[NA] Humane mice traps

Half Fast said:
Apparently I don't understand the problem. Garden draws in squirrels and bunnies, you pop them with a .22, and now you have squirrels and bunnies to eat along with the vegetables. Sounds like a win all around.
Click to expand...
That’s pretty much my SOP, I plant extra expecting predation losses in the veggies, and a return on it with meat, but I wait until after the first heavy snow and a few days of hard sub freezing temps to harvest the rabbits. (Gets rid of any sick/diseased ones). Around 14 pounds of rabbit meat this year and given beef prices and my preference to a well cooked seasonal treat of rabbit…it’s a compromise I’m comfortable with. Squirrels however, they are finally getting back to a sustainably harvestable level after many decades from being decimated by my brother and myself when we were younger (they tasted so darn good!). Now the SWMBO likes watching them and is totally against me shooting and eating them despite how much I want to. Luckily they are the big red “fox” squirrels so provide a decent amount of meat each and there are some in other locations she is ok with me eating so I’m crossing my fingers she will come over to the correct side.
 
Half Fast said:
Apparently I don't understand the problem. Garden draws in squirrels and bunnies, you pop them with a .22, and now you have squirrels and bunnies to eat along with the vegetables. Sounds like a win all around.
Click to expand...
I would if discharging a firearm was legal where I live. Declaring self-defense might work once, and I do love Coniglio alla ligure (Italian braised rabbit).
 
Last edited:
We had an infestation of roof rats in the house. I called in an exterminator, he sealed up all the gaps where there were coming in, and set a number of snap traps, then put in two bait stations. If a pro uses snap traps, that's a good recommendation to me. Glue traps sound very inhumane, and trapping and relocating them doesn't sound very effective.
 
Half Fast said:
Easy solution.
gamousa.com

Varmint Power .22 Cal. Break Barrel Pellet Air Rifle - GAMO

The GAMO Varmint Power is a .22 caliber break barrel air rifle that shoots up to 1,100 feet per second. It is powered by a spring piston and 33mm cylinder.
gamousa.com gamousa.com
Click to expand...
I have one. My patience for squirrel damage ran out when they started eating/puncturing the gas line to my grill. They dispatch squirrels pretty well. Rabbits, on the other hand, can take multiple shots if you don't hit a vital. The rabbit kill got to me b/c they scream if you don't kill them on the 1st shot.
 
The squirrel trap I use is pretty effective, as long as you use good bait. I use peanut butter snd bird seed, then scatter extra bird seed around. You can get end caps with openings big enough for a curious squirrel but not big enough for other animals.

My daughter had squirrels in her apartment ceiling and the exterminator used a couple of the same traps.

www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com

WCS™ Tube Trap - Rust Resistant

WCS™ Tube Trap - Rust Resistant from Wildlife Control Supplies
www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com
 
Half Fast said:
Easy solution.
gamousa.com

Varmint Power .22 Cal. Break Barrel Pellet Air Rifle - GAMO

The GAMO Varmint Power is a .22 caliber break barrel air rifle that shoots up to 1,100 feet per second. It is powered by a spring piston and 33mm cylinder.
gamousa.com gamousa.com
Click to expand...
I have a Remington .22 pellet gun. Have taken chipmunks from the deck 100 yards away. I usually use the .17 for racoons. The dog takes care of the squirrels, you'd think after 5 or 6 of their buddies disappear they'd realize the ground isnt safe.
 
Last edited:
Seriously??
Just kill the little bastards. They multiply like flies on ****, the pee and poop on everything. Wherever they got into the house has the smell of mouse and will be chewed into a 4 lane highway in no time. Once you have them in the house, they are pretty tough to get rid of unless you trap aggressively. Sometimes that doesn't work and you need to use poison, I don't like carryover either, but a predator would have to eat a lot of mice that die from poison.
 
Matthew said:
The squirrel trap I use is pretty effective, as long as you use good bait. I use peanut butter snd bird seed, then scatter extra bird seed around. You can get end caps with openings big enough for a curious squirrel but not big enough for other animals.

My daughter had squirrels in her apartment ceiling and the exterminator used a couple of the same traps.
Click to expand...
That design will scale to bipedal varmints with a 55 gallon drum and some rebar.
 
Wagondriver said:
Sometimes that doesn't work and you need to use poison, I don't like carryover either, but a predator would have to eat a lot of mice that die from poison.
Click to expand...
The biggest downside to poison is that they die in your walls and stink forever.
 
rwellner98 said:
The biggest downside to poison is that they die in your walls and stink forever.
Click to expand...
I have found stacks of dead mice in walls while doing remodels, layers from skeletons years old to ones maybe a week old, they often don't stink. I think they only stink for a little while.

