It’s that time of year again: beautiful weather, changing leaves, bounteous harvests and the subsequent invasion of mice. I’m all for live and let live as long as rodents aren’t nesting on my saddle, eating the horses’ grain or welcoming themselves into our house. Then they’ve got to go. I don’t like the idea of glue traps (a slow painful starvation stuck on a glue pad? Heck, half the time they walk over it anyway) or poison (I’ve got little kids around here and cats that might accidentally gobble up a poisoned mouse) so I stick with the traditional snap trap. Morbid, yes, but it’s better than contracting some zoonotic disease from a mouse. Here’s some tips to make sure they really work and keep the mouse from A) running off with it stuck on a leg or tail or B) getting off scot free altogether:
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| (Sorry for the crummy photo–my little camera is at the doctor). |
First, keep food crumbs and water cleaned up. A mouse probably won’t go for a trap if it’s got a buffet of kids’ dinner scraps on the floor. I speak from experience. Secondly, use peanut butter on the trap even if the trap claims to be pre-baited. It’s sticky so they’ll have to work to get it off and is fragrant which will reliably attract a mouse. Then for the real trick: put the peanut butter underneath the bait pad. Again, morbid, but they’ll have to try and get at it, giving you the best chance of ridding your unwelcome house guests sooner rather than later. Trust us. We’ve used this method more than once and it works.
