I've been asked about the humane mouse traps that I use in the tunnels to catch those pesky little critters that have been eating all my baby crops. They seem to like the little spinach plants in both of the tunnels the best, although they did eat it with ALL of my Spring Onions seedlings the other night, they must have fancied a bit more flavour 🙁
There's no way I would have one of those old fashioned snap shut (a la Tom and Jerry) style mouse traps, I can think of nothing worse than having to dispose of a little body mangled by one of those every morning ... or even worse still finding a poor little creature trapped by a limb in one and having to despatch it myself.
So for me it's the humane version every time.
Look away now if you don't like mices ....
This is what the traps look like inside, although mine don't have the clear lids, which I prefer and must be slightly less scary for the mice when you are moving them around ready for release.
The mouse goes in through the little square hole and through the tunnel, tempted by whatever bait you have put inside the box. I have been using some of Alan's crackers which have a nice savoury scent to them ... they would make me crawl through a hole to get to them 😄
Once in they cannot get out, as when they step off the little lightly spring-loaded ramp in the tunnel it goes back up making the entrance no good as an exit ... although other mice can still come in. Hence these are really good at catching more than one mouse each night.
Our record last year was four!!
Once they are inside they have to wait for the traps to be checked, which I go over and do each morning, carrying the whole trap to the far end of the paddock or up into the woodland behind the fire pit area if I find any little occupants. Sometimes the mice will find their way back and if this happens you should actually try releasing them two miles from the site of their capture. Last year we had so many mice that we started spraying their little bottoms with orange sheep marking spray paint to see if we were releasing the same ones over and over, and on a couple of occasions we were.
So a nice humane mouse trap, which is great unless you are the mouse that gets trapped in there with pyscho killer mouse ... and gets your head chewed off by your cell-mate!!
Yuk!! This morning was NOT a pretty mouse releasing job ... I'll spare you the photo of that.
Sue xx
If you need any of these traps for yourself you can get them from here :
... or try your local hardware shop, if it's open yet. 🐭
After reading that, all I can say is 'oh, no, poor you (and mouse)
ReplyDeletexx
It was a yucky thing to find before breakfast ... or maybe it WAS better to find it before I had eaten anything!!
DeleteI have a big problem with mice invading our 2 rabbit hitches, esp.in the winter. They squeeze through the tiny squares in the mesh in the hutch and on 3 occasions I've gone in a morning to find they've doubled back on themselves and got stuck in a square in the wire mesh. I have to carefully snip the wire with strong secateurs to release them and off they run. Each hutch now has 2 bigger squares which the mice seem to use! I've found that if the seed sticks are removed, which are rabbit treats, the mice don't seem to be interested. They don't harm the rabbits but they pee and poo a lot!
ReplyDeleteIt's such a problem isn't it. Luckily chickens see the mice off for themselves, but rabbits wouldn't do that.
DeleteWhile doing the garden over the last 8 weeks,we lifted a large slap that was stored on soil. Sitting underneath in a best was Me & Mrs Mouse. We walked away leaving an escape route but they didn't move for ages. There were no babies so we got rid of the nest. They're probably back under the slap we moved.
ReplyDeleteThey can get into and live in the teeniest of spaces can't they. Just one of the many pitfalls of living with gardens and outside space I guess.
DeleteEek! What a job to have to do each day. The psycho killer mouse idea sent shivers down my spine :/
ReplyDeleteIt was not a pretty sight!!
DeleteThey really are very clever. We've had ours for three years now and they still work perfectly despite being washed over and over.
ReplyDeleteFirst year of growing vegetables for me. Last week I planted out my beans (I had started them off in the wee plastic greenhouse and they were looking really healthy). I hadn't netted them as I thought that it was just peas that got munched. Yesterday morning, several bean plants had been munched round the edges, almost triangular pieces removed so it may be birds, and one of the stalks was broken. I have now covered them in netting and hoping that they all stand up to today's gale force winds!
ReplyDeleteI have used these mouse traps before and they definitely work. Only problem is how do I know if there are babies somewhere? I have been caught out like this before and found four baby mice dead in the pond a couple of days later, very upsetting x
That's the only downside to catching mice unfortunately ☹️
DeleteI shall now use this as the permanent excuse why I never grow vegetables.
ReplyDeleteHaha, they just see an easy meal in baby veggies and it makes them brave in coming out to nibble. There are mice EVERYWHERE 🤣🤣
DeleteI did laugh at the thought of you painting their bums orange! Living where we do, we get the odd rat in the garden now and then, horrible. At least they don't come indoors....although we've had a mouse indoors occasionally.
ReplyDeleteWe do get rats in Chicken World unfortunately, and have to wage a yearly war using rat killer pouches. Rosy, the Jack Russell was our weapon against them, she was a brilliant ratter. Mavis doesn't seem as interested or as able.
DeleteI think it's about 2 miles you have to take them to release before they'll come back. - trip to the beach I think!
ReplyDeleteWe used to drive them up the road to the dog walk lay-by and release before we took the dogs for a walk, at least that's countryside for them. The beach is 16 miles away, so we still can't go. We are only allowed to travel for 5 miles at the moment ☹️
DeleteThose are very interesting traps. I don't think I have seen those. I leave mouse catching and disposal to Harvey and he uses the Tom and Jerry types of traps.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Being here alone means I have no choice but to deal with them, so I'll stick with these traps. I couldn't kill something just because it was trying to find food to live it's little life.
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