pike-62 Although I don't have mouse problem I do have a chipmonk problem...well, used to anyway. After all of the traps, poisons and what-not my brother showed me one that works real well. Take 1 five gal drywall compound pail, fill half full of water, pour in sunflower seeds (they float) to cover the water and put a small gang plank across the top to alow the varmit to walk out onto to see the seeds. Once they jump in to get them there is no way out and they drown. Not real humane, but effective.
Although I don't have mouse problem I do have a chipmonk problem...well, used to anyway. After all of the traps, poisons and what-not my brother showed me one that works real well. Take 1 five gal drywall compound pail, fill half full of water, pour in sunflower seeds (they float) to cover the water and put a small gang plank across the top to alow the varmit to walk out onto to see the seeds. Once they jump in to get them there is no way out and they drown. Not real humane, but effective.
I think my similar jar with beer is more fun, at least the critter dies happy!
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Easy fix for your squatting not so distant relative of a Washington politician residing in your tunnel. Short of using dynamite to blast the little sucker to the great beyond this is the most non evasive rodent fix we have at the farm. As mentioned the little varmints can not resist peanut butter and the mixing it with oatmeal to make little balls is a great touch I must say. Take a piece of either pvc tubing about 4 to 6 inches long with a cap on it or even an old can will work but the length of tubing is a bit better only because of the length. Throw the ball of peanut butter and oatmeal into the bottom of the tube and then take a can of spray glue and coat the inside of the tube. Being as this unwanted guest has taken up residence in the tunnel I would just shove the tube into the tunnel portal with the capped end facing out and I would venture to say with in an no more then an hour the little beady eyed sucker will be stuck to the inside of the tube. How you dispose of said tube is strictly up to you. You can have someone throw it up in the air as you yell pull and take care of it with a 12 gage but that might scare the neighbors, it makes a fun toy for the cat especially after you've downed a few cold one's or you can give it the old deep six into a bucket of water or fast moving stream. My wife had to stop throwing them in to the garbage can when the guy asked her what were those white tubes we kept throwing out (had a bunch living in one of the barns when we moved in not anymore) She picked one up and showed it to him critter inside maybe even still moving a bit, well have you ever seen that Capital one commercial where the guys screams like a little girl being chased by the irate customer, our garbage man man that guy look like Ivan the terrible........lol
You don't have the right trap. I have a huge success rate with just this method, and with the 99 cent copper and wood mouse trap.
Perhaps, but you couldn't so much as breath heavy around the ones I had without setting them off, and yet the mouse still ate the peanut butter from the trigger.
Dog food and sticky traps through have been a 100% success, and it works just fine for me, so the "right trap" is a moot point.
cahrnget some beers
Another beer option is to get an empty quart size jar, fill half way with beer (the cheap stuff, it's for a mouse after all), set somewhere convenient, and put a piece of wood from the benchwork to the jar lip. The mouse smells the beer, walks the gangplank, trying to get to the beer falls into the jar, and drowns.
I have never tried this myself, but have heard it is an old fashioned way of getting rid of varmits. The hair trigger snap traps have always worked for me. The key is that the trigger needs to be so sensative that it is difficult to set and may snap just from setting them in place - watch your fingers!
At least we are talking rats/mice here and not roaches.
We had a young lady with 4 screaming kids move up here across the street from NYC for a year before she decided to return to the city. With her came cockroaches that NONE of us surounding neighbors had EVER had a problem with. Finally after about 5-6 months after she left they just disappeared. Thankfully.
I HATES roaches. 'nuf said.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
D94RThe peanut butter on the mouse trap trigger doesn't work.
You don't have the right trap. I have a huge success rate with just this method, and with the 99 cent copper and wood mouse trap. The first trick is to make sure your trigger is a hair trigger. It's like selecting the best milled lumber from the pile...select a trap that takes a two feathered touch.
The second trick is to use a toothpick dipped in fresh peanut butter and wipe a skiff of the PB inside the copper loop on the trigger arm. Putting too much on it, especially on the outside, makes it easy pickin's for the wee rodents.
I tell you, I'm lethal with those snap traps and PB. I have my mug shot posted in all the mouse holes in British Columbia.
