Rat and mouse traps

[goeduck]

Looks like a quart Mason jar and a length of heat riser hose... Care to elaborate a bit on it. I'm all about new and progressive ways to eradicate meeces..... I take it they 'get a bath' when they get inside, in some liquid...Beer maybe?

Water I assume, same as a bucket trap. The water is too deep to stand on the bottom and the sides are too slick to climb. So it is a matter of how long they can swim.

In his invention the mice must be trying to escape out the hose and do not know that the jar has water in the bottom. Plunk...

 

[CADplans]

Looks like a quart Mason jar and a length of heat riser hose... Care to elaborate a bit on it. I'm all about new and progressive ways to eradicate meeces..... I take it they 'get a bath' when they get inside, in some liquid...Beer maybe?

That is a half gallon jar, 1/3 full of water. The Ketch All Drowning Attachment is a coil tube, (wire) that leads to a mason jar lid.
The mice just jump in, thinking it is an escape.
The Drowning Attachment is an option that goes on the KetchAll trap, both are on Amazon
If you do not use the drowning attachment, the KetchAll box just fills, then, you get cannibalism,, etc.,,, it is a mess,,,

I think you are supposed to toss the trap in a bucket of water periodically,, to drown the mice that are still alive,,
This is better, no mess, the trap stays almost spotless,, the mice want out of that trap, as soon as possible.

 

[CADplans]

In his invention the mice must be trying to escape out the hose and do not know that the jar has water in the bottom. Plunk...

I did not invent it, but, I own several,, and PLUNK it correct, they can not tell what is down there, but, they DO NOT want to go back to the steel box,,

so , they go forward,,,

I have one in a building that I worried about freezing, and breaking the Mason jar.
I connected the lid to a 6 foot length of PVC,, down they go,,, I slip a small piece of paper towel across the mason jar opening, (through the coiled wire).
Then, the mouse goes through the paper, I know I got one,,,

Recently, I have been using a 3" length of the plastic (POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS!!) tape.
The mouse just pushes that out of the way enough to get past, then, I can use the piece of plastic ribbon tape again.

 

[CADplans]

True, for me mosquito bites are irritating ,,,,,,,,,,,,

I gotta ask, what's the contraption with the 5 gallon water jug and ABS fitting behind the mouse trap?

That is basically a "U" made out of various plastic plumbing parts that I bought at Lowes.

I put the "U" through the wall, into the chicken coop. That is the front of our chicken coop, where we store the feed.
Well, it is sized just right, that the water runs out of the 5 gallon jug, and fills the "U" shaped trap to within 1/2" of the top on the inside.

When the chickens drink the water down low enough, some air will get into the jug, letting a small amount of water into the "U" shaped trap, ready to be drank down, again.

It works perfect,, I saw a miniature version of this that was a dog waterer,, I just Super-Sized it to the 5 gallon size.

The fitting that you can see is either 3 or 4 inch,, I reduced it down to 1 1/4" on the inside,
Since the inside is so small, it stays perfectly clean.

This "U" WILL NOT WORK outside where mosquitoes can get to it,,,
If you put it outside, within 2 weeks in the summer, the five gallon jug will be full of mosquito larvae,,

I seems, that the mosquitoes do not like to go inside the hen house,,, or the feed storage area,,

Luckily, where we live, the jug almost never freezes.

 

[ruffdog]

The Ketch-all trap....interesting:

 

[CADplans]

A side note on the Ketch-All,, DO NOT,,, DO NOT,,, DONOT,,, buy the one with the clear lid

There is one guy on Amazon that is selling the trap with a clear lid, and it is a knock-off,, cheaply made,,
He states in the AD that it is KetchAll,, It is not! That one DOES NOT WORK!

I complained to Amazon, but, he is still on there, I had to pay return postage to get my money back.

The only way I know of getting a real one is to get the metal top one from Amazon, with the Drowning Attachment in the same AD,,

Also, sometimes, Ketch-All Company directly sells it on WALMART.COM,, I have purchased successfully there also.

 

[ruffdog]

You can buy a real Ketch-all with either a metal OR clear plastic lid.

Ketch-All(R) Multiple-Catch Mousetrap | Kness

 

[CADplans]

You can buy a real Ketch-all with either a metal OR clear plastic lid.

Ketch-All(R) Multiple-Catch Mousetrap | Kness

The vendor that sold me the fake currently has an ad for a large quantity on Amazon, at only $15 per trap,,,

Maybe he is selling real ones,, now, who knows,,,

 

[RalphVa]

