Trapping mice by launching them

[KestrelMerlin]

When we moved into our new house, the builder left a small gap around the Bilco door entrance. I didn't even notice it until I saw that we had some mice in our poured concrete basement. I sealed it up and used spring traps and glue traps and got rid of them.

Later, we caught a mouse in the kitchen. It may have come in through the garage door when someone came in the house. Got it with a glue trap.

I've had glue traps in the basement and upstairs, and we had no problems for months, but tonight, a young mouse ran across the living room floor and behind the china cupboard. I have NO idea how it got in.

I couldn't get to it, so I set glue traps at both ends of the cupboard, and then decided to set some spring traps elsewhere in case there were siblings. Baited them with peanut butter.

On a whim, I set one of the spring traps about 6 inches away from one glue board. While I was setting the other traps, I heard the first one snap. My wife saw it out of the corner of her eye. The trap threw the mouse in the air, and it landed on the glue board.

I searched this board for other posts about trapping mice, but I didn't find them.

Any words of wisdom about setting different kinds of traps? Somehow, this last mouse evaded my glue boards, and I want to be SURE that there are none of the little varmints left in the house.

 

[MIKE R]

I use raisins on the spring traps. They grab the raisin pull on it and WHAM its squashed mouse for supper. With peanut butter they are able to lick it off without tripping the spring. I have never used the glue traps. I do like the live wind up traps, that you catch them then release them somewhere else, a few extra winds on the spring and it launches them into the trap (trash compactor) with such great force it does them in on impact with the back panel of the box.

 

[Combustix]

Got a pair of outdoor cats. I will hear a mouse in the walls or attic and a day or two later I find the dead mouse don't even know we're my traps are anymore

 

[MacTractor]

While waiting to build our house we were living in an older house that turned out be infested with mice. It was nightmare as there were just too many holes and gaps in the house to ever get rid of them, so I ended up becoming an expert in killing them. Normally I am as much as an animal lover as possible, but when you find mice poop in your 3 year older bed, things change pretty quickly. I felt bad in the beginning, in the end I was just pissed off.

I must have killed 50 or more in the year or so we were there..

What did I learn?

1.. Peanut butter is best plain and simple.
2.. Live traps were hit and miss and in the end are alot of work. The good part of the larger ones is that once 1 goes in, more will follow.
3.. The best traps were the snap traps with the flat yellow surface that is actually sticky. These were basically were the top dog for me.
4.. Use as little peanut butter as possible, as too much feeds them most times without going off.
5.. Putting them along the wall a half an inch from the wall with the yellow slab facing the wall was key.
6.. See poop, put a trap there.
7.. Change the pb every 2 days. It needs to smell fresh.

The really sad part was that I actually had killed several of them by smacking them with my bare hands. Not a high point in my life but when you wake up hearing them in the room with you, turn on the light and they are runningfor the door. Blam!

Btw, you need to find out how they are getting in.... They did not follow someone through a door as they typically avoid contact. Start with every door and then check the sill plate all the way around the house. I did this but gave up after burning through 4 cans of sprayfoam.

I can say though, this experience made me so conscious when building our new home. A hole the size of some dime can be enough....

 

[dave1949]

Never tried raisins, I can see how that would work. I've had better luck with cheese than peanut butter in the spring traps.

Steel wool stuffed in cracks is a good deterrent for mice. I guess they don't like to chew that.

 

[MasseyWV]

While waiting to build our house we were living in an older house that turned out be infested with mice. It was nightmare as there were just too many holes and gaps in the house to ever get rid of them, so I ended up becoming an expert in killing them. Normally I am as much as an animal lover as possible, but when you find mice poop in your 3 year older bed, things change pretty quickly. I felt bad in the beginning, in the end I was just pissed off.

Like you, I love animals as much as the next person, but when it comes to mice I'm a cold blooded killer. Thankfully, now that we have 4 cats (two indoor and two outdoor) mice don't stand a chance around here.

 

[boggen]

glue traps and spring traps here. for what ever reason, the goldfish/koi pellet food, for the downstairs pond, draws mice, compared to anything else in my house, and i end up having to place traps around the jug i keep the food in. heck i got the dryer setup a couple inches away from wall and anything else, and mice still find a way to "jump" about a foot to get onto dryer (even baby mice), to get to the food, and then BAM!, they get a glue or spring trap, perhaps a couple traps on them.

i actually gave up trying to put anything on spring traps, to much trouble. and i just let the smell of the goldfish/koi pellet food draw them up on top of the dryer. no clue why it happens, it just works for me. if i end up catching a female mice, i end up having to put a couple glue traps up against a wall, around a 90 degree corner that sticks out, say a doorway, or corner of a cupboard on the floor. so the babies will more likely run across the glue trap. vs running around it as they hug the sides.

 

[94BULLITT]

Get a cat.

 

[sixdogs]

This year I have been determined to inflict as much damage as possible by trapping as many as them as I could. Surely in two barns I'm up to 70 or so and as soon as we get a little warm weather they start to move and I catch more. Peanut butter works for me and it really isn't all that fresh at times.

Some do indeed get launched when they are on the spring part of the traps when they go off. I usually find the carcass about 15 ft away. Mice seem to die pretty easy and it seems you can scare them to death.

Anyway, the body count is climbing and I'm determined to make a real dent in their population.

 

[scobrado]

My barn is open on two sides. So to keep the mice from moving into my tractor, I keep a bucket trap like this: Making a 5 gal. bucket mouse trap. - YouTube

It's a volume operation. The fresh PB works great.

