BS: Home made mouse traps

Subject: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 08:03 AM

The little fellahs are getting into my camp. I think I have found and blocked their access. Of course, I thought I did so on two previous trips to the camp, but apparently not.

Until I actually do manage to bar the door on them, anyone got any detailed descriptions of home made traps?

Thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 08:16 AM

Try Felis silvestris catus The mice may get in, but they're not getting out again. Not in one piece anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 08:28 AM

Take a tall glass, or vase. Put some peanut butter on the bottom. Place on floor, with piles of books around providing a path to the top.

When the mouse falls in, take the glass/vase outside, as far away as you like, and release mouse.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Crystal
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 09:24 AM

To make sure the little beggers don't come back again you'll need to take them about a mile away, preferably across lots of busy roads!

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 09:54 AM

It doesn't work, mice can jump very well.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 09:59 AM

A DEEP vase, 15" or so....

I have heard of people using grain, but PB seems to work better...

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: NH Dave
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 10:08 AM

When I lived in Norfolk, we used to have an annual invasion of mice from the fields. I'd get a large tin can, say about six odd inches across the top, and about 8 inches deep, which we call a number 10 can here in the states. Tie a piece of stiffish paper, good typing bond paper works well, across the top of the can with a rubber band, and make three or four cuts across the paper that all intersect at the middle - like a pie just cut for serving. Place a bit of peanut butter or bacon on the thinner end of a broom straw, and secure the fat end onto the side of the can with another rubber band, so that the bait hangs over the middle of the can. While the bond paper will support the weight of the mouse around the edges, once it gets towards the center, he'll drop right through.

I used to catch one mouse every morning, until their either caught on to the trick, or I'd caught all of the dumb mice that year. I'd stick them in a small box and release them on my way to work.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Peace
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 10:10 AM

If they are deer mice, do 'em in.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 10:37 AM

Release a mouse? They're going to be back to the house before you get there yourself.

Find a deep metal bucket with a sturdy bail. Take a can about the size of a tomato paste can and with your can opener remove both the top and the bottom of the can. (Better yet, if you can manage to remove the contents through a small hole, hammer a 1/2 inch or so diameter hole in the middle of each end of the can). Disconnect the bail and run the can over it. Re-attach the bail and position the can at the top of the arch of the bail that you have fastened somehow in a completely upright position (use duct tape, clothespins, clamps, whatever--this isn't pretty, but it works). Smear the can liberally with peanut butter. Fill the bucket 3/4 full of water. Find something like a paint stir stick (1 gallon size is fine) and prop it from the edge of a nearby piece of furniture or wood box, etc. to the bail next right next to the can with the peanut butter.

This has worked for backcountry rangers and lookouts since there were backcountry rangers and lookouts. They use this in the remote buildings where they have to live for short periods of time. The peanut butter can must move freely around the bail so that when mice step onto it it turns under their weight and drops them into the water.

Rule of thumb--ignore splashing when you are sleeping. But when the bucket gets so full of mice that the new ones can run over the tops of the dead ones and escape the bucket it's time to change the water. This happens when you hear the can turn but no splash following.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 11:08 AM

Liberally coat some vinyl floor tiles with adhesive and leave scattered about adhesive side up. Then in the morning not only have you caught them, but you can do a victory dance in front of them and act all superior. A captive, if somewhat unappreciative audience. Then if it's a fine day you can take them to the local park, still glued to the floor tiles and entertain the kids by skimming them across the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 12:13 PM

SRS.... got it built. Now, regarding, "Find something like a paint stir stick (1 gallon size is fine) and prop it from the edge of a nearby piece of furniture or wood box, etc. to the bail next right next to the can with the peanut butter.", please help me place the stick at the optimum position.

Let's say we are looking directly at the end of the two inch diameter can. (A Chef Boyardee pizza sauce can works very well as the contents are easy to remove through a 1/4 inch hole.) How far from the centre of the can should the end of the stick be in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Of course, I am assuming the stick is at a right angle to the longitudial axis of the can.... correct?

Thanks to all again.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:04 PM

Just buy frigg'n snap traps...

