And this is the cure.
We’re having a bit – more than a bit, a lot – of a mouse crisis at Landlady’s house, which is quiet and contained and safely unoccupied for long periods. We catch a few mice every month but only a few, and their numbers are clearly starting to get out of hand.
And so in her big closet did Landlady a stately bucket trap decree.
Faithful TUAKians have talked about bucket traps for mice for years. It’s a simple enough matter, they’re known to be effective, but I never got around to building one because they take up a lot of space and I didn’t ever need one that badly. But now there’s a reason, so this afternoon after chicken and T&S chores we’re going to build one. Stay tuned.
Don’t forget the game camera.
I’ll be interested to see how effective that version is. Not much of a mouse problem here on the estate, but applying a constantly-in-use gizmo toward keeping their number as low as possible is always a plus. That version, in particular, appears to be able to weather the weather better than others, allowing benign neglect a couple days at a time.
I saw another version of the bucket trap, where the guy just threw a layer of sunflower seeds on the surface of the water and the mice would dive off the edge of the ramp thinking they were landing in a bucket of seed. He was dumping out about a dozen mice every time he emptied the bucket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71CisCta0t8 Starts at about the 7 minute mark.
Interesting design. I’ve always made them with a PB jar on a wire strung across the top. But I suppose the bottle-on-a-pole could work just as well…
Looks good and I hope it works.
BTW if you were to substitute the word liberals for the word mice in the title of this entry, you would accurately describe the main problem in the world today. :^)