Yesterday I talked about the mouse plague the east coast of Australia is grappling with at the moment. I thought I would share with you the (poison free) mouse trap my grandfather used to catch and kill the mice that would get into his hay – he was a saddler and used the hay to stuff the saddles.
If you are wondering if it works, the answer is yes. When I visited my Grandad when I was little, I had to check the bucket in the mornings – there were always 3 or 4 mice in it. I also recently shared this with a friend who has a farm and last count she’d caught 21 mice this way 🙂
Equipment:
A long necked beer bottle or wine bottle
A bucket
Peanut butter and rolled oats
Water
Tape, cloth or sock or similar
Tape the bottle to the edge of a bench (sometimes putting a sock or cloth over the bottle and fixing that to the table is easier. My Grandad used a vice.
Make sure the neck of the bottle sticks out over the edge of the bench and is nice and clean/shiny (= slippery).
Put a spoonful of peanut butter and rolled oats mixture inside the mouth of the bottle and put the bucket (filled about a 1/4 of the way with water) underneath the neck of the bottle.
The mice love peanut butter and oats and will run along the bottle trying to find the peanut butter, when they hit the slippery neck they fall off into the bucket and drown.
Have you ever seen or used an inventive mouse trap?
May 21, 2021 at 9:17 pm
Ooooo!! And are they still living once found or drowned? Lol
Oh man I just had the voice of one of my students in my head while typing that “drownded” LOL he’s the only one who started off the year saying words like that and still continues to do it 🤦♀️
May 22, 2021 at 9:12 am
Drowned. Which is better because otherwise you’d still have to kill them.
It’s funny the words kids stick with. He’ll get there eventually.
May 22, 2021 at 9:45 am
Awwww the poor mouses!!! Haha but I understand. Im glad its a system that works!
And ugh man I hope so. He also has a stutter and probably ADHD and some other things going on too.
May 22, 2021 at 10:51 am
I feel sad for the mice. It’s an inventive mousetrap. I’ll have to keep it in mind. We do have a rodent problem in the area.
June 2, 2021 at 10:38 am
When you only have an occasional mouse it’s easy to feel sorry for them, but when it is a plague that infests your bed at night I think it’s easy to move passed that, lol.
May 22, 2021 at 10:48 pm
I’ve never heard of that method! I use a regular mouse trap inside a paper lunch bag so then I can just pick up the bag and throw it away. I know someone who uses the sticky traps and then, because the mouse is still alive, puts the whole thing in the freezer. It’s supposedly not a terrible way for a mouse to die, but I think a quick snap is more humane. I’m sure cats can be quite effective, but they also kill so many birds!
June 2, 2021 at 10:38 am
I’m actually going to write a post on cats and wildlife soon…
May 23, 2021 at 1:57 am
I have made some with 2 liter soda bottles. Cut the nozzle off when the return is even with the side wall. Turn the nozzle over and staple it to the body.
A mouse can slide its body through the hole, but can’t do the same from the inside.
That was just to get them out of a building, in your case you still have to euthanize them
June 2, 2021 at 10:39 am
That’s a clever system as well, but yes, still need to euthanise.
May 24, 2021 at 8:47 pm
We have plenty of mouses inside our walls. They run and play (or else?), and are very loud… Would love to trap them 😉
June 2, 2021 at 10:40 am
As long as they aren’t eating your wiring! That’s what I hate when we get a mouse in the walls is the gnawing sound.
June 2, 2021 at 1:34 pm
This is new to me! How inventive! And environmentally sound!