Jeeze....

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:23 PM

Ah... you gonna set em and reset em for me while I am not at the camp?

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:27 PM

These ideas are very humane compared to a small saucer of antifreeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:40 PM

But, if I set out antifreeze, I'll have mice in the camp all winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:44 PM

Warferin

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:04 PM

Well... the only problem with that stuff, CH, is if a mouse eats some, makes it outside, gets eaten by an owl that then falls off his perch and is eaten by a coyote that crawls to the river for water and falls in where the trout munch on him and then go after your fly and end up in your frying pan, you're fucked.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:04 PM

Damn, I did a highly detaled cartoon on Warferin and now I'm going to spend an hour trying to find it.

Its like getting song stuck in your head.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:13 PM

The idea is to let the mouse get close to the can and step onto it. You don't want to prevent the movement that will dump the mouse, so prop the stick right beside the can so they walk the plank, as it were, up to the edge of the can then hop up onto it. I've seen these things set up where they were beside a bench or a woodbox or something that is close enough to the same height as the bail that it is not very steep. I imagine you could duct tape the paint stick to the bail so it stays put. Does the can turn very easily? Did you find something with about the weight of a mouse to put on it to test with? The can has to be unstable to turn easily, but you don't want it knocking your paint stick off.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: jeffp
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:31 PM

Bullshit, gnu. My wife takes warfarin daily and so do a lot of people. It is not a poison, it is a blood thinner.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:36 PM

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/copy.jpg


Do not take warfarin together with...

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:38 PM

the best mouse trap is a half starved cat....

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:44 PM

Gee golly gosh, jeffp. Yes, it is used medicinally as a blood thinner. But, it is also the premier rat and mouse poison available to the general public because of it's blood thinning properties. The reason it is "Number One" is that rodents that injest it in quantity tend not to stink too much because they literally drain themselves of bodily fluids and dry up into little mummies.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:48 PM

And nothing but insects eat them... and if owls say do eat a 'warferined' mouse, there's most likley not enough in the corps to harm the bird...

So, try getting over it gnu...

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: *daylia*
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:59 PM

... or just sit down and tell it like it is, gnu. Straight from the heart. Tell 'em how much you enjoy cleaning the balls of your mice, and how every mouse sharing camp with you must conform to your clean balls specifications, and that they are definitely slated for your next episode of rapturous ball-cleaning.

That oughta do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 04:04 PM

The typical off the shelf rat poison's main killing ingredient is flouride.

For ball cleaning try formula 401.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 04:04 PM

I can if you can.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:12 PM

With the Warfarin, the mouse has enough strength to crawl back into the wall or some other hole you can't get to, where it curls up and dies, rots and stinks the place up.

Having had to deal with the mouse-in-camp problem, I'd go with SRS's suggestion. We used to leave a plastic garbage pail in our camp, but we started making sure it was covered over or upended after finding mice in the bottom of it every time... some still alive and some dead and partially eaten. I hate having the little buggers in the camp destroying things and shitting all over, but not enough to want them tortured to death.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:16 PM

"not enough to want them tortured to death"

I'll happily do that for ya....

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: bobad
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:20 PM

Hey gnu

If you can't beat 'em eat 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: open mike
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:42 PM

there is a multiple mouse cathcing trap that you wind up.
it spanks them into a chamber that they cannot escape from
works time after time...it is metal.
http://www.pestproducts.com/mouse_master.htm
this is not actually the wind up model
but it claims to hold 25 mice!
http://www.pestproducts.com/multi-catch-mouse-trap.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:01 PM

SRS... oh... I take it the mouse has to make "the leap of faith". So, the stick should be about 1.1 mouse away from the can?

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:22 PM

.22. .30-30. .30-06. 12 gauge. .375 Mag. .308. .350 Rem. .223. 9 mm. .38. .45. .357. .44 mag. .177.

Pick any one based upon the size of your mice. A permanent solution that offers the additional benefit of additional ventilation of the cabin.

Yeah, I've dealt with the little buggers who crawled into things to die and rot. One of 'em did so in an oven, but we baked in it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:30 PM

Ya couldn't get a bead on him in the oven?

