Mice!

[ckarotka]

Have an investation of mice going on. normally I will get a few with the traps during the year....but I just got 3 in 24hrs in the cabinets
How many field mice make up the average nest?

I'm gonna have to get aggresive, without calling in a pro what else works good to get rid of them quick.

No cats!! I'd rather have snakes.

 

[Bobbin]

When I (or any of our 3 cats) uncover a nest there are usually anywhere from 3-6 babies in them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg because Mummy Mousies will have several litters over the course of the year; doesn't take long for sexual maturity to be reached nor does it take many days to brew up the new batch. Mice and small rodents are basically the plankton and crill of the woodlands and meadows.

You can put out poison but that endangers animals that will feed on carrion, you can focus on minimizing habitat (tough order where wood stacks are involved), and you can focus on making sure grass seed, bird seed, and all manner of food sources are carefully stored against them. Good luck, they're a drag when you have too many of them and they're tough to eliminate.

We have 3 cats (pity you don't like them) who are outdoors by day but in at night. They are clean, quiet, very affectionate, and superbly adapted to rodent hunting. They incisors are actually perfectly spaced to sever a rodent's spinal cord... a fun fact to know and tell. Every single day they get at least 1 each and usually deposit them on the deck or the door steps for our delight. If it's not mice, it's voles which are the scourge of a perennial gardener. They are amazingly efficient hunters and their some of their favorite hang outs are the stacks of firewood.

 

[ckarotka]

A quick search revieled some pretty Interesting traps. I think multiple types and alot all at once should knock down the population quick. Found o e that goes like this: rubber maid tote with water in it, wire strung between handles, hanging on the wire a tin can paper removed and both bottom and top lids removed, covered in bacon fat. The mice walk the wire and spin off the can to the pool below. The article said it could trap quite a few at one time.

 

[gzecc]

Use poison and find out how they are getting in and out. There must be multiple holes around your house. They multiply fast. Trapping them doesn't keep up with the multiplication factor.

Following copulation, female mice will normally develop a vaginal plug which prevents further copulation. This plug stays in place for some 24 hours. The gestation period is about 19–21 days, and they give birth to a litter of 3-14 young (average 6-8). One female can have some 5-10 litters per year, so their population can increase very quickly. Breeding occurs throughout the year (however, animals living in the wild don't reproduce in the colder months, even though they don't hibernate). The newborn are blind and without fur. Fur starts to grow some three days after birth and the eyes open one to two weeks after birth. Females reach sexual maturity at about 6 weeks and males at about 8 weeks, but both can breed as early as five weeks.

 

[LLigetfa]

find out how they are getting in and out. There must be multiple holes around your house.

Ja, seal up the obvious holes but they can squeeze through a 3/8" gap so that can be tough. Put out lots of traps and empty them often. They say the early bird gets the worm but the later mouse gets the cheeze.

How about an outdoor cat? Keeps the population down around the house so fewer trying to get in.

 

[btuser]

A quick search revieled some pretty Interesting traps. I think multiple types and alot all at once should knock down the population quick. Found o e that goes like this: rubber maid tote with water in it, wire strung between handles, hanging on the wire a tin can paper removed and both bottom and top lids removed, covered in bacon fat. The mice walk the wire and spin off the can to the pool below. The article said it could trap quite a few at one time.

Ahhh, the bucket of death. Without a doubt the MOST EFFECTIVE trap ever. I've caught 12 chipmumks/day with this thing, and the only reason it would stop working is it was so full the little varmits could jump back out!

 

[ANeat]

I like the snap traps over stuff like poison. With poison they will crawl off somewhere and die, probably somewhere in your house. I live in a farm area so there is always a few that find there way in when it gets cold.

A few snap traps with some peanut butter will take care of them.


One year right after they harvested the field behind my house we had a bunch. Probably caught several in one day, a few after that, then none.

Wife thought she seen one the other day, set a trap out and nothing. So he probably didnt find anything to eat and moved on

 

[benjamin]

The traps with the plastic triggers are much better than the ones with the steel triggers. Glue traps work good until they get covered with dust.

Try a bunch of traps within 10 feet of any sign. Keep them baited. Move them around and change up baits.

 

[raiderfan]

i started having my issues with mice last winter (i actually think there was another thread on this). They were getting into my chip cabinet -- ABOVE my stove. Trapped them and trapped them, until after the fifth one, i blocked off a 1/4" gap between my wall and cabinet backing with some molding and kept them out of there. Set up traps in my basement (figuring that's where they were coming from), caught two more, but haven't seen them or evidence since.

Earlier in the summer, I patched holes and crevices in my foundation, all around the house. I'm sure I didn't get everything, but plan on doing round two before winter. Never even noticed mice in my house until I started burning wood, a couple of years ago. My woodpile is about 10ft from my house, so I guess that could be it.

 

[benjamin]

Another point is the difference between house mice ( grey) and deer mice (brown and white underneath). House mice mostly live inside, deer mice live outside and sneak in occasionally. Voles (grey pointy noses) also live outside usually.

 

[raiderfan]

the mice i'd catch were house mice and deer mice, then. most seemed to have been house mice, but the last two were brown with a white belly.