But, I'd rather them be dead and stinky for a bit than chewing on wires, hollowing out insulation for nests, or leaving their waste everywhere and on everything.
 
rwellner98 said:
The biggest downside to poison is that they die in your walls and stink forever.
Click to expand...

not forever.

one potential problem is when flies find the dead body.
 
Half Fast said:
Easy solution.
gamousa.com

Varmint Power .22 Cal. Break Barrel Pellet Air Rifle - GAMO

The GAMO Varmint Power is a .22 caliber break barrel air rifle that shoots up to 1,100 feet per second. It is powered by a spring piston and 33mm cylinder.
gamousa.com gamousa.com
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, many of my neighbors think the little varmints are cute, and I have them on both sides and behind. MY neighborhood is infested with gray squirrels and cottontails. Relocation or death is futile. Once a territory is empty, neighboring varmints move in. It's endless. The varmint lovers are in for a surprise when the bunnies overpopulate and start dying from Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD). My neighbors will be aghast at the little cuties twitching and bleeding on their properties, and when the entire neighborhood stinks like death maybe they'll understand.

RHD breaks out periodically in the San Juan Islands, every 10-15 years.

 
Wagondriver said:
I have found stacks of dead mice in walls while doing remodels, layers from skeletons years old to ones maybe a week old, they often don't stink. I think they only stink for a little while.
Click to expand...
Our experience is that they stink every time it gets humid.

Wagondriver said:
But, I'd rather them be dead and stinky for a bit than chewing on wires, hollowing out insulation for nests, or leaving their waste everywhere and on everything.
Click to expand...
But that's not the only alternative. The choices aren't limited to "poison" or "surrender the house to mice and live as their servant".

The best solution we've ever found is also a humane one. The traps I've linked a couple times. More reliable than snap traps. No stinky dead walls to worry about. More reliable and humane than glue traps.

We do also use bucket traps, which are inhumane, in areas that we need repeaters that don't require daily maintenance.
 
rwellner98 said:
The biggest downside to poison is that they die in your walls and stink forever.
Click to expand...
That has not been my experience using decon.
My MIL had mice in her kitchen, in all the drawers and cabinets bad. Poop everywhere in all the drawers and cabinets. She already had locks on her lower cabinet door to keep her grandbabies out where she kept cleaning supplies. We put trays of decon in the locked cabinets. In about 3-4 days they ate 2.5 trays of decon until it stop disappearing.
It cleared them out and we never did find one dead mouse because I looked expecting to find some. I looked everywhere upstairs and down stairs and never found any or any smells that she would have reported.
I believe they go looking for water afterwards so make sure there is no available water around.
I keep a couple of these in our hangars and in my 2 shops. They have been sitting there for years and the poison is rarely disturbed. We have no mice problems and I never have to handle traps or dead mice. This box has been there since I moved in 8 years ago. I have them in my buddies hangar next door also.
Also never leave food anywhere except in refrigerators. Trash cans get emptied everyday if we throw food into them.
03bf8137-af0f-471a-9fcf-a99f4f49cd39.png
 
This thread motivated me. I reset 6 snap traps and deployed my bucket just now. Should have a report tomorrow morning.
 
When I had a squirrel problem in the garage - side note, do not recommend squirrels in the garage - I used a game camera to help sort out where they were coming and going. Turns out those things can spot and video mice at close range, too. I didn't think they'd make enough heat to set off the motion detector, but at close range they will. So that might be a way to help track movement and behavior.
 
Albany Tom said:
When I had a squirrel problem in the garage - side note, do not recommend squirrels in the garage - I used a game camera to help sort out where they were coming and going. Turns out those things can spot and video mice at close range, too. I didn't think they'd make enough heat to set off the motion detector, but at close range they will. So that might be a way to help track movement and behavior.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they work on mice!

IMG_6174.jpeg
 
When I was about 10 years old, my parents moved us from our suburban house to a former dairy farm. We did feed cattle and grow hay, but that was about it. One day, one of our barn cats had some particular interest in the machinery shed. It turns out she had located a mouse, and chased it into the shed, where it ran under some piece of equipment, I don't recall which one. I got down on my hands knees to get a look at what she was chasing, and when I did that, the mouse made a beeline (mouseline?) for my jacket sleeve and ran right into it and up my arm! I'm not sure what the world record is for removing a jacket, but I have to think I was close to it.
 
I had a squirrel problem in the attic of our separate 2 car garage. They got in and removed 80% of the pink fiberglass insulation. They stripped it down to the brown paper backing. Took them about a summer to do it. I bet they had the warmest nest that following winter.

Another year a foul odor showed up in the garage in the spring, it faded as the summer went on. Come fall I pulled a folded blue tarp off the shelve that I use to rake leaves and there was a dead squirrel in one of the folds. The smell was so bad I couldn't use the tarp.
 
