Mice

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It's not exactly humane, but water bucket traps can be as effective as poison and much better for the environment and good predators. They are easy to make. One fellow reported trapping 20 mice in one night. You can buy them as kits, but they are easy to DIY. There are many variations on the basic idea. This is a simple version.
www.budget101.com

The Ultimate Bucket Mouse Trap

The Ultimate Bucket mouse trap- This effective homemade mouse trap can be used with water to kill off large infestations or without for a humane live trap
www.budget101.com www.budget101.com
 
In waging the Art of War against my enemy, the mouse, I sought to learn more about them. Something like 50% of their brains are olfactory. So in addition to just about all of the above, I added small chlorine tablets to where they might try to run - the worst thing to ever hit my meager olfactories.
 
Stove Cricket said:
In waging the Art of War against my enemy, the mouse, I sought to learn more about them. Something like 50% of their brains are olfactory. So in addition to just about all of the above, I added small chlorine tablets to where they might try to run - the worst thing to ever hit my meager olfactories.
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Interesting information and idea. I wonder if steramine tables (ammonia) would work?
 
i had a tunnel/nest under my garage floor. they (chipmonks) were digging in. i put a piece of a chlorine tablet from a 3 inch puck style and he dug it out didn't seem to phase it at all. i did this a number of times til finally putting a piece of 3 inch porch flooring over it and now it's gone. or it was one of many chipmonks the cat brought up in front of the sliding glass door. i know when they catch one because they will not eat the tail. find many of them.
 
NHWS said:
Interesting information and idea. I wonder if steramine tables (ammonia) would work?
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They follow urine trails so ammonia probably wouldn't be a deterrent.
 
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Whenever I find a hole near a foundation, if it's in an area well away from any place my dogs can access, I drop a chunk of Tomcat trap bait into the hole and back-fill with stone. If the bugger is in the hole at the time, he's going to get hungry trying to dig out, and if he's not in the hole the stone filling it seems to be sufficient incentive to have him go dig elsewhere. I've never had a hole re-opened after doing this.
 
i must be dense. what is a 410? gun :)
Ashful said:
Whenever I find a hole near a foundation, if it's in an area well away from any place my dogs can access, I drop a chunk of Tomcat trap bait into the hole and back-fill with stone. If the bugger is in the hole at the time, he's going to get hungry trying to dig out, and if he's not in the hole the stone filling it seems to be sufficient incentive to have him go dig elsewhere. I've never had a hole re-opened after doing this.
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tried that but they would make a hole right beside it to get out or in.
 
What are they chewing through? Mice follow air movement. If you can stop the air movement they will not know to go through even chewable materials.
 
fbelec said:
i must be dense. what is a 410? gun :)
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Very small shotgun, .410” bore. Often used as a kid’s first shotgun (shot my first deer with 410 slug), but probably also by some birders or small game guys. Real short range and small pattern.

fbelec said:
tried that but they would make a hole right beside it to get out or in.
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You forgot the poison!
 
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I started using a mix of 90% canola oil and 10% traditional bar oil mixed for a little extra tackiness and preservative. The husky leaks bar oil while in storage, so I always store it on a piece of cardboard. When I went out to get it yesterday, all the cardboard that wasn't directly under the saw was eaten, and lots of mouse turds all around. Luckily they didn't chew the oil tank up.

Also, squirrels have started nawing on my plastic gas cans, and their spouts. I lost four or five cans last summer. They seem to like the gas taste. Never saw this until last summer.

I think I need some sort of locker to store the saws and gas cans. Maybe an old filing cabinet would work.
 
I hadn’t noticed a change in squirrel eating patterns, but they’ve really changed their nesting habits. The grey squirrels barely make tree nests anymore. They’ve switched to attics.
 
Easy Livin’ 3000 said:
I think I need some sort of locker to store the saws and gas cans. Maybe an old filing cabinet would work.
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How are they getting into your shed?

I had a squirrel get into my prior barn once. Packed the pulley housing of an old drill press with acorns! That was a one-time deal, I found the hole where he had made his entry, and plugged it off. Watching me jump when I turned on that drill press and all the acorns shoot out onto the floor would have made a good viral video, if such things existed back then.
 
Ashful said:
How are they getting into your shed?

I had a squirrel get into my prior barn once. Packed the pulley housing of an old drill press with acorns! That was a one-time deal, I found the hole where he had made his entry, and plugged it off. Watching me jump when I turned on that drill press and all the acorns shoot out onto the floor would have made a good viral video, if such things existed back then.
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It's a old barn with lots of points of entry. I'd have to close in the 40' of open soffit, about 30' off the ground on both sides, to keep the squirrels out.

I either need an enclosure inside the barn or to build a tight shed to keep the plastic stuff I value. Better yet, I need an owl to move in.
 
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begreen said:
It's not exactly humane, but water bucket traps can be as effective as poison and much better for the environment and good predators. They are easy to make. One fellow reported trapping 20 mice in one night. You can buy them as kits, but they are easy to DIY. There are many variations on the basic idea. This is a simple version.
www.budget101.com

The Ultimate Bucket Mouse Trap

The Ultimate Bucket mouse trap- This effective homemade mouse trap can be used with water to kill off large infestations or without for a humane live trap
www.budget101.com www.budget101.com
Click to expand...
ah, I guess I dont hate them as much as I did. That hurt my soul to watch that mouse fall in and drown. Just watching it panic trying to get out. Im even a bit meh when I see them in the trap. I saw one that was chewed through, the bar didnt really come down fast and hard enough so the mouse just got trapped and suffocated eventually. That sucks. I wont use those ones anymore. I want ones that make it fast, they hopefully dont even see it coming.
Id prefer if they would stay the hell away. Living in the NE I dont worry as much about the disease they can bring like the ones out west, but still there's risk and I have to protect my family, not to mention my property.
 
