The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: escapedtothecountry on October 05, 2013, 03:43:33 pm
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In one of my small outbuildings was looking for something and saw a cheeky little mouse. Now they do t bother me, but as thy have eaten some of my bulbs I thought I had to do something so got a couple of traps.
So a week later, and 12 dead mice and 1 dead shrew letter I'm wondering are the traps attracting every little mouse in the vicinity into the outbuilding? Didn't think there would have been room for them all! ;)
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God knows but you'd be surprised how many there are & I think they breed every 8-12 weeks if possible (Rabbits for example will mate straight away after giving birth to a litter :o) Vermin are called that for a reason - have you got cats? as we have 4 - granted only 2 are really good hunters but we very rarely see rats & mice around the place x
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I keep traps set for mice all the time... and rat traps, and larger traps for stoats or anything that size thats by the hen house, and in winter, a fox trap. I have caught mice (many!) a few rats (not in the last couple of years) and three ferrel ferrets. I think its best to keep on top of vermin, rather than waiting for there to be a problem, takes seconds to check the traps every day.
Also caught the cat a few times and dog once :o
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We don't really put mouse traps down but do rat traps & the cats sort of keep them down, I would like more farm cats or a terrier or 2 but we have 2 neighbours with good hunting cats so that helps plus more than 4 pet cats would get annoying but we have room for a small dog or 2 :innocent: xx
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There are a few wild cats that seem to keep the vermin down......probably why the mice are in my outbuilding.....hiding from the cats! Ha ha ;)
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As we are new to the countryside we knew it was only a matter of time.
We discovered signs of mice in the cupboard in the bathroom last Thursday evening.
Got 2 traps and a tray of poison on Friday from our local DIY Store.
I set 1 trap on Friday night.
Reset it twice on Saturay during the day.
Set the 2 traps last night before bed and reset both again this morning.
A total of 5 mice caught as of this morning! Every time a trap was laid - Bingo.
We thought there was one 1 mouse but I am wondering if the poison on the trap is attracting every mouse to the cupboard. As the traps are working so well the tray of poison hasn't even been brought out of the box yet.
We'll see what we get tomorrow morning.
We don't have any cats but there are a couple that are kicking about the village and 1 of them kindly regurgitated 3 mice for us the other day on the path - delightful animals.
Although we don't have cats of our own we have a terrier - useless though!
Would likely kiss the mice to death.
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Usually if you catch one mouse in a trap there are at least another six or seven more to be caught. Then just keep a check on the trap for the next batch to come in!!!
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Our cats caught a whole family last week! One big mouse and a few little ones. And Jack Russell terriers are sorting the rats out. The poison never worked so well a natural methods! :D