They are still developing the empty lots around my house so I've been battling field mice for about a year now.
The peanut butter on the mouse trap trigger doesn't work. They just eat it off of there without releasing it. Poison didn't work either.
What I finally came up with, and has worked like a charm, is using the glue traps. Put the 4 that come in the pack corner to corner to form a hollow center square. Put dog food or cat food in the center of the traps and wait. This has never failed me once. The only time this "didn't work" was when one of the mice seemed to have ran away with the trap never to be seen again. (this was about 2 months ago) Come to find out this past weekend when cleaning out the side of the garage the layout will be in the trap did indeed catch him and he wedged himself in a good place. Everyone kept telling me I'd smell him before I found him, but alas he never smelled and there was no sign of decomp either. A dry basement that is (now) sealed from bugs/rodents kept the decomp and smell away.
I caught two more mice in the garage the other night within an hour of each other using the dog food surrounded by glue traps. There isn't another way I'm gonna try or waste my time and money on anymore.
I had a bat the other night. Not int he train room, the door is closed to keep the cats out, but in the rest of the house. I finally caught it (n help from said cats) and took it outside.
Glue traps are NOT humane, mice and rats will do anything to try an free themselves, and without getting graphic it can be pretty bad. The peanut butter and oatmeal works well because it sticks to the trap trigger - not like a piece of cheese or something that could be plucked off without jostling the trigger. Used to get voles on the garage, digging in a bag of peat moss. Used to catch them and take them to the field across the street. Depending on the animal being trapped, I usually just release them away from my house, not kill them for no reason. Certainly wasn't goign to kill teh bat, they eat skeeters and other nasty annoying insects.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
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GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Living in the country, I've become an export at killing mice and rats. Set a green rodent bait block against a wall. Angle a glue trap with peanut butter on one side and a Victor rodent trap that has the peddle that looks like a peice of cheese on the other. It's a three prong attach.
The rodent will want to eat the bate, but will have to walk through the glue trap or cross the snap trap peddle first. Only the snap traps with the "cheese" peddle work. They have a scent cast into them.
I have found shot (tiny pellets like from a miniature shot-gun shell) from a .22 revolver (or rifle) fired from a distance from 3 to 6 feet to be effective and relatively safe, at least for a firearm. Bullets "fired" from pellet/air guns would probably penetrate deeper, increasing safety concerns.
Mark
<--- See avatar.
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
We manage to get mice during the winter. WE have two cats who help. SOmetimes. Other times they just play cat and mouse with them. And we set the traps with peanut butter that "lock the mouse inside"
I'm surprised we haven;t started to see the ants yet, as we live beside a large wooded area and get them every sping.
I would line hte tunnel with that rat trap sticky tape and see what happens.
Just a thought.
Now this is crazy, that must be one smart rat. Any pics of the kangaroo rat? Is it big?
oh and I HATE SNAKES, that pic made me quiver...
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
I noticed a rat eating uncaringly on my lawn about one month ago, with eagles flying overhead. She ran under the neighbour's wood shed once, and another time scampered up the deck stairs, up our vinyl siding and up over the roof. Life must have been good.
I told the neighbour about the wood shed, and I knew he has a rat trap...the snap kind. He baited it with a piece of orange...freshly pealed, citrony, saliva inducing....oohhh, ssooooo compelling....and snap that trap did. Humans 1, Rat no score.
-Crandell
rrinkerGet one of the no-kill traps, and bait it with a mix of peanut butter and oatmeal rolled in a little ball. Works every time.
Get one of the no-kill traps, and bait it with a mix of peanut butter and oatmeal rolled in a little ball.
Works every time.
Not quite... we had a mouse in the house over the winter. He liked to "flip us off" by leaving his...uh..."deposits" on the edges of the glue traps. Other traps he'd relocate or otherwise get the bait...and leave a "calling card" to show us who the superior life from was!
I would've poisoned him (better living through chemicals as the OP said...), but figured my beloved dog would finally lift a paw to go after the critter, and get poisoned as well.
I think the mouse and dog had an agreement...
