RCU Forums - View Single Post - Mouse Trouble
View Single Post
Old 12-07-2012, 12:37 PM
  #5  
Argess
 
Argess's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Pleasantville, NS, CANADA
Posts: 2,358
Likes: 0
Received 4 Likes on 4 Posts
Default RE: Mouse Trouble

Back again. The mystery of the missing trap is solved, and the extermination may be close to completion.

I've been given some ideas. First was those 22 shot-shells. I do actually have a few of those, although I havn’t seen them in stores here, they ought to be available somewhere as I was given a ½ dozen or so once upon a time. I’d say a thick pair of Safety Glasses might be in order when shooting in close quarters though, so I decided against using them. Here’s a pic of the type I have:



I decided to borrow a Tom-Cat and see what might happen:



However after leaving it alone in the basement for a while, I checked on his progress and he didn’t seem like he had very good luck:



Next I set up my Night Game Camera and finally nabbed a pic. If you look closely, you can see the missing trap on the nasty fellow’s paw:



I decided against one of those sticky surface traps as no doubt they would still be alive and then dealing with them gets very personal. Besides, leaving them to starve to death over a few days sort of goes against my grain.

My parents see mice more under the term “vermin”. They just leave half full buckets of water around. The mice fall in and drown. Quicker than the glue idea, but still not my cup of tea.

Deciding to go with a method to restrain the trap from being moved too far, I opted for chain and a weight vs. nailing the trap to a board, I came up with this idea:



But no luck.

And of course the “real story” is this. Those traps can flip over due to the violence of the Snap, and the missing one did just that, but did it a few times. Mrs Argess found it over a foot away from where I had set it, just behind a can of paint. And yes, it had a normal victim in it. In fact the night in question was a success. Four traps set, and four mice caught. Cute little fellows like this:



Now to be fair to me and my imagination, it was only a week previous to this that a flowerpot was knocked off a shelf in the basement and broke into many pieces. I have serious doubts a little mouse could have done that. So I was looking for a larger animal that could have dragged himself and the trap away to hide.

The latest news is I set up 6 traps last night, and to date none have been sprung. Food not stolen either, as I have had instances where the mice managed to eat all the peanut butter without springing the trap.

A bit of coincidence I think. 4 traps all catching a mouse one night, and 6 traps not catching anything the next night. So I’ll leave the traps set for a while and we’ll see what we shall see.

All in all I really did worry I had injured a squirrel or rat and had a BIG deal to take care of. But I had fun making pictures (as currently, the weather is too cold and damp to go RCing, although I have gone in colder weather). The adventure continues, but it all seems rather tame now….