Easy Livin’ 3000 said:
It's a old barn with lots of points of entry. I'd have to close in the 40' of open soffit, about 30' off the ground on both sides, to keep the squirrels out.

I either need an enclosure inside the barn or to build a tight shed to keep the plastic stuff I value. Better yet, I need an owl to move in.
Click to expand...
You'll see a lot of these old PA barns have an accessory shed added to them for this purpose, with a full concrete floor, and often even minimally heated for storing paints and chemicals. My uncle had a real nice work shop built onto his old barn in this fashion, it was a working dairy farm, and he used the shop for repairing implements and tools. The rest of the barn was full of mice (and cats!), but the small shop was buttoned up pretty tight.
 
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Ashful said:
You'll see a lot of these old PA barns have an accessory shed added to them for this purpose, with a full concrete floor, and often even minimally heated for storing paints and chemicals. My uncle had a real nice work shop built onto his old barn in this fashion, it was a working dairy farm, and he used the shop for repairing implements and tools. The rest of the barn was full of mice (and cats!), but the small shop was buttoned up pretty tight.
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That's the long term plan! Already has concrete floor, but needs lots of work, and hopefully the shop section will be a lot tighter than the rest of the barn when finished.

I really like the PA days where it starts out well below freezing, then warms up with high humidity. Every cold metal and concrete surface condensates water. Like a rust factory.
 
Easy Livin’ 3000 said:
I really like the PA days where it starts out well below freezing, then warms up with high humidity. Every cold metal and concrete surface condensates water. Like a rust factory.
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Yeah! My shed is tight enough stuff stays mostly dry... until I open those doors to take something out! The only thing it's good for is checking the liquid ballast level on your tractor tires, as the tire will be dripping wet up to the fill line on these days.
 
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NHWS said:
Interesting information and idea. I wonder if steramine tables (ammonia) would work?
Click to expand...
Moth balls work. I keep a fresh bag under the hood of the car for this reason.
 
Hah... just remembered I bought a box of moth ball "packets", air-permeable bags stuffed with a fistful of moth balls each. It's sitting on a shelf next to my boats, a 30 minute drive from home. <>
 
Stuff a lot of them in there. You're trying to build the neurotoxin up to a high level in an open area. A sealed boat, or dresser is a small area that doesn't have much air movement/ventilation. You're going to need boxes of it.

When I used to have a tight moring cover on my boat I'd put a large coffee can in the bow, and one in the stern. When you opened it in the spring, you let it sit for a while, lol.

I see people chuck them in attics all the time or down animal burros. Not enough to make a difference. I went in a house once and the smell hit me immediately. The lady was a few corn flakes short of a full box and had them everywhere. She had little onion bags filled with them behind the fridge, under the sofa, in the pantry.... I wanted to do the mouse inspection in my respirator. I dont know how she lived in there. Certainly no mice did.
 
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EatenByLimestone said:
Stuff a lot of them in there. You're trying to build the neurotoxin up to a high level in an open area. A sealed boat, or dresser is a small area that doesn't have much air movement/ventilation. You're going to need boxes of it.

When I used to have a tight moring cover on my boat I'd put a large coffee can in the bow, and one in the stern. When you opened it in the spring, you let it sit for a while, lol.

I see people chuck them in attics all the time or down animal burros. Not enough to make a difference. I went in a house once and the smell hit me immediately. The lady was a few corn flakes short of a full box and had them everywhere. She had little onion bags filled with them behind the fridge, under the sofa, in the pantry.... I wanted to do the mouse inspection in my respirator. I dont know how she lived in there. Certainly no mice did.
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Im starting to think that moth balls are toxic for the brain..
The old shack we bought from this old guy, his wife passed away a couple of years prior and she had really bad alzheimers. Everyone in that community said she was wonderful nice lady who would just sit there watching the birds but they saw her declining. They had moth balls EVERYWHERE when we bought this place. Worse, under this one little bed area that was built on top of the hvac ductwork, they stored extra blankets and of course they had tons of mothballs there. So all of that dust was just going through the ductwork into the air.
The first thing we did, not out of fear for the mothballs but the smell - was rid ourselves of all of that stuff that was in contact of those mothballs, and then of course wash the entire place tip to tail. They also had asbestos floor tile. Sigh.
 
This is why I've always hesitated to put them in the boats. One is varnished wood, and even 15 years after refinishing, you can still smell fresh varnish every time the cover is removed. It sounds silly, but it is one of the things I enjoy most about that boat.

Wood and fabric sails have a way of soaking up and storing odors, for a very long time.

One of the others is just a plastic tub, rotomolded polyethene. Not sure how that would do with soaking up smells, but we have all of our PFD's, gloves, and foul weather gear usually stored inside that boat, to avoid storing all that stuff in the house over winter. There's no mast hole in that cover, only one transom drain hole mostly covered by the trailering cover, so far nothing has ever gone in there.
 
I’ve lost two traps. Found one today. I have been picking them up every morning. Rat or a squirrel??

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