are lured into a black box where they are instantly electrocuted. A happy little LED light blinks to alert you that there’s a dead mouse inside, and you pop the lid and dump it into the trash. Then it’s ready for the next guest.
Would repelling unwanted rodents be considered “getting rid of”? If so, is there some sort of sonic repellent that plays some super or sob sonic frequency the self propelled plague vectors don’t like?
although i have only caught 2 of these furry little fucks and now they can get in and out of the trap, eat all the bait (sunflower seeds), and even set the thing off. i run upstairs when i hear the doors slam shut and somehow they have pulled a houdini and there is nothing in there.
these things are destroying my home so i will probably just end up poisoning them and putting up with a smell for a week or 2.
Snap traps work. Years ago at my business I had an employee who was unhappy that I was using snap traps for mice. I relented and bought several expensive little stainless steel solid walled “humane” traps. I told her it was her job to monitor and maintain the traps, releasing the mice at a distant location. She eventually stopped checking them. When the odor got my attention, what I found inside the boxes was hideous.
When you say ‘rodent’ are you talking about rats or mice?
Rats will decaptiate mice and eat particular organs, kind of looks like the mouse has been dissected. Rats should take care of your mouse problems! :smack:
Interesting thread, as I just last week dealt with a mouse problem, for the first time.
After a couple of random sightings early in the morning, it finally found the pantry, and I started finding droppings and packages gnawed on, contents sampled. I repackaged everything into airtight containers, but it eventually returned (droppings as evidence). I never located the entry into the house, but we started encountering the mouse in the pantry in the early morning (s/he would drop to the floor and scram to some darkened corner).
I even tried to catch the bugger with a towel - once s/he escaped, turned around to look at me (taunting me!), and scampered to a dark corner under furniture). The store-bought non-lethal trap did not work at all (the family insisted on trying to capture it rather than kill it).
Finally, I created one of those home-made 5-gallon bucket traps (youtube has plenty of designs). Caught the bugger on the first night, drove s/he about a mile past the edge of town (at least a couple miles from home), and dropped it off on the way to work. Funny that as it ran away into the weeds, it stopped to turn and look at me (like it did before escaping a couple nights prior), but this time, I got to say “Gotcha!”.
This is incorrect. Barn cats need to be fed, otherwise they will forage further from the barn to find food. This makes them less efficient in the barn.
House cats are only good hunters if they have been taught to hunt by their mother. It takes about 12 weeks for a kitten to be taught to hunt properly and most people remove kittens from their mother around 8 weeks. Not to mention that the mother might not have been taught properly either. Besides, how many opportunities does a house cat have to teach her kittens to kill mice or bugs?
If you want to start a different thread, I’m sure that many of the well educated cat people could explain how felines teach their kittens. I’m not going to hijack this thread to do it.
Terriers are great rat hunters, and most of the ones I’ve seen in action are very well fed and prized house pets.
I didn’t say don’t feed them. Case in point, I put my cat on a diet recently and she actually caught a mouse tonight, in the office. I can take pics if you want proof. She’s not happy about the diet but while she is a big cat, she’s just a little too big.
Snap traps may work well for mice, but for larger rats, I’ve had limited success with the large snap traps. Several of the rats were just badly injured and had to be dispatched manually while struggling in the trap. One left large blood splatters all around the floor surrounding the trap. Have caught 3 rat tails, but the now-tailless rats escaped.
The electrocutioning trap has worked the best as far as dispatching quickly and humanely, plus there’s no mess, just empty it into the garbage. The brand I have is called the Raticator.
With stuff like rodents, you can’t displace them “somewhere else” as they expand, live, and breed in areas with food. So, unfortunately, the only real way to get rid of them is to kill them.
Snap traps along the sides of the wall under furniture.
The quality of the traps may be an issue, We had a couple of cheaper brand mouse traps that I could hear go off and I would immediately go check out what we caught and a couple of times I found a mouse writhing around near and even not so neat the traps, bleeding and eventually they would die or I would step on them and kill them.
We have a galvanized live trap here, it works well. I asked the boss what he does when there is a mouse/mice in it and he said he flushes them down the toilet. Not sure if that’s the most humane way to get rid of them but they don’t seem to have much regard for my anguish when they eat and spoil my food and chew holes in my clothes and piss and shit all over everything I own so to hell with them.
On the whole cat thing - my sister, at one time, had 5 cats in the house - and a house full of mice.
she thought the humane traps (setting the mice loose outback) was the right thing - I told her she was just training the mice and they were inviting thier friends over for a free snack and a ride.
Totally agree on the glue traps - they should be banned - I’m not entirely sure what purpose they serve that a good snap trap can’t do better at (maybe catching more per a single instance of the trap? letting the rest of the mouse population know you’re mean?)
snap traps are the way to go - with peanut butter.
I’ve used glue traps as a sentry for re-infestation. When mice are a problem, I use snap traps until I’ve eliminated the infestation. A single glue trap can then sit somewhere for years. When a mouse is caught, it’s time to put out snap traps again.
