Thread: Mice. Heaps of bloody mice.

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.

Originally Posted by GWH

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.

Nah. Mice are good swimmers and will just go round and round in circles for hours until they collapse from exhaustion, and then drown. Takes forever.

In 2015 in Tassie, I fished Lake Roseberry with my mate Steve. After the morning feed it had all gone quiet so he moved the boat over to a spot on his GPS just off a small nearshore islet, and said “watch this”. He reached into his special bait bag and pulled out a half frozen mouse with a hook protruding from its belly and a thin trace coming out of its mouth. On about the fifth or sixth retrieve it got hammered by a fat as brown trout, best one of the day.

When they were fighting the bushfires in 2013 the firefighting boats on the lake were spraying the shore, the fireman watched legions of rats and mice swimming across the lake to get away from the flames.

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.

Yep it's definitely a mouse Autumn here. Running extra traps now and getting a lot more than usual. I'd say weather related.

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@Flyblown

You can't control whaf happens in the surrounding area with the mouse population, but you can make your own place less attractive to these burglars.

Mice are like fire, remember the fire triangle: fuel, oxidizer, ignition source.

Mice like warmth, access to moisture (remember the bathtub rat family), food, clutter to hide among.

Is your crawl space warm due to lack of underfloor insulation, or is the crawl space sufficiently enclosed to make it much warmer than outside but not sufficiently enclosed to prevent rodent ingress?

The fact you keep things swept to be able to spot rodent faeces may also in and of itself make your place less attractive to them.

Do a walk-through and think like them and their needs. You'll spot the problem.

Originally Posted by Cordite

@Flyblown

You can't control whaf happens in the surrounding area with the mouse population, but you can make your own place less attractive to these burglars.

Mice are like fire, remember the fire triangle: fuel, oxidizer, ignition source.

Mice like warmth, access to moisture (remember the bathtub rat family), food, clutter to hide among.

Is your crawl space warm due to lack of underfloor insulation, or is the crawl space sufficiently enclosed to make it much warmer than outside but not sufficiently enclosed to prevent rodent ingress?

The fact you keep things swept to be able to spot rodent faeces may also in and of itself make your place less attractive to them.

Do a walk-through and think like them and their needs. You'll spot the problem.

The situation in the bathroom was just unfortunate. A legacy of the fuckwit plumber that punched ragged holes in the fibreboard instead of using a hole saw, when installing the shower and vanity waste pipes 22 years ago. The crawlspace under the house is too low there to get in from below, so I had no idea they were there. I was however highly aggrieved that I didn’t think to check the second waste pipe the first time round because we could have avoided the second round of rat grief. The holes around the waste pipes were just big enough for a rat to squeeze through… anyway that’s all been fixed now. (And the wife has a new bathroom which actually is quite a big positive from the whole experience…)

We don’t have a mouse problem in the house. Everything is outside and the primary habitat is the woodshed. Ideal circumstances for them there - lots of little tunnels and cavities out of the wind and rain where they can build nests with a ready supply of dry bark. Not really much we can do about that.

If you get desperate and decide to feed them some poison – make sure you give them a one feed killer – not something that will keep them fat and happy. If rat numbers seem to be getting away – we occasionally give them a feed of Contrac – a one feed rat killer. But as rat numbers drop off – the Contrac blocks can sit around in the Philproof mini bait stations – then the mice move in and stay dry, warm and well feed – mouse shit turns blue, but they just run away when I turn the bait station over. They are small animals and just can’t eat enough of the active poisonous ingredient to kill them.
My pest control advisor told me to use First Strike – a one feed killer – a little more expensive than Contrac – but it works. Key Industries is a great supplier - https://keyindustries.co.nz/View-A-P...5#ProductRange
I have got seven mouse traps set around the kitchen, laundry and garage – got a couple but more will be back as the weather gets wet and cold.

Originally Posted by time out

If you get desperate and decide to feed them some poison – make sure you give them a one feed killer – not something that will keep them fat and happy. If rat numbers seem to be getting away – we occasionally give them a feed of Contrac – a one feed rat killer. But as rat numbers drop off – the Contrac blocks can sit around in the Philproof mini bait stations – then the mice move in and stay dry, warm and well feed – mouse shit turns blue, but they just run away when I turn the bait station over. They are small animals and just can’t eat enough of the active poisonous ingredient to kill them.
My pest control advisor told me to use First Strike – a one feed killer – a little more expensive than Contrac – but it works. Key Industries is a great supplier - https://keyindustries.co.nz/View-A-P...5#ProductRange
I have got seven mouse traps set around the kitchen, laundry and garage – got a couple but more will be back as the weather gets wet and cold.

In the garages we seem to do okay with No Rats & Mice blocks. You can see when might have been eating it because they leave a fine dust, whereas rats leave bigger pieces if anything. If I put out fresh blocks in the knowledge there are some resident mice inside, within a week they are all dead and I find their carcasses in the dark corners and under the bench. (And inside the freezer control panel.) Occasionally I will find a nearly dead one staggering about.

I’ll read up on your suggestions and see what the risks are for by-kill and danger to dogs. I’m very fond of our moreporks, for example, And wouldn’t want to use something that could potentially knock them on the head if they ate a recently poisoned mouse.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

I’ll read up on your suggestions and see what the risks are for by-kill and danger to dogs. I’m very fond of our moreporks, for example, And wouldn’t want to use something that could potentially knock them on the head if they ate a recently poisoned mouse.

Something I didn’t realise is that the poison I’m already using has a high risk of secondary poisoning of predatory birds! If you don’t ask me before I looked at it this morning I would’ve said that was not the case but I have no idea where I got that information from…

Back to the drawing board.

I've gone to mechanical traps for this reason. Not wanting poisoned vermin staggering around as we also have moreporks in the garden. Have a goodnature trap and to be honest the cost of that is better in just setting out plenty of decent plastic traps that just need checking every day or more when catching. Then now and then when the kill rate drops off. Got a bit caught out this autumn but on top of them now.

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I'll look at what bait I have - one is Contrac but I can't recall the other. The Contrac is better for rats as suggested earlier, the other is more for the mice problems (I can't recall why the mouse bait isn't useful for rats - but the combo does seem to be very effective). Both are non-secondary poisoning - I won't have anything here with a secondary poisioning risk due to both the numbers of morepork and me cat.

well if you put out a steel sided bucket half filled with water against the side of shed and tip a cup full of fatty water from your next roast into it... it may-or may not help with your mouse problem.....as its apparently now illegal to give mice swimming lessons....I can not comment any further FFS...Karen needs to get a haircut and a new job...and possibly a husband too.

https://youtu.be/f49Kd5Ql_2E

Groceries are getting expensive………

Originally Posted by McNotty

https://youtu.be/f49Kd5Ql_2E

Groceries are getting expensive………

Watched the whole thing, very good!

Right, well I’ve got half a dozen mice here and I’ve just them on a plate in the kitchen and said to the wife… hey love, there’s a vid here that shows me how to cook these mice these for breakfast.
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(The dots are supposed to signify the stoney silence and the look she just gave me.)