Ultimate mouse trap

I’m just not sure what you do with them afterwards …. Get a python, maybe?
https://youtu.be/X7KPqSnQG5U

Or there’s this one … I felt sorry for the mouse, though.

https://youtu.be/ZDQoxehQm5c


This one would be good if you wanted to catch and release a mouse, or other small mammal.
https://youtu.be/EjsBV25Z5rU

We have an outbreak of mice locally at the moment, I have caught 13 in two days in the mouse traps in the outhouse, and my finger once

Our neighbour's farm has them all over the place. Picked up an empty feed bag on a shelf up there, and a whole host of them leapt out and ran up my arms. Think we need the Pied Piper.

The Crows and Kestrels, enjoy the corpses when we throw them in the field

My local cat rescue has lots of semi-feral kittens available for re-homing in barns or stables. In return for shelter and a little food they'll keep the rodent population under control. I've used the electronic mousetraps when I lived in the caravan. They work well and don't make a mess, although sometimes I'd remove the batteries, let the rodent take cover from the cat (which had brought it in in the first place) then take it outside and relelase the rodent in the field. They were usually short tailed bank voles or the occasional wood mouse

Fortunately all my animal feeds are in redundant freezers which means they’re mouse proof. However this winters hay arrived last Tuesday which seems to reawaken mices love for my shed. Peeing on the hay means theyve got to go. Now my dogs dead I could get a cat but this is a bird reserve so it’s not really on.
Wish we had voles. No short eared owls or hen harriers whereas Orkney their as common as muck.

The cats used to bring in wood mice in Yorkshire and then let them go. OH chased them round with the mouse jar - a Hartley's jam jar which has a wider base than top. We don't seem to have mice here, had a couple of shrews, that's it. Not seen owls or hen harriers either, just our female peregrine. The cats aren't interested in wild birds either, they prefer stalking the hens. (The hens don't mind).

We had cats that couldn't kill the mice, they just brought them into the house where they lived quite happily in the tumble dryer.

When we moved to this infested house (and the previous rental was possibly far worse, despite the cat) we trapped 200 mice in the first year with 13 traps on the go. Then the farm nearby started work on old barns and the we had rats- so a dozen of them, one in the loft. Slowed down a lot now but we still catch 50 mice a year and half a dozen rats.

I think if you are relying on cats you have a problem which you perhaps don't realise. Put some snap traps baited with peanut butter with grain pressed in, into areas the cats can't reach and see what happens?

Now that’s a serious infestation Chrismahon. Anyone got a recipe book for cooking with rodents.

My recipe book says "for perfect function of your septic tank add 200 mice". Believe me it worked wonders for our stinky pit.

I was reminded of the fireplace in the rental. It had a wood burner with an insulated flue, but the hole in the plasterboard ceiling was too big so there was a gap. Watching TV I was distracted by movement, which was a mouse tail dangling through that gap. It was filled shortly afterwards.

Then we had mice in the pantry. The only entrance point was a hole in the plasterboard (plasterboard is very rare here and a bodge) behind the hot water tank. So I rolled a ball of filler and reached behind the tank to block the hole. The mice chewed through the filler before it had chance to set. So a second ball of filler was mixed with polypropylene string strands (cut to 1 cm) and they proved to be enough of a barrier to let the filler set.

The neighbour's cat spent all of her time hunting in the roof space- clearly she didn't have any effect on the mouse population. But living in a place like that did make us fully aware of the problems with property in France. We had a bench in the hall and it was so damp that weeds started growing underneath it!

That sounds grim and more than a weeks work to get top side of ???.

Three of my cats have been taking it in turns to sit at the bottom of the curtain over ther French window in the kitchen. Patch tried to climb the curtain so I put a step ladder next to it - I could see no sign of a mouse. Yesterday Toby sat on the top step, staring at the curtain so I drew it across the window and then noticed a hole near the top (the curtain is lined). I gave it a shake and a mouse scrambled out of the hole on to the top of the curtain. A couple more vigorous shakes and it dropped to the floor where Toby pounced on it. I think it may have escaped him - mice can climb over the plinth board under the kitchen units, but this morning there was a dead mouse on the mat by the French window. Hopefully that was the one that ate the curtain!

Hopefully that was the only one.

We have not caught any for a couple of days, so hopefully we have sorted our little infestation, with help from the Barn and Tawny Owls, and Kestrels.

Just to make it clear, I don't have a mouse (or rat problem). The only time there are small rodents in the house is when the cats bring them in from outside. Sometimes I see them alive or dead, but at other times it is only "bits" of evidence that the cats have caught something

Short tailed voles get rescued if possible. They don't seem able to climb and can't get over the kickboard under the kitchen units. I haven't observed that they cause any damage either.

Mice are treated differently because they can climb, chew stuff and are incontinent which means a major clean when they've been in the kitchen.