Living rural it seems that you never get 100% mouse/rat free.
When we bought the property there was a number of old sheds that had dozens of rats inhabiting them. We knocked the sheds down and knocked off a lot of rats with air guns but traps just did not work.
We tried cage traps and snap traps but the cunning sods managed to remove the bait without setting off the traps.
Anyway, the population was controlled but there is always a mouse or rat somewhere and unfortunately my barn has a dirt floor and they create burrows and because I have so much junk in the barn, (good junk) it is impossible to completely eradicate them.
Poison does work to a certain degree but they carry it and unfortunately one of my dogs was found chewing a bait one day which necessitated a visit to the vet. She was OK after treatment and going on vitamins for several weeks but since then my wife has put a ban on all baits.
I often see something scurrying away when I enter the barn and lately there have been holes dug around our aviary.
I saw RED!
I did some research and raced up to our local Bunnings and bought an electronic rat trap. Not cheap but I had thought of trying to build one myself but never got around to it. (as usual)
I sat the trap near the aviary and first morning 2 dead mice in it. I checked it again before I went to bed and another dead mouse. Wow! These things work.
Best trap I've ever used . I used a tiny bit of jam roll cake in the trap and it seems they love it.
Starting to think there are no rats now, only mice. I hope this is the case but you never know.
Anyway I just want to give the electronic traps a plug after years of trying to persevere with the mechanical devices with little success.
They must be popular as they had over 50 of them in stock.

RATSAK Electronic Rat Trap | Bunnings Warehouse

Good to know.

We use gum drops on traps for mice. Learned that from an old Vermonter.

Wife put out some glue traps in the crawl space to catch some snakes. Of course, the snakes take care of the mice, but we're getting too many snakes. One got into the fan of our HVAC circulator and died hanging there.

 

[5030]

Ordered up the real thing plus the drowining accessory against my wife's wishes off course. I said to her, what is the difference, a snapped neck from my Victor spring traps or drowning and she said a broken neck is quicker...

I don't much care actually either way is termination. Drowning is kind of like mouse waterboarding with a twist....lol

 

[two_bit_score]

With the 4 cats we have now I don’t have any mice, rat, gopher or mole problems.

 

[5030]

Your census count is low (compared to ours), 10 in the house and 15 outside. My issue is, no cats in the shop allowed and the meeces seem to know that. Don't do cats in there. Have some bad habits like whizzing on stuff and puking in the middle of the floor that I inadvertently step in so no cats in there.

Wife and cats came with each other. If I had my way, cats would be extinct.

 

[CADplans]

I don't much care actually either way is termination. Drowning is kind of like mouse waterboarding with a twist....lol

Tell her, that I know from first hand experience,, that mice swim about as good as Fat Albert!!
IT is FAST :thumbsup:

 

[rangerfredbob]

Wife got some firewood yesterday and informed me there's rats in the back woodshed again... so loaded up my two rat trap boards with peanut butter... we'll see what they do tonight... This evening I'm going to try to make another mouse trap board, the Tomcat wood traps are for whatever reason out of season or something, they're usually $.50 a piece and now they're around $1, the 2 pack on Amazon is cheaper than any other option out there right now. I don't like the Victor traps, the schelac on the Tomcat make them last longer, and the lever seems to be easier to set.

 

[goeduck]

Tell her, that I know from first hand experience,, that mice swim about as good as Fat Albert!!
IT is FAST :thumbsup:

Tell that to the rat who (when I lived in the city for a short time) came up the toilet from the sewer line. Dogs kept going to the toilet wondering what the noise was (lid down). Rat was treading water. I opened up the lid and OH CARP.

Grabbed an aluminum bar and crushed its rib cage and flushed it. I recall not wanting to use a broomstick in case it clawed its way out.

 

[rangerfredbob]

That was quick... one mouse and one rat... and here's the rat trap version of my trap boards, same size board as the mouse trap version but only fits 7 traps, I need to make another, I think I have enough traps. I kinda like the Bigfoot brand from Amazon, they're plywood and more similar to the Tomcat traps, the plastic seems to be more durable than the Victor traps (as you can see, one of each) since half the Victor have broken bait V's or catches, all of the Bigfoot are intact. Reset the traps, we'll see if I catch any more...

 

[CADplans]

That was quick... one mouse and one rat... and here's the rat trap version of my trap boards,

I built a couple, that is a variation of that,,
It is a board, slightly over one trap wide, the board is about 6 traps long,, then I cut 3 pieces of plywood (maybe 3/8",, ?) also 6 traps long.

Nail the 3 pieces of plywood to the trap width board, (I used a pneumatic stapler) to form a tunnel.
The tunnel must be high enough for the trap swinging bar to rotate, but, not much too tall.

Mice love to go in tunnels, put some peanut butter near the middle.

I have caught 3 mice before I had a chance to reset the traps.
If the mouse gets near the middle, and one of the traps goes off without catching it, the mouse runs so fast, it gets caught by another trap.

I put it along the wall in the garage.

You can take the entire tunnel outside, dump the traps, reset the traps, and slide them (carefully) back into the tunnel.

I haven't done it yet, but, I may drill a small hole in the middle of the top, so I can add peanut butter through the hole.

 

[Jstpssng]

I was out with a biologist a while back and made the comment about snakes eating mice. He said "not as many as people think". I don't know if he meant snakes in general, or just our common garter snakes.

 

[JK22]

Got barn cats 2 years ago. Best employees I’ve ever had. No more mice. Voles seem to be gone too.

Before cats, I would catch mice with traps for the first night or two. Then none for a couple weeks, even though I’d still be seeing droppings. I’m convinced those rodents are smarter than we think and the traps just catch the stupid ones.

 

[goeduck]

Voles chew off my fruit trees below ground. Hate them.