New way to catch a mouse.

[John White]

Sometimes I think mice are pretty smart critters. I have a cat that rides with me to work every day and rlde's in the truck for service calls. I have a bowel for her that I put dry cat food in. She will always leave a few pieces. I begin to notice that she was cleaning up the bowel (I thought) So I got to making sure when we home at night that all the cat was gone but it wasn't. Next morning it was gone so I knew I had a mouse. A few years ago I started up the generator in my MH and about 5 lbs of cat food came out of the exhaust pipe. So I set out poison right next to the cat dish. Cat wont bother it. Mouse would not take the bait. I got a trap and set it inside the cat bowel and it would still get the cat food but not get caught. So I took a pint jar, cut a small hole ( about 1" ) and put cat food in the back and set the trap in front. Don't ask me how but the mouse would still get the cat food and not get caught or set off the trap. So I put peanut butter on the trigger and some how the mouse would get the cat food and not get caught. So I glued a piece of cat food on the trigger. Came in the other morning and had my mouse. But when the trap went off it just barley caught him by his toe. It looked up at me and just smiled. "what next". I didn't have the heart to kill it so on the way I released it in a open field so now he has to face the foxes, coyotes and owls. I have been thinking about fixing up a couple of jars and setting them in my tractor building here at home. I have traps, and poison set out but never catch any mice and I know they are there. Might make up the 5 gal bucket with the water trap and try it. I told the cat to quit conspiring with the mice.

 

[oosik]

I think you might have hit upon a "truth". Your cat and the mice have formed an alliance. I've had an outside barn cat for two months now. The cat just arrived from - where ???? - one afternoon. This cat was "H*ll on four paws" for the first month. Then it would come to the door and meow. I set out food & water and the cat indulged. Finally I realized there are no more mice in my yard, in my vehicles, in my out buildings and the cat is hungry.

So, now the cat patrols and gets food & water. Has a very nice Tupperware "cat box". Complete with soft quilt.

 

[jaxs]

I hadn't seen a mouse around my place in years then the other day out of nowhere one appeared. Shrewd devil has eluded all efforts to trap him. Were I not old and slow,I could capture him with my hand since his bum foot really slow's him down.:mouse:

 

[drssg]

That is a smart mouse. He was probably back in your truck the following morning.

 

[EddieWalker]

When we got chickens, we started to notice mice. As our chicken numbers increased, all of a sudden, we had a massive mouse problem. The only predator that came around to deal with the mice where snakes, and that was even worse!!! That year I killed almost 30 snakes, and my wife got a dozen. We've had cats, they sort of just show up for awhile, then disappear. We tried every trap out there, and some worked better then others, but we never made a dent in the population. The mice would dig tunnels under the coops to get around without being seen by the chickens. Chickens hate mice, or I should say, they love to kill mice, tear them apart, and eat them. One day my wife put a hose inside a mouse tunnel and flushed out a few mice. The chickens caught on real quick and would stand there to catch every mouse that came out. She did this every day for a week and her best day was 88 mice. This didn't make a dent in the population. Then a friend caught a pregnant cat in the hospital parking lot and asked if we would take care of her. My wife said yes, and she had 6 kittens. We kept them in my shop and I put in a cat door for them to come and go. They grew up here and quickly took over. Two things happened, more cats showed up and stuck around, and the mouse population disappeared. I haven't seen a mouse in 2 years. I only killed 2 snakes last year. We now have about 15 cats. The males where all spayed, but we've had two show up that got to our girls before we could catch them, so that's how we're getting more cats. Only 4 sleep inside my shop, all of the others have found places that they prefer

 

[/pine]

I've always wondered why pet food makers don't make mouse flavored cat food...?

 

[jaxs]

Cats are not natural mousers,like humans they must be taught to work ,otherwise they just lay around waiting for hand-outs. A mouser will bring kittens bugs,frogs,snakes and mice to play with. In the beginning,the prey is barly alive and as time go's on,mom will bring things that havn't been injured. Snakes are very good at controling rats and mice. When we baled peanut hay,we captured non-venomous snakes to release in barns.

 

[NorTracNY]

I had a mouse problem with the chickens a few years ago. With rodents can come ticks! Address the problem now! Mice like to run along the walls, so be sure to put plenty of traps there. I found that once established I could barely put a dent in the population. It was in the spring that I had to take apart the coup floor and really clean up. I also put in one of the mouse proof chicken feeders. The number of mice and ticks are pretty minimal now. I'll catch a few in the traps in the late fall that try to come in, but that's it.

