There are plenty of benefits to living out in the country (or out in the sticks as some would call it).
One issue though is that every winter, the little field mice decide they need somewhere warm to stay, and our house is the closest thing around. So we’re it. Hotel de’Mice if you will.
It happens every fall, and every fall we run out and buy a few mouse traps.
We’ve found mouse traps to be the most effective. Poison works too, but then those little suckers go into a corner, wall or the crawl space to die. Then they rot and smell like, well, rotting mice. So that’s best to be avoided.
This year I decided to try a couple different traps.
| Trap | Type | # Kills |
 |
The high-tech snap trap. Covered, safer, easy to empty and reuse. | 2 |
|
a flat glue trap. | 0 |
 |
a tunnel like glue trap (a little paper box with glue on all sides, I guess once the go in, they don’t come out). | 0 |
 |
Your standard snap trap, wood, with spring loaded scull crusher. | Not currently deployed. |
I know for a fact the standard snap trap works. We used them a lot last year, but they can be kind of messy when the scull crusher hits them just right. So Sunday I put out one of the tunnel traps, 2 of the flat black glue traps, and one of the high-tech snap traps.
The high-tech snap trap is all plastic and it’s covered. They go in and don’t come out. Since it’s covered, it’s less likely to get ‘you’ when you set it. That’s a good thing, and if the dog, or kids happen to touch it it won’t get them either.
Since it’s covered, the little mouse brains tend to stay inside the box when the skull crusher activates. It also has a nice little bait cup for putting a dab of peanut butter.
This trap has caught 2 mice in two days. The glue traps? nadda.
I’m thinking about going back to the store and picking up a couple more. They aren’t as cheap though. $5 each instead of $3 for a four pack of the standard snap traps, but so far are well worth it and easy to empty.
I’m also considering the kind that electrocutes them. Somehow this just seems well, not really more humane, but more high-tech.
I’ll update the stats per trap type as the killing season progresses.