What next- locusts?

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oldtimer

Full Member
Sep 27, 2005
3,185
1,801
82
Oxfordshire and Pyrenees-Orientales, France
We've nearly finished dealing with the plague of clothes moths, only the rugs and carpets to be done, but now we have mice. They seem to be carrying a super-intelligence gene as they have developed a strategy for getting peanut butter off the traps without tripping them. So far I've only caught one. I'm beginning to develop a respect for them and may be going soft enough to leave them be. However, I still remember how they made a nest in my winter wellies a couple of years back with the left one turned into living quarters made cosy with the boot linings and my socks and the right one used as a larder for the peanuts and other bird food they had filched from the bird food store.

I prefer them to the grey squirrels that raid the bird feeders in the garden. They have a strategy of getting into a position that prevents my getting a clear shot at them by ensuring that they have the car behind them so that a miss would mean a dent in the car or a broken windscreen. They do provide competition for the rooks, jackdaws and magpies all of whom also fight with the smaller birds on the bird feeder..

Part of the problem is that there are fewer cats in our hamlet now. Our possy of pussies has suffered from the road which has become a rat run into Oxford and neither we nor our neighbours feel like replacing them. The last three are all now pretty old and past their prime hunting years.

As I write now, the meadow beside our house has become a lake as the River Ray has overflowed its banks. We now have a family of swans feeding beside the vegetable plot. How long before the woodpile starts floating away downstream to Oxford? This usually means that the moles under the meadow start to migrate uphill into our vegetable garden.

So you can see, what with moths, mice, marauding birds and squirrels and now the floods, what is the next plague to come? I almost, but not quite feel like running away to the city. Its not much better in France. There we get plagues of tourists!
 

Woody girl

Full Member
Mar 31, 2018
4,520
3,460
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Exmoor
Try putting a peanut on the spike of the mousetrap. They will have to tug it to get it off and SNAP! You've got one. I use this method with 100% success.
I've watched them lick peanut butter off the trap and not set it off,but they want that whole nut and won't stop to think!
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,293
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
So you can see, what with moths, mice, marauding birds and squirrels and now the floods, what is the next plague to come? I almost, but not quite feel like running away to the city. Its not much better in France. There we get plagues of tourists!

Unless you are the first born you should be fine?
:)

We prefer to serve the mice a good, unhealthy meal outside the house.
You know, those walk-in traps with poisoned chow.
Seems to work well, no signs of a mouse or rat inside now for years.
 

Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
7,981
7,757
Mid Wales
www.mont-hmg.co.uk
For those awkward mice I have found a cut slice of Twix (Other caramel sandwich bars are available). I push the toffee part onto the points of the trap (assuming we are talking about those little metal sprung traps). It works extremely well.

All the mice we get into the house (it is a barn) are field mice not house mice so, although they are a nuisance, they do not smell anywhere near as bad. We also get the odd bank vole in!

I'd rather have grey squirrel than cats to be honest - at least I can eat the squirrel (mmm.. never tried cat :) ).

BTW I stopped using poisons thirty years ago when a) I saw how long it took a rat to die and b) when I read the RSPB report of secondary poisoning in owls and other raptors.
 
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Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Stay safe Oldtimer :) we had a duck under the bird feeder recently :rolleyes: but swans are a bit much :)

Smear the peanut butter at the back edge of the wee circle bait holder. That way they've to stretch and it sets off the trap.
We have had field mice in the house, but thankfully never house mice.

Not fond of poisons, but the compost bins seem to have a rat visiting them, so we bait them, and wish we could do it with something that killed them pdq. It's enclosed inside the bin so nothing else gets in like hedgehogs or squirrels, just a rat :(

M
 
Apr 8, 2009
1,165
144
Ashdown Forest
I feel your pain, my old house had a serious mouse problem for a while. My view was that they learnt to avoid the traps - i watched one run into our living room, and go out of its way to go round three traps i had by the skirting board. In the end, a combination of a load of poison under the kick boards and a (rather expensive) trap that electrocutes them finished off the adults, and glue boards (perhaps a touch cruel, but i was past worrying about that at the time) got the babies.
 

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