MOUSE HOARDING SEED in WISCONSIN???

[ajtxwi]

I didn’t count every one but there were at least 20-25 mice making a home in the insulation. That’s all they did all day and night was move seed from the garage to the ceiling in the house. Would have never known they were there if I didn’t put out the poison and they died. I just use traps now. Learned my lesson

I have one exterior space where I am using traps - collected about 30 so far in one year. They just never seem to learn that peanut butter leads to an early death. Funny just yesterday, we found a few bits of seed on the stairs that they were using to get from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor bedrooms. They have nothing but time on their hands!

 

[ajtxwi]

one thing I can't stand is mice! Hopefully you figure out where they are coming from. I accidentally spilled diesel fuel by my cabin and on my truck bed and annedotely it's repelling them.

something tells me that wife will not let me spray the inside of the house with diesel, but that might not be a bad deterrent for around the outside of the house.

 

[Bill]

I had mice get in my pillow at camp one year. I now have 5 poison bait stations outside the perimeter of the house.
In 5 or 6 years I’ve only found one dead mouse in the house. I have to rebait every two months and I had to actually drill holes in the stations and stake them down. The raccoons were carrying them off as they tried to get into them.

I also have one in each outbuilding and put poison in the lid of the propane tank. Kill them before they get to the house is my philosophy.

 

[Lucky_P]

Huh. I'd never paid attention to smartweed seed, but there they are.
We're currently battling mice here, too, mainly in the laundry room, where the cat's food WAS... wife was finding hoards of dry cat food in shoes/boots, between folded clothes, etc.
l'm finding pecans & hickory nuts - some already gnawed open - in nooks & crannies, including a t-shirt drawer in my bedroom.
Have several traps and bait stations in the laundry, pantry... need to get some more bait stations... have caught at least 10 in the last month, but I still see the little b@st@rds scooting across the floor every day.

Had buckets of acorns, hickory nuts, black walnuts on the front porch for a while, and could hear 'em rolling 'em around outside my bedroom window, and found new gnawed-open shells every day before I finally moved them.

 

[Native Hunter]

Has anyone tried the thing of mixing equal parts of Jiffy Cornbread Mix and Baking Soda to kill mice? I've read about it but not tried it. Supposedly they can't handle the gas from the soda and explode.

 

[Bszweda]

I've used https://www.amazon.com/EcoClear-Products-620101-All-Natural-Non-Toxic/dp/B00RU6YHJW , which I think works similar to Cornbread and baking soda. It does work.

You tube guy that does videos on different mouse traps.

 

[Lucky_P]

Veterinarian here, with some experience in laboratory animal medicine. I doubt that will work as advertised. Bicarbonate is naturally present in salivary secretions, and the likelihood that they'll consume enough extra to cause an 'explosion' is almost certainly an impossibility, even though rodents don't have a 'vomit' reflex.
As to the 'Rat-X'... I doubt that it works as advertised, especially if they have ready access to water... and if you read the reviews, they aren't glowing endorsements of its effectiveness.

Same for the Peanut Butter/Plaster-of-Paris bonbons that are supposed to 'set up like concrete' in a squirrel (or mouse, rat) GI tract when consumed. Had a friend who live-trapped a squirrel and fed them to it for a couple of weeks with no ill effects.
And... the whole deal of spreading grits around a fireant mound so that they'll carry them in, eat them, then swell up and explode... also a myth. But, on the surface, it sounds sort of believable.

 

[bueller]

I had mice get in my pillow at camp one year. I now have 5 poison bait stations outside the perimeter of the house.
In 5 or 6 years I’ve only found one dead mouse in the house. I have to rebait every two months and I had to actually drill holes in the stations and stake them down. The raccoons were carrying them off as they tried to get into them.

I also have one in each outbuilding and put poison in the lid of the propane tank. Kill them before they get to the house is my philosophy.

Yep, poison deployment is a must on the exterior of the residence and in all outbuildings. Also keep the grass mowed low and rake the leaves away from buildings. When the numbers drop don't let your guard down. Always keep traps and bait stations active to catch the new guys before they establish and reproduce.

 

[Lucky_P]

Word of Caution: by all means keep poison baits in pet/childproof bait stations.

We had a couple of bait stations in the laundry room, in addition to traps, but I'd also tossed a loose bait off into a corner that was blocked off from the pets. But, as my wife was clearing out the laundry room the other day, she moved stuff around, and our family dog slipped in and ate that loose block of bait (TomCat - bromethalin)... and we were probably 12hr or more out from when she ate it before wife realized what had happened. There is no effective antidote, and little to do, unless you catch the dog soon after ingestion and induce vomiting (1oz of hydrogen peroxide, orally, will usually do the trick). Fortunately , bromethalin is less toxic to dogs than to mice/rats, and even a full 1oz bait block (ours was partially eaten) is less than 1/25 the lethal dose for our 60lb dog.
I made the dog throw up, just in case, but she had nothing in her stomach. Gave her a big slug of an osmotic laxative in her food, to hopefully move any she hadn't already absorbed through faster. 2 days out and she seems perfectly normal. But... we won't be tossing out any more baits without them being in a station so the pets can't gain access.