 

[turnkey4099]

While waiting to build our house we were living in an older house that turned out be infested with mice. It was nightmare as there were just too many holes and gaps in the house to ever get rid of them, so I ended up becoming an expert in killing them. Normally I am as much as an animal lover as possible, but when you find mice poop in your 3 year older bed, things change pretty quickly. I felt bad in the beginning, in the end I was just pissed off.

I must have killed 50 or more in the year or so we were there..

What did I learn?

1.. Peanut butter is best plain and simple.
2.. Live traps were hit and miss and in the end are alot of work. The good part of the larger ones is that once 1 goes in, more will follow.
3.. The best traps were the snap traps with the flat yellow surface that is actually sticky. These were basically were the top dog for me.
4.. Use as little peanut butter as possible, as too much feeds them most times without going off.
5.. Putting them along the wall a half an inch from the wall with the yellow slab facing the wall was key.
6.. See poop, put a trap there.
7.. Change the pb every 2 days. It needs to smell fresh.

The really sad part was that I actually had killed several of them by smacking them with my bare hands. Not a high point in my life but when you wake up hearing them in the room with you, turn on the light and they are runningfor the door. Blam!

Btw, you need to find out how they are getting in.... They did not follow someone through a door as they typically avoid contact. Start with every door and then check the sill plate all the way around the house. I did this but gave up after burning through 4 cans of sprayfoam.

I can say though, this experience made me so conscious when building our new home. A hole the size of some dime can be enough....

Spray foam doesn't work. I used it onlyi to find a hole eaten right through it.

Amazing how small a hole a mouse can use. I saw one go through a slightly wider than normal mortar seam in the concrete block basement wall

To maintain a mouse free (mostly) house in the country, I keep D-Con bait trays in the basement, closets and under the couch. Oddly, while I find the occasional deceased (and very desiccated body), I never smell anything. Last carpet clearner found one dead mouse under the couch. I sit right next to that couch every day and never smelled even a hint.

I also keep a D-Con bait tray in the car trunk and under the front seat after finding the roll of papert towels chewed up. I can do without mouse-chewed wiring.

Harry K

 

[MacTractor]

I forgot to mentione that I was stuffing steel wool in the hole then sprayfoam. I found one hole at the sillplate that I could get my arm into. In the end I found that there was a wall that the sheeting had turned to powder due to constant water damage. It was not our place, so we either had to find another place or just put up with it until we had the new house built.

I had some success with the glue traps but was tired of finding them alive and having to kill them.

Spray foam doesn't work. I used it onlyi to find a hole eaten right through it.

Amazing how small a hole a mouse can use. I saw one go through a slightly wider than normal mortar seam in the concrete block basement wall

To maintain a mouse free (mostly) house in the country, I keep D-Con bait trays in the basement, closets and under the couch. Oddly, while I find the occasional deceased (and very desiccated body), I never smell anything. Last carpet clearner found one dead mouse under the couch. I sit right next to that couch every day and never smelled even a hint.

I also keep a D-Con bait tray in the car trunk and under the front seat after finding the roll of papert towels chewed up. I can do without mouse-chewed wiring.

Harry K

 

[Biggreenavalanche]

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/240132-mice-my-cabin.html

Take a look at this thread...bucket method def works, I just didn't use water...

Rich

 

[Mike1369]

For those that are not a cat person like myself, get a rat terrier. We don't have any mice or rats but she loves to bring me the crazy ones that come across our yard to go to our neighbors.

Her record to date is
6 rats
3 squirrels
2 birds
And she has her eyes set on a big @$$ possum.

 

[Dutch445]

I have many of those critters around also, not so many in this house, but the garage and shop buildings
have quite a few. I get them in my camper and boat, so i have been setting traps inside the
cabinets in the camper and i get quite a few that way, just can't figure out where they are getting in
after i sealed everything up so well.
i did try the pail once, just didn't stick with it, so i just use the spring traps and peanut butter.
if they are in the area, they get trapped and i refill till i don't get any for a while.

 

[sdkubota]

You need to look and see how they are getting in and I doubt it is through an open door. A mouse can squeeze through a 1/4" gap...their skulls are even hinged so they can collapse. I run a trap line in my garage with 6 spring traps and peanut butter. I have to set the trigger to a hair setting otherwise they lick the peanut butter off the trap without setting it.

 

[Deere Dude]

No mice in the sealed up house but many in my pole shed and a few in the camper, but a lot of them in the wood piles.

What I did was set about 20 spring traps in the shed and a few in the bay of the camper and inside the camper. I used peanut butter mostly but I like the raisin idea.

What I caught by far the most mice with was using a 5 gal. bucket with water about 3/4 full. I set about 2 or 3 of them by the woodpile and near the garden and in the garage. I take a 1x4 and make a ramp to the top of the bucket. I take a couple handfuls of cheapo sunflower seeds and throw them in the bucket and sprinkle them on the board and on the ground near the board to coax them up. They jump right in the bucket. I have pretty much cleared all the mice and chipmunks from around here doing that from summer until fall. Every few days I have to throw another handful of seeds in the bucket and every few weeks dump them out. I have caught maybe up to 8 mice in one bucket over a 2 day period.

This last fall I only got one in a spring trap and the rest with the buckets.

 

[unbidden]

Google " bucket to trap mice" and you'll get a ton of hits and videos.

Or get one of these guys (see my avatar). I have 2 in my barn, 5 in the house.

 

[xtn]

...their skulls are even hinged so they can collapse.

LOL what? No they aren't.

xtn

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

I use bacon fat on the spring traps, works much better for me. I've tried PB, raisins, cheese, dog kibble (why not, they seem to eat it from the bag?) The bacon fat works best, plus I get breakfast out of it. When baiting, I put some on the bottom of the trigger also.

I've tried glue traps, live traps and poison also. There's something re-assuring about actually seeing them dead to know you are having an impact.