Chris
As a semi-related comment, I heard where a hospital was using the glue traps, since they were "humane." The rest-of-the-story is that when a mouse was found attached to one...instead of taking him/her/it out to the country and pouring a little cooking oil (or whatever it is that is supposedly supposed to un-glue the varmint), the maintenance guys would fling it (trap and mouse) into the incinerator...
The Cedar cRapids Industrial Branch: Proudly Shipping Yesterday's CrunchBerries Tomorrow!
This is the easy and environmentally friendly way of disposing the critters:
Surely someone in the neighborhood knows someone who owns a snake.
It doesn´t hurt to ask.
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I made the mistake of using poison a few years ago on squirrels in the attic. Poison worked but one crawled into a wall and died. Talk about smell. After that we still had problems so I bought a gammo pellet gun and shot them outside when they left to seek food and water. Over the course of the winter I bagged 16, and never had a problem again. I'm sure all 16 weren't up there but there's guilt by association.
Springfield PA
Thanks to a neighbor slaughtering a pig and cow for meat and throwing the unwanted pieces-parts in a bon fire (much of it didn't burn,) I ended up with a good sized rat in my tool shed. Traps, trays of poison, anything I put out she would drag away and hide. After putting half a dozen pellets into her, it only got her mad. She would stand on her hind legs like a boxer, daring me as I put yet another round into her. Finally had to get her attention by whacking her with a garden spade and breaking her neck with the edge of the shovel. I'd say, once she drops the babies, she might get really nasty. Later on, I found hollow point pellets made for varmint control. Wish I had them at the time of the battle,
Don't suppose you can swing a shovel in that tunnel?
Chuck
Grand River & Monongah Railroad and subsidiary Monongah Railway
I think that the problem will continue to re-appear (with fresh rats of course) until you find out where they're getting in and get it sealed. As for the chemical solutions, they work but not with all animals, as not all will be attracted to any particular bait. Also, the idea that the little corpses dissolve quickly seems to be a myth. The smell will linger for months.
Wayne
Cahrn, I like the way you think.
They cost north of $60 at Ace. I hate rats but not quite that much. If she isn't dead by tomorrow, I will day light the mountain, add the plywood liner, and rebuild.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Grab a pellet rifle and get some beers and sit in a spot with a clear shot/view of the tunnel. If the rodent shows itself dispatch it. This is why I like to keep my 1000 fps scoped gamo handy. Good luck.
Cahrn
They make electronic mouse traps that work great. The rodent enters it and gets electrocuted.
If you look at the CSX ABBA head-on shot I posted in WPF, you see a tunnel in the distance. A momma kangaroo rat has taken up residence. Now a kangaroo rat looks like a mouse (think Mouse Hunt) but with a slightly larger body and longer tail. Normally, I would just have another beer and wait for mother nature to take her course.
Since Thursday, I go out in the morning and suck all the nesting debris out of the tunnel with a shop vac thinking as the birthing approached she would seek another venue. But nooooo.
Now the line has been crossed. She started dragging my spline cars up and to the tunnel entrance as camouflage. Strike 1.
Mind you, the cars were sitting on hidden staging tracks on a lower level. So I put the splines away till this saga resolves itself. She got to the hidden staging by chewing through the Styrofoam tunnel wall to a lower tunnel!. Strike 2.
Last night she sealed her fate when she tried to drag an F89 flat car up to the tunnel. But it was obviously too long and too heavy for her little mouse jaws and front legs so it fell to the ground. No damage aside from rat spit but that specific point is moot. Strike 3.
She has also created another room if you will, by chewing into the main tunnel side wall so I can't just reach in with tongs and snag her furry little butt. Actually, this facet of the desecration doesn't bother me.
So far she has evaded traps so I have already moved on to better living through chemicals. Or dying if you are the rat. But that takes several days for the chemicals to do there job. The last thing I want is for this tunnel to become a rodent materity ward.
Any suggestions? If I could hook a hose to the Jeep exhaust, I would just seal the tunnel and let the carbon monoxide do its job. But that's a 60 foot run from the garage.
Lesson learned? Build a plywood liner for the tunnels and put the foam around it instead of merely cutting a tunnel into a real large block of foam. Also buy the biggest pellet gun available at Wal-Mart.