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:39 PM

I'd say put the stick fairly close to the can but not so close that the turning can might possibly knock the stick down. Keeping in mind that you want to mouse to fall, not end up clinging to your paint stick by his fingernails as he dangles percariously over the water. (Hey Don, can you do a picture of that for us? Make that a Home Depot stir stick--that's what we use around here.) So a little distance is okay. How far do you think your mouse will leap? You'll have to adjust it according to the size and speed of your particular mice.

I went looking and found a modified version of the trap I described. It uses a different type of bucket and suspends the can from holes drilled in the side of the bucket. Whichever system you try, the goal is to get the mouse onto the can where it can then tumble off into the water and you want steep or straight sides so they can't climb out. The buckets I saw had more than a couple of inches of water. I found one description where the guy had too many little splints running into the bucket and when some toppled in the mouse was able to climb them to escape.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:49 PM

Use the can with paper on the top, but cut a hole in the side near the bottom, and cover it with a thin piece of sheet rubber.

Fill the can to about three quarters with shine, and the pressure will seal the bottom hole.

The way it works is the mouse falls in and drinks the shine, lowering the level till the pressure is insufficient to hold the rubber. Then he escapes through the hole and immediately picks a fight with the nearest cat.

Works every time...............I'll go now.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 07:16 PM

hehehehehe... good one Don. Minds me of the the three mice at the bar. No 1 says, "I get up in the morning, grab some of that poison out of the trap and make my morning tea with it. Get's me ready for the day." No 2 says, "I like to spring the trap while I am on my back and do bench presses against the spring to get me going." The third mouse says, "I've listened to enough bullshit tonight, I gotta go home and fuck the cat."

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 05:21 AM

Warfarin is not actually a poison, it is an anti-coagulent, it causes rats and mice to bleed themselves to death. Very nice.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 08:57 AM

Adhesive traps will work, but the take it from one who knows, the mice scream. Literally. It's not only annoying, but you're not likely to use such a thing a second time.

It's much kinder to kill them outright than use a sticky trap.

Gnu, that mouse has crawled into the oven and twisted itself into a place where we couldn't get to it to remove it -- somewhere in the insulation of the oven walls, we think. Eventually the smell went away. It didn't do much of anything to the food, but folks who didn't know certainly wondered what we were cooking 'em.

I don't use poison -- whether arsenic, warfarin, cyanide, or anything else -- because the critters will die in inconvenient places and stink up the joint.

Trap them.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 09:04 AM

My sister and her husband had a cattle station for many years. Their pet Fred
lived in the roof and kept the rats & mice away.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 09:07 AM

.. if you're in nsw, australia, and want to get a handy mouse trap like fred, you can purchase one here

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 12:35 PM

"it causes rats and mice to bleed themselves to death"

Who cares....

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 03:38 PM

Well, yeah, CH, I agree. I just don't want them croaking in some damned inconvenient (for me) place, like between the walls.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:25 PM

Finally got back up to my camp on Friday. Placed a commercial trap given to me by a buddy and the one I built according to SRS's instructions. No mice. I guess they left after I had removed anything they could eat. Or, perhaps, they were getting in under the vanity in the "washroom" and I discouraged them by closing the door.

I will report more on this riveting drama after my next trip.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:57 PM

For a speedier death than just water in SRS' trap, add about a half inch of vegetable oil to it. They suffocate faster.

Gads. And yet, what ya gonna do.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 07:56 PM

All I can do is hope they don't come back, but, mice will be mice.

If they do come back, I will be pretty sure that they are getting in under the vanity. Big hassle removing it to plug up the access... but much better than killing them.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: bobad
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 08:01 PM

I think they may have been scoffing at you attempts and waiting for you to leave so that the might move in for some winter luxury.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Kaleea
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 11:21 PM

warning** not for the faint! Please don't get mad at me, either, I'm just stating the facts. I have not done this, but a friend uses cola soda pop. For real. The fizzier the better. I recall relatives doing this when I was a kid. Pour soda into a saucer or something small & shallow, place where the critter can find it & lap it up. Critter gets gas, can't relieve itself of the gas, &, um, well, pop goes the weasel, or rather mousie. Only trouble, I'm told, is when the critters' remains are odoriforous.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 01:03 AM

That sounds like an urban legend. Mammals can pass gas, like everything else they pass. I did find another site where someone else said the same thing about putting out coke, but he offers no citations about the burping bit.

