Thread: Mice. Heaps of bloody mice.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Oh man I’m so gonna build a rolling mouse trap.

Make one, really easy. We have them in the chicken coop and workshop. Caught over 20 in one in ONE night!

Both rats and mice are bad here this autumn. Been a very dry and warm summer/autumn, which I assume is perfect for breeding and survival rates

Even up here in Aukers.

Rats and Mice! There's one under/in the base of our fridge as I write, hopefully he will have a shocking night.

I've noticed a big increase in Mice and Rats over in HB, when I'm sitting camped in paddocks waiting for Rabbits you see them running around in the long grass and in the trees through the thermal.

I do wonder if your increase in Mice immediately after the decrease in Rats is related, perhaps they don't cohabitate well?

@Flyblown, just thinking, havnt you cleaned up a lot of wild cats over the last little while?

Best mouse trap we saw was a 20 litre bucket with a stick and a wine bottle. Bucket is about 1/3 full of water. Wine bottle taped to side of bucket so that the neck of the bottle is over the centre of the bucket, then the stick rests on the base of the wine bottle. Hang a bait above the neck of the wine bottle using the bucket handle. Rodents can climb onto the bottle and stretch up to get to the bait, but glass is very slippery with no grip so rodent falls into the water. And they cannot tread water forever.......

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

Attachment 196268

Take two panadol, see me in the morning if the headache is still severe.

we are catching mice on a regular basis on the plains not to the extent you are although the signs are there.....the last straw for the missus was when they got into her double shot latte sachets.......NO THEY WERENT MINE! i will catch 3 or 4 in succession then nothing for about a few weeks..... they love chocolate i been sprinkling chocolate powder over peanut butter for bait. the house cat has retired to couch cat the dog still catches the odd one she will spend hours just sitting watching the open drains.
the guys who have lived here all their lives reckon "its just the time of the year" and shrug it off like they do with the crickets the flies the mozzies and the roaches.... which reminds me i caught a mouse in one of those sticky roach traps once

Originally Posted by GWH

@Flyblown, just thinking, havnt you cleaned up a lot of wild cats over the last little while?

Only a few from neighbouring properties, not many. The neighbours all still have domestic cats. They just don’t come here, else they’ll get eviscerated.

Originally Posted by Mintie

I do wonder if your increase in Mice immediately after the decrease in Rats is related, perhaps they don't cohabitate well?

Very good point, hadn’t thought of that.

When we first started getting mice, and still had rats, I noticed three or four trapped mice had been eaten in the traps. Could have been a rat, ferret, stoat, who knows. Once the rats were gone, that stopped, haven’t seen it since.

Then the one Staffy cottoned onto a ferret living under the house, and caught that. Who knows what else they catch - if I don’t intervene they’ll eat it. Rats they just gulp down the dirty buggers.

So yeah, now you mention it I think the mice might be thriving partly because their main predators were eliminated.

Muricide: the killing mice by rats.

Did you know that in 1972 some scientists did an experiment where they injected rats with cannabis THC and then put mice in the cage to see what would happen next? Well the stoner rats ate the mice, whereas the sober mice didn’t so much. Kinda puts a new spin on getting the munchies eh. All in the name of science.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Muricide: the killing mice by rats.

Did you know that in 1972 some scientists did an experiment where they injected rats with cannabis THC and then put mice in the cage to see what would happen next? Well the stoner rats ate the mice, whereas the sober mice didn’t so much. Kinda puts a new spin on getting the munchies eh. All in the name of science.

Mental note to self....never smoke weed with @Flyblown

Just on a side note for those posting about the bucket traps, setting traps with the intention of drowning, or drowning already trapped animals is illegal.

Originally Posted by Mintie

Just on a side note for those posting about the bucket traps, setting traps with the intention of drowning, or drowning already trapped animals is illegal.

Wow really, didnt know that. Surely drowning has to be a faster more humane death than the slow hideous suffering prior to death as a result of some of the poisons the Govt uses.

Well only four this morning. Which fits with the pattern of clear, relatively bright nights being the lowest numbers. I wonder if the mice are a lot more circumspect on clear still nights with the Morepork around? I don’t suppose they are smart enough to consider it because one of the mice I caught this morning had a broken tail from a previous run in with a trap. He obviously hadn’t learned.

It occurred to me this morning as I held these up for a photo, that if I was Paleolithic I would probably have eaten them already.