FormerHangie said:
When I was about 10 years old, my parents moved us from our suburban house to a former dairy farm. We did feed cattle and grow hay, but that was about it. One day, one of our barn cats had some particular interest in the machinery shed. It turns out she had located a mouse, and chased it into the shed, where it ran under some piece of equipment, I don't recall which one. I got down on my hands knees to get a look at what she was chasing, and when I did that, the mouse made a beeline (mouseline?) for my jacket sleeve and ran right into it and up my arm! I'm not sure what the world record is for removing a jacket, but I have to think I was close to it.
Click to expand...
There are not many things that can make a person move faster than a rodent inside of their clothes.
 
Flatiowa said:
There are not many things that can make a person move faster than a rodent inside of their clothes.
Click to expand...
That or a spider. One day as a teen, I left my jacket on the front porch overnight by accident and when I put it on the next day, there was an annoying, itchy hairball inside the sleeve. I reached inside the cuff and pulled it out with my bare hands - and it was a very large spider instead. I somehow didn't scream, but that jacket was very quickly no longer on my body and I never wore another left-out jacket without turning it inside out and shaking first!
 
FormerHangie said:
I got down on my hands knees to get a look at what she was chasing, and when I did that, the mouse made a beeline (mouseline?) for my jacket sleeve and ran right into it and up my arm!
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the Jerry Clower story about rat killing. Said a big ol' rat ran up the leg of his overalls and he caught it just above his knee. As the rat was trying to bite & claw him he would just squeeze harder.

Told his cousin to get his pocketknife and cut the jeans around the rat. He told him, "I don't believe I can back him down and I ain't turning him loose" ... :biggrin:
 
Daleandee said:
Reminds me of the Jerry Clower story about rat killing. Said a big ol' rat ran up the leg of his overalls and he caught it just above his knee. As the rat was trying to bite & claw him he would just squeeze harder.

Told his cousin to get his pocketknife and cut the jeans around the rat. He told him, "I don't believe I can back him down and I ain't turning him loose" ... :biggrin:
Click to expand...
“Tuck your pants into your boots” back when corn was picked by the ear and stored in cribs or wire bins and “shelling crews” would come around to process it the first thing told to new hires on the crews (before my time, but I am old enough to have heard some stories about people who didn’t heed that advice from old timers when I was young).
 
Albany Tom said:
When I had a squirrel problem in the garage - side note, do not recommend squirrels in the garage...
Click to expand...
I have a pilot buddy who also does white water kayaking. These kayaks are short and light. He hangs his kayaks from his garage ceiling. At the time he had a large blond lab and bought dog food by the 50 pound bag. He kept the bags stacked on a fridge in the garage. Spring came and the rivers were running fast and white. Loosening the rope on his pulley system, he almost dropped the kayak. When he got it on the ground, he found it full of dog kibbles. The bottom sack of dog food was almost empty. The squirrels decided the kayak was a better food cache than the bag.
 
Domenick said:
While not technically rodents, some folks put these down their pants for sport:
en.wikipedia.org

Ferret-legging - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
This brought back a memory from my teenage years I can’t believe I had forgotten. (my friends pet ferret crawled up my first girlfriends pant leg…one minute snuggling on a couch watching a movie, the next second getting kicked and hit as she seemingly instantly went insane and started thrashing about.. she didn’t find it as funny as I did afterwards and would get mad any time it was brought up).
 
Flatiowa said:
There are not many things that can make a person move faster than a rodent inside of their clothes.
Click to expand...
A bat will do it. Years ago, I was out with a group of cavers on an afternoon trip to a small cave in the Finger Lakes region of NY. There was a choke point on the way in, where usually an entering caver would disturb a group of rapidly exiting bats. The guy ahead of me was wearing baggy coveralls (no shirt), and a bat managed to fly into his coveralls. Hilarity ensued.
 
GaryM said:
A bat will do it. Years ago, I was out with a group of cavers on an afternoon trip to a small cave in the Finger Lakes region of NY. There was a choke point on the way in, where usually an entering caver would disturb a group of rapidly exiting bats. The guy ahead of me was wearing baggy coveralls (no shirt), and a bat managed to fly into his coveralls. Hilarity ensued.
Click to expand...
Bats are just about the only animal I've caught inside and released alive. As a kid, someone would invariably leave a window open and one would crawl or fly in. It became my job to catch them. Close the doors in the room, turn all the lights on, wait until they land, heavy leather gloves and gently grab and put into a paper bag. They are mosquito eating machines.

Anyway, bats are also apparently one of the most frequent cause of rabies in humans, which I didn't know until a couple of years ago. So I'm not sure if I'd do a catch and release anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top