 

[Shari]

If you have the deer mice variety, better tie your traps to something. My son had them in his garage and when they got trapped by a foot or leg they dragged the trap away....... ;(

Shari

 

[keydiver]

What ever trap you use. Use peanut butter! Weather is turning. They are looking for warmth.

We had a few. Set glue traps with PB. 5 year old at 6AM the next morning. MOMMMMMM Dadddddd WE GOT ONE!

 

[billb3]

Have grey ones and brown and white ones here.
I see both out in the woods, too.

I'll get them living half way between the attic and the chimney in the Winter, A bit of poison and there will be a bunch of them on the cellar floor around the perimeter of the chimney .
I have found tunnels in the attic cellulose insulation and watched one disappear in a crack in the foundation stones in the basement.

 

[gpcollen1]

My oldest cat died yesterday. 15 years he has been keeping the mice population in check for me with my other cat. I actually replaced him in advance last summer with a new kitten. His health was failing for a while and he finally gave out. The new cat has been trained well though and doing fine...

I do not know what I would do without the cats...

 

[maverick06]

I dont like poision, then you have a rotting, smelling, poision laden carcas somewhere in the house.

Just buy the cheapest mousetraps home depot sells and put peanut butter on them. They will do a great job. As long as you find a good location to put the traps.

I had an issue, traps killed probably 12 within a month. Now I probably get 1 every 4 or 5 weeks. No Idea where they are comming in from, but am not worried about that now!

 

[oldspark]

The traps with the plastic triggers are much better than the ones with the steel triggers..

.

Yes they are and who said they could not build a better mouse trap!

 

[raiderfan]

Wat makes them better?

 

[Snag]

We use the traps with the yellow plastic cheese piece and bait that with peanut butter. I don't know if it matters but they supposedly can be set for sensitivity based on where you put the metal arm of the trap. You can tie bacon on the trap as well but if you use food, change it when it gets rancid or it won't catch mice. If they're getting their food elsewhere they sometimes can be caught with bits of drier fluff tied to it with thread as they like that when they are looking for nesting material. Garages and barns are great places for a 5 gallon bucket trap. Dont' know if it is true but I heard if you put some dish detergent in the water it spoils the surface tension of the water so the mice drown much quicker. I don't like the sticky traps, I think they suffer both mentally and physically for too long. I won't use poison because I don't want my dogs accidently getting into the poison or eating a mouse that has eaten the poison.

My sister had problems with mice and had a fella come out and inspect the house. He said mice can jump about 12" so make sure to close up any access to the house where they can get in. Folks that have siding may find mice getting in under the siding at the outside corners of the house. I stuffed any access spot I found with steel wool and then sprayed in some of the foam insulation to seal it up tight. We also keep our garbage cans and recycle bin up off the ground and the dog food is kept in sealed bins in the garage.

The more open access you have around the outside of your home means the owls, hawks, fox and coyote will have less trouble seeing and catching the mice before they make it to your doorstep. Being kind to your black snakes means they'll hang around to feed off the mice that make their homes in places other hunters can't get to.

 

[tickbitty]

Yes there are some gray plastic traps called something like "better mousetrap" that have red writing on them and sometimes a plastic cheese piece to put the bait on. These are very effective and almost always get/kill the WHOLE mouse rather than catching a tail or across the face or leg with the rest of the mouse intact, which I have seen with those wood/metal ones. Plus the gray plastic ones are really easy to pick up and unload without touching the mouse, it's got a spring just like a chip clip or something. Often the bait is still there and you can just lay the trap back out again!

I killed nine mice in one night with these one time and never had another one after that gang - this was after a couple years of mouse problems!

I don't like poisons or glue traps, don't want to find stinky drowned guys either, and the live traps aren't really humane anyway. So, these gray ones are the way to go, I think. They are by "Intruder" and are available at Target usually or probably amazon.

 

[BrotherBart]

Every since this little girl showed up out by the woodpile two years ago the huge mouse problem we have had for years started tapering off to nothing. She starts the nightly hunt around the outside of the house at sundown when the little rodents are most active and comes into the basement at ten to make a round and go to bed. She was out catching mice every night when we had four feet of snow on the ground. She is upset now because she can't find any more mice. So she is working the pole barn.

I call her The Woodpile Panther.

 

[ozzy73]

I love the glue boards. Bait them first, leave the paper on for a few days.
I also avoid poison, decomposing body stinks up the house.

 

[raiderfan]

So... About poison and mice dying somewhere in the house...

I've heard numerous exterminators and other "regular" pepole say that mice eat the poison, then go outside to find water and end up dying there. Never really believed that to be totally true, however, just heard from a friend that the exterminator he hired, put out poison and gave him that same explanation.

Is that all a bunch of bull?

 

[Highbeam]

My mouse cat died this Spring. I now use poison and set it up in the barn near the feed storage. There are many mathods of placing poison now that eliminate the chance of pets getting into it. The amount needed to kill a mouse is not going to hurt a pet. I have found mice less than a foot from the poison twitching to death so I don't buy the story that the mice will leave to seek water before dying. Don't put the poison in your house. Traps and cats in the house, poison outside and in the outbuildings.

 

[Wooddust]

I use bait stations outside and in crawl space I toss about 10 bricks of poison in fall. Traps inside when I see the lil poop pellets. The bait stations have cut my problem to very little and I have concentrated on finding every access point they have and stopping them up. I think the place i order from is doityourself pest control online