I had tried the live catch ones and taking them to the park. Oh just yeet them back outside I thought they'll go scamper. problem is they'd try to get back in. lol a bullsnake? woudn't it find a hot water pipe and go: really dude you expect me to hunt mice in freezing winter? Food for thought though.
On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 2:48 PM cody dooderson <d00d3r...@gmail.com> wrote: > My parents use sticky traps. You need a cold heart to kill them when you > find them stuck to the trap. It's hard to do when they are looking at you > with their tiny sad eyes and all you can imagine is their nest of tiny > younglings hidden somewhere in your wall. Also, sticky traps will catch > other animals including your house cleaner. > I support you getting a bull snake too. That sounds like an adventure. > > > > _ Cody Smith _ > c...@simtable.com > > > On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 2:18 PM Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > >> >> Gil - >> >> To misquote Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything, that is how >> the mice get in". >> >> I have lived with mouse-flux all of my time in my current (rural)property >> 20 years). The mice (and ground squirrels and packrats) in the environs >> require that I remain vigilant to keep them living outside my home. This >> has involved a lot of care around making sure that doors fit (and close) >> tight and that any wall-penetrations (dryer vent, etc) be well >> managed/screened, etc. >> >> Virtually *every* Fall I recognize that one or more mice have taken up >> residence in some nook or cranny inside my house... evidenced primarily by >> foodstuffs nibbled on my counter and of course "droppings". Sometimes the >> sight or sound of scurrying. If I trap these invaders quickly enough I >> don't have a whole family (or several) and even worse, multiple generations >> take up residence. I've been a vegetarian most of my life but I still >> would stoop to kill-traps to stop this business right away. When Mary >> moved here (5 years ago now) her (yet) softer heart lead me to buy a decent >> no-kill trap which was limited to a single-catch per night nominally. It >> still worked. Equally important for me has been to have a live >> mousing-cat in the house... even though I've never had one catch/kill more >> than one or two in a season, I think the presence and threat helps to >> reduce the number of mice willing to force their way in when the >> opportunity is found... I don't know if any voluntarily move back out once >> they realize what they are facing. >> >> Last winter I finally buttoned up a sunroom I'd had 90% finished for >> years... this included replacing the raw adobe floor with a clay-plaster >> finish, sealed with walnut/citrus oil. The adobe floor (and cement >> bancos, etc) could absorb/hide a lot of mouse-droppings/activity that the >> new surfaces patently just enhanced... so the flux of mice in my sunroom >> was mostly ignorable/tolerable or in any case too hard to try to >> eliminate. With the new finish it was just the opposite, and >> thoughtlessly, the walnut-oil surface in the process of (many months long) >> curing fully was a terrible attractive nuisance. I think the little >> buggers thought it was a buffet laid just for them. We had evidence of >> quite a few mice living in there and even when we were catching and >> expelling one per night, there was a never ending supply. There were >> nominally *no* holes for them to get in, but if you've seen my construction >> techniques you might not be surprised to find that I actually *did* have a >> few *hidden* weak spots where they might have entered. Our 20 year old >> cat had gone blind the Fall before (quite gracefully) and finally passed >> away on her own that winter... so no more mouser or even the whiff of a >> threat of a mouser in the house. >> >> We then went away for 2 months with several different house-sitters in >> the house who had not instruction nor reason to try to keep up with the >> mouse flux. Besides, I was used to mouse-infestation being entirely a >> winter-time phenomena. When we returned mid-summer I sat in the living >> room with the final house-sitter who was scheduled to leave the next day >> and I sequentially set, caught/released 6 mice in the space of a couple of >> hours. The trap was just outside the room we were sitting in and I could >> see the little buggers playing chase on the floors, bancos, furniture as >> well as dancing over the top of the trap and teasing their way in and out >> of the trap before finally springing it. I went on to catch several each >> evening (at twilight and beyond) until we were down to rarely seeing more >> than two chasing through the room... and catching one per night. Hole >> after potential hole was plugged during this time. And yet they keep >> coming. There is a chance these are recycling, we haven't gone to the >> effort of notching their ears or painting their tails or anything. My >> experience in this environment is that there will always be dozens >> (hundreds) of field mice aspiring to become house-mice... so killing (or >> hauling far away) the ones we catch probably doesn't change that much. I >> now wish I hadn't moved the three bullsnakes I caught eating eggs in our >> chicken coop across the rio grande, but invited them to live in the >> sunroom... I think they are better (yet) mousers than a cat. >> >> We now have a fresh mouser who doesn't have continuous free access to the >> sunroom (lest the buggers re-invade the house proper) but who does spend >> time out there stalking the hell out of every nook and cranny... she hasn't >> caught any yet (though she did help catch a few who had gotten into the >> house before we could trap them). >> >> My best recommendation is to eliminate any food-attractive-nuisances >> (refrigerator, cupboard, animal-tight containers, etc), make sure you have >> no known extgerior wall-penetrations (even the tiniest cracks they seem to >> squeeze through) and then go on a trapping frenzy... clean up any trace of >> mice ASAP so that you *know* if you have any left as you trap them down to >> near zero. And I recommend a housecat (or two), though I know some do not >> like keeping cats. Maybe a ferret or a schnauzer? My best ever >> Gopher-Getter was a weimerainer who would sit for hours at the entrance to >> a gopher burrow just to grab one... if allowed, she might have cleaned them >> entirely out of the yard. We limited her time OCDing out in front of >> gopher holes... it was hard to watch. >> >> Or maybe a bullsnake (or one of many other rodent-eating varieties)? >> On 1/3/23 11:52 AM, Tom Johnson wrote: >> >> Yeah, I buy traps from Amazon a couple dozen at a time. >> >> ======================= >> Tom Johnson >> Inst. for Analytic Journalism >> Santa Fe, New Mexico >> 505-577-6482 >> ======================= >> >> On Mon, Jan 2, 2023, 10:45 AM Gillian Densmore <gil.densm...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> Another surge of mice Q: For all of Dismember i've had nothing but an >>> ongoing trickle of mice. what the is going on here? 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