A friend in New York was comparing systems and told me just a couple of days ago that he prefers glue traps for reliability.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 07:18 AM

A half starved cat will sleep all day to conserve energy. It will only hunt what it knows it can catch or scavenge without wasting energy. A regularly fed cat will hunt for food because it knows it can expend energy and replace it. A well fed cat will hunt because it's instinctive. It will catch stuff and probably kill it, but won't eat it all because it's already full. Then it leaves it in your shoe or on the rug, or if you're really lucky, on your bed, guts and all.

Don't bait traps with cheese, it gives mice the runs... use chocolate or bread or peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, either does)!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Raptor
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 09:38 AM

So much for that "Thou shall not kill" shit eh?

I've met mice I like a lot more than people.

Lets start a mass murder thread and see how many are cool with that!

We can talk about gas chambers, starving them, poisioning... etc.

Oh I get it Clinton Hammond or rapaire are better than a rodent cause they are smarter?

Mabey not!

Find the fucking hole and plug it or live with the mice!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:50 PM

Raptor:

What is wrong with killin' mice, or any other noxious and unhygienic varmint?

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 12:19 PM

Mice are one of the more charismatic vermin in the world. Makes them a little harder to kill than some others.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: leftydee
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 07:24 PM

I have a camp in northern Michigan and have found the best way to keep the mice down when you're going to be gone for a bit of time is to use a 5 gal. plastic pail filled about half way with anti freeze. Drill opposing holes (2)near the rim to fit a 3/8" dowel. Next drink a can of beer (any brand will do, though I favor Bud Light)and drill a hole thru the can in the middle, parallel with top. Now , push dowel thru pail and can so that the beer can is suspended in the middle of the pail. Put a goodly amount of peanut butter on both ends of the can and place a piece of wood ( I screw it in place) as a ramp up to the pail's edge right where the dowel passes thru the pail. As mousy crawls out on the can he's, WHOOPS!, deposited in the anti freeze. This will collect mice all winter, keeps the smell down and is sure-fire. In the spring you'll be mouse free.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 02:29 PM

Dearest Raptor : My arthritis and pinched sciatic nerve would appreciate your help in removing the vanity to determine if the mice are getting in under the vanity. Oh yeah, can you spare some change for the plumbing and trim? If you can't make it up to the camp to help me or can't send money, I'll have stay the course. I just hope you are able to sleep at night knowing that several mice may have had to endure several days eating cheese in the commercial trap.

Cheeses!

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: gnu
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 02:38 PM

Oh... I forgot to mention. My snake pit got fouled up somehow (skunk, mink, otter, fox...?) and because I wasn't able to get up to the camp much after my operation, the snakes weren't hanging around near as much, I suppose. In the spring, I am going to build at least two snake pits at the front of the camp and fix the existing one in behind the camp.

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 05:01 PM

we have mice in our shop.
one of our staff made one of those water bucket traps with a board and peanut butter .. And I set up plain old spring type mouse traps smeared with peanut butter..
over a 3months period so far the bucket = 0
the traps = 8

Subject: RE: BS: Home made mouse traps
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 05:11 PM

The bucket, when adjusted properly, is very effective. One friend who used this system at a ranger cabin in the Cascade mountains said that it caught so many mice at night that there were times when there were too many floating in the bucket for newcomers to drown. Not that this is fun for anyone, but the buckets do work. I imagine if in one room one trap is on the floor and the can is supsended over the bucket that the trap on the floor is easier for the mouse to get to initially. But once that trap has sprung, that is it, and unattended it will catch no more mice. The bucket will keep on working for a while. The point of this trap is to work while the cabin has no one there to reset mouse traps.

SRS