 

[pmsmechanic]

I have several of these around the yard and periodically clean them out. They don't catch all the mice but they sure help to keep the population down.



This is the bait I use. It works quite well. The only issue is that in spring the racoons will come along and clean up the bait, so I need to replace it.

 

[kenmbz]

Would this maybe take out a fox or cat that eats the mouse, or is it only mice it kills?

 

[pmsmechanic]

Would this maybe take out a fox or cat that eats the mouse, or is it only mice it kills?

I have not researched this at all but from what I've been told this doesn't kill larger animals. The mice do have to eat numerous times before they die.

The traps are in buildings. Racoons can access two of my traps and I frankly wouldn't mind if they got deathly sick from the mouse bait. No such luck so far. When I remove the mice I bury or incinerate them so that other animals aren't able to partake. The liquid in the bottom is antifreeze outside and water in heated areas.

The only mouse predator's I am concerned about on my yard are the owls. They don't get into the buildings as a rule. They also seem to enjoy cat so we have a hard time keeping cats alive. The solution to that is to just not bother with cats and set up these bait stations in buildings.

What I like about these traps is that I don't have to check them regularly. They reset automatically and are relatively maintenance free. I check more often in summer but probably only check about 6 times a year total. Usually there are 5-10 mice in the outside traps and 0-2 in the inside trap.

 

[EddieWalker]

When I tried poison, I found that my chickens would start acting lethargic and weird. The mice ate a lot of poison bait, and I'm sure we killed a lot of mice with it, but we never noticed a decline in the population from using it. When we realized that the chickens where eating the dead mice, and getting sick from it, we stopped using it. I don't know if any of our dogs ate any of the dead mice or not. One of our coops that we where poisonings the mice is part of the fence for the dog yard, so any mice that died on that side of the coop would be in the dog yard. Better to not risk it. That's when we started to consider cats.

 

[/pine]

Cat predation on wildlife - Wikipedia

The Moral Cost of Cats
|
Science

| Smithsonian Magazine

New Study Reveals Extensive Damage to Wildlife Caused By Domestic Cats | The Wildlife Center of Virginia

Why House Cats Are God's Perfect Little Killing Machines : NPR

 

[pmsmechanic]

I know that when we no longer had cats there was in increase in the small song bird population on our acreage. Mostly finches and warblers

 

[newbury]

I've a fair amount of "shed"
When we first moved in, about 10 years ago, we were taking over from a guy that held lot's of parties and the mice were all over the place.
I put out a fair amount of poison, all safely off the ground, which knocked the population down quickly. But they kept coming back. Until the snakes moved in.
I usually find one or two discarded snake skins 5 to 6 feet long each year. Have yet to see a live snake in any of the sheds.

Scares the bejesus out of some of my relatives.

 

[Alien]

Our pup kept sniffing a area on our front porch. I guessed there must be some mouse activity so I have been sitting a cage trap there and so far have caught about 4 of the little suckers. I have learned to watch what my pup does.

 

[buck12]

Not all cats are created equal. We had a good mouser that died at 17 years old a couple of years ago. We now have two cats that would probably run from a mouse.

 

[3gunr]

I know that when we no longer had cats there was in increase in the small song bird population on our acreage. Mostly finches and warblers

Our daughter had a cat for a while until he kept leaving dead birds on the hood of her car. I took him to my farm where he served as a mouser for many yrs. Our bird population returned back at home after a yr or so.

 

[radios1]

Would this maybe take out a fox or cat that eats the mouse, or is it only mice it kills?

that would be nice if it does kill both!. if you have birds, you don't want either around them!. my nephew had a favorite duck that was killed by a cat, it cut the head off, he came in screaming!!.. cats will kill just for pleasure!!..

 

[/pine]

If it were not for the bleeding heart politics of the subject all non native cat species would be treated the same as the pythons in S FL are being treated, there should be bounties and reward for killing them...they (domestic cats) are nothing but invasive, destructive predators and should be eradicated from N. America...they are responsible for killing literally billions of native American song birds and other wildlife species annually...people that allow cats to roam freely outdoors should be heavily fined and jailed..