Some of the 2nd & 3rd generation anticoagulant baits can have LONG-lasting effects, when consumed by pets... may require Vit K treatment for several weeks to keep them from bleeding out.
I've seen tissues from pups that at the cholecalciferol (Vit. D3) baits... stomach, kidneys, heart muscle all calcified.

 

[Bill]

Yep. Mine are all in stations that nothing larger then a rat can get into and I have no pets.

Don’t think I’d put one on the inside of the house. I have one in my pole barn and I’m constantly finding dead mice in there..

 

[Tree Spud]

I have tried many mouse trap style along with poisons. The best trap that I have found is the bucket mouse trap. Early on not unusual to find 5-6 mice in it. Now I fing maybe 1-2 a week. Simple to set-up filling with half water and bating the swing plate with a small dap of peanut butter and 1/2 a peanut. Antifreeze can be put in for cold spaces like an attached or outbuilding. Just throw the dead ones out in the field for the varmints and no worries with poison.

Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap – Teppy

teppy.co

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

We would catch dozens of mice a year in our house when we moved in. Traps inside and outside, bait stations, etc. helped but we still had mice. A trio of stray cats showed up one year and my kids adopted them and would feed them on our deck, so they stayed around the house all day and night. We went from catching dozens of mice per year in the house to 0. Outdoor cats are pretty easy to find for free and it doesn't take much food to get them to stick around.

 

[ajtxwi]

I have tried many mouse trap style along with poisons. The best trap that I have found is the bucket mouse trap. Early on not unusual to find 5-6 mice in it. Now I fing maybe 1-2 a week. Simple to set-up filling with half water and bating the swing plate with a small dap of peanut butter and 1/2 a peanut. Antifreeze can be put in for cold spaces like an attached or outbuilding. Just throw the dead ones out in the field for the varmints and no worries with poison.

Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap – Teppy

teppy.co

Awesome - I have heard about these, but have not seen such a glowing review. I will have to try this.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

I have two buckets set up for the last two years in my shops/barns. I will go through spurts where I will get 4-5 in a week to zero in a month. I also glue traps and poison out. One of my tractor seats comes detached from its base so they like to burrow under the seat. I killed 6 with a t pole the other day as they slept. Gratifying

 

[ajtxwi]

We would catch dozens of mice a year in our house when we moved in. Traps inside and outside, bait stations, etc. helped but we still had mice. A trio of stray cats showed up one year and my kids adopted them and would feed them on our deck, so they stayed around the house all day and night. We went from catching dozens of mice per year in the house to 0. Outdoor cats are pretty easy to find for free and it doesn't take much food to get them to stick around.

Awesome! Unfortunately, we are also bird enthusiasts... so the cats also kill birds, so bummer, will have to consider the bucket and traps options.

 

[Bill Loser]

I live in a 150 year old farm house with a fieldstone basement. & years ago after we moved in and I noticed the signs of a fairly serious mouse issue. For the first 3 months i was going through about 4 lbs of tom cat a week.... so, a "fairly" serious issue was a bit of an understatement! After a bit the usage went way down, now (knock on wood) i have had the same stations in the basement out for a couple months with 0 activity. This year seems to be a down year here. I do agree with outdoor cats, we have 5 roaming around along with at least 3 feral I've seen around. Yes they kill a bird every now and then but nothing to serious. Mine seem to key on chipmunks and rabbits more than anything once the mouse population is down.
I've never tried the bucket trick for mice, knowing me, i would forget about it for a few weeks until the smell starts to come up through the floors... lol

 

[Bill]

I've never tried the bucket trick for mice, knowing me, i would forget about it for a few weeks until the smell starts to come up through the floors... lol

I put a bucket in a box stand with a mouse problem. When I got back a month later it wasn’t pleasant.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

I put some poison and some glue traps out the other day. I was bummed cause none of the glue traps had anything in them. I think maybe they got dirty/dusty and aren’t sticky enough, not sure. But I found like 4 dead mice just laying on the floor so the poison is doing it’s thing

 

[Bill Loser]

I put a bucket in a box stand with a mouse problem. When I got back a month later it wasn’t pleasant.

I bet.
My youngest sent me this pic the last time he was in our box blind. The thing came out and laid down between his feet so he stepped on it! Lol

 

[Brian662]

My WI property came with an enclosed blind. When I viewed the property, I went up the ladder and opened the door...the mice looked like people jumping off the sinking Titanic. Haven't been in it since, will be burning it to the ground this spring, using the stand to replace with a manufactured blind.