mice and cheese

[evolution]

I have a mouse in my flat and I want to get rid of it so any suggestions on that note would be helpful! We have two mouse traps (horrible I know) with pieces of cheese laid out for the past 2 nights. The mouse successfully gets the cheese while escaping the trap. But why cheese? Surely, mice in nature do not go about making cheese? Is it that they truly cannot resist cheese as it is their favourite? Or just a myth while truly any piece of food will suffice? If so, where did the whole mouse and cheese story originate?

[Clanad]

Peanut butter works better and they can't "lift" it off the trap.

[sddsddean]

I always set my traps in the garage with a bit of chocolate.

[Lindy Loo]

My dad uses used cake paper in the greenhouse. It's possible that the cheese is too soft and the little beggar can remove it without a struggle!! Also don't use a large piece of bait...the mouse may not be putting enough weight on the trigger. Try and find where the mouse came in and block up the hole, or was this a live 'present' from the cat!! Not sure where the idea of cheese originated from, but we got told not to give it our pet ones as they are unable to digest the lactose, but if it's a pest one it doesn't really matter!!! Good luck

[Philtaz]

I've heard they're partial to a bit of raw bacon rind as well.

[FP]

They really like dried cat foot, such as GoCat!!

[bernardo]

The idea of mice liking cheese particularly is a myth which was invented (AFAIK) by cartoon film-makers. I would use a bit of meat if I needed to.

[Kit]

Strangely enough they also like soap and lentils. They retrieved them successfully from the humane mouse trap that we had (it was meant to tip up under their weight, the door then shut and little chum stuck inside. Unfortunately I think little chum was too small to tip the trap, and snaffled the goodies without getting caught.) It's more than likely the fat that they're after - although this doesn't explain the lentils.

[SteveD]

Here's an alternative to try if you don't want to kill the mouse: Take a medium-sized pudding basin and place it upside-down on a plate. Push a small quantity of cheese (or one of the alternatives suggested above) right into the bottom of a thimble and prop the bowl up on the rim of the thimble with the body of the thimble on the outside of the bowl. Release the mouse as far from your house as possible.

[thewillow]

Yes, raw bacon rind is your only man.

[FP]

Kit, I use humane mouse traps such as you describe. I caught such a fat mouse once that overnight in the mouse trap he almost ran out of air and suffocated. Fortunately, he recovered a little while after I released him. I know I'm a softee, but you won't change me!

[hartley]

I remember a study being done some years ago that concluded that sherbet lemons were the best bait

[niknak]

So coincidental that I registered so I could add my 1cp.You need a suitcase,some chocolate digestive biccy's and a binliner! Place the biccy's in said suitcase with the lid down but slightly offset-an inch at most. Place suitcase in a quiet,dark place-try under the bed :) Give it 24 hours,with one check to see if biccy's being nibbled. First thing in the morning,zip up/clip down suitcase lid and place in binliner,then gently open lid and encourage mouse into bottom of binliner. Take binliner outside or to window and wave goodbye :) p.s. put remaining biccy's on someone else's doorstep.

[New Forester]

One useful trick with both live and lethal traps is to leave them baited but unarmed for several days. Many have a switch or other gadget to let you do this. This allows the little blighters to get used to them as a source of food, starting to make scent trails to the trap and treat it as a routine. Then you set them properly, and you'll get one animal after another. Setting them straight away can just get the first one, while teaching the others to be wary. Once wary, you'll never catch them at all as they teach each other what to avoid. I've tried a type of cage trap (for rats) which catches the first one with a spring-loaded door, then has another one-way door for its friends and relations -- you can get a whole family in there at once. In fact it didn't work all that well with rats, as they get very stressed indeed in the cage (even with food and shelter) and frighten the others off. It might be better with mice -- the mouse ones cost about a tenner, I think, from farm supplies shops. Then there's the pepper trap. I doubt if it works, but it's so clever it ought to. You rest a brick on some stones to make a mouse-sized space underneath. You put your bait underneath, with some pepper on it. Mouse sniffs bait, sneezes, bangs head on brick, kaput! Finally, don't just release live-caught animals "outside" -- they'll come straight back in. Take them a couple of miles away at least, preferably to the other side of a river.

[niknak]

I wonder-do mice swim as well as rats?