Saturday, October 31, 2009

Mouse Update.

Okay I got one of these mousetraps and so the battle of wits between human and rodent begins. At the moment it's 1-0 to the mouse.

I added the bait (some Chocolate Buttons) and placed the trap behind the settee that I'd seen the mouse emerge from before. Unfortunately my dog likes choclate too and rather impressively he managed to squeeze in behind the settee pull out the trap and open it.

So I am now out of bait and in need of a dog free place to set the trap.

5 comments:

Pavlov's Cat said...

May I suggest using Peanut Butter as bait, works a treat

JuliaM said...

Hard to tell what size that is, but if you can, put the trap inside a shoebox and seal it up, leaving a hole for entry. Dog can't get bait, mouse can.

James Higham said...

Do you think you could set up a webcam?

Richard said...

Leave the trap unsprung and unbaited for a week, to let the little critter get used it, and lose your smell on it.

Then try fruit cake on an unbaited trap ... just crumbs sprinkled around it. When you see "takes" then bait your trap.

If you don't see "takes", change the position - look for droppings, or you can sprinkle talc in on likely "runs" and look for the footprints (of course, in the old days, we used DDT dust ... that did for them without the traps).

The shoebox idea won't work. The trap should be a right angles to the wall, the bait platform tight up against the wall.

Ross said...

PC- I'll give that a go if the buttons don't work.

Julia- That does sound like a good idea.

James- What I will do is put a photo of the mouse up when I've caught it.

Richard- The idea of letting the mouse get used to it is something I'll try, I know mice can be surprisingly smart around traps.