Kinda Similar to Star's Mice/Rats Post but.....

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
This one contains the REAL thing!

Background - I live in a big old house - not a new air tight, no cracks, place.

Once morning last week (not this past week) I noticed that the top of one of my tomatoes in the fruit bowl on the counter had some dime-sized holes in the top. I thought perhaps Spot had gotten up the counter and thought it was an apple. Put it in the trash.

Two days later, two of the tomatoes had their tops eaten! Not a chance it was the dog because he was kenneled the night before and those tomatoes were not eaten when I went to bed.

No droppings.

So last Sat I was just mystified.

My cousin came over for dinner and we just couldn't figure out how, if it were a mouse, why there were no droppings?

Sunday morning I get up, my cousin calls and asked, "Any sign of night creatures?" "Nope!"

"How about Spot's bowl?"

"It's empty"

"Sharon, there was food in there last night when I left. Didn't you go up to bed when I left?"

Uhoh....

So, Sunday I went to Lowe's and bought some of those container type traps where you don't see the mouse. I made sure the fruit bowl was no longer on the counter - fridge. Made sure Spot's bowl was empty at night. Made sure the trash can was emptied before we went to bed. Nothing left out.

I've put those darn traps out all week - nothing.

Last night I stayed up late and went upstairs and forgot to empty Spot's bowl. This morning, no food in bowl and there was food in there last night - about 25 pieces of dry food.

I have a light-colored, ceramic tile floor in my kitchen, I would see mouse droppings. There aren't any. I searched online last week and tons of sites said that mice actually carry their food and they love dog food.

But heck, there are no droppings and I know that mice just walk and drop, eat and drop, breath and drop.

What do you guys think?

I'm wondering if it's a rat? Do they drop like mice?

My sister in law says I should put out glue boards but the last thing I want is to come downstairs in the morning half asleep and find a rat struggling on a glue board......

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Sharon
 
M

Mamaof5

Guest
yes rats drop too. take some of the dog food and put it in the traps to lure the animal in.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
That's just what I was thinking. Whatever it is likes dog food. Put the trap where the bowl usually is and fillerup!
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
P.S. I went through this a few yrs ago. I thought the dogs were getting into their own bags of dog food, and I had purchased super expensive vitamin filled, glucosamine sulfate food.
We had mice, and they were the healthiest critters you'd ever want to see! Super Mouse!
 

susiestar

Roll With It
If you want to use glue boards and not kill the critters, they can be removed from the glue board by pouring vegetable oil on the board. Not sure why you want this, as they can travel up to 2 miles back to your house (or so a pest expert told me). IF you relocate them, no one who lives around there will thank you, so make sure it is a park or something!
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
Oh no Susie, I don't want to use the glue board and I don't want to coat a rat with oil and then release him. It's one reason I didn't go with that option in the first place. I'm not into catch and release for rodents!

The little traps I bought are only for mice, a rat wouldn't fit in the little tunnel!

My cousin just called from the hardware store and they have little trays of pellets I could put under the sink (where I saw some little wood shavings around the pipe) and perhaps put a couple on the kitchen floor. I didn't want to go this route because of decomposing critters in my walls, but I really don't want the glue boards or traditional snap traps!

The dog's food is kept in an air tight plastic container - it's his left over food in his bowl they are eating.

It's healthy weight formula - guess my mice/rats are healthy too!

I'm going to put a few pieces of dog food in the bowl and the pellet tray next to the bowl, one under the sink, and I'll probably put one in a corner of the kitchen. I would put a tomato out, but I don't want them to have too many distracting things to eat.

I place everything in a sealed ziplock during the day and place at night.

Yuk......
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Yeah, Sharon, I would be EXTREMELY careful with anything with the poison pellets if you have pets - in fact I wouldn't use it at all! No matter what kind of container they're in or where you put them, mice tend to scatter these little pellets around and some of them could end up where your pets could get them and eat them. It's just too big of a risk. From what I understand, these pellets don't kill the mice right away. They eat them and go back to their nest or they can carry the pellets back to their nests and eat them and then they die inside your walls and stink to high heaven! And there's always the risk that the mouse could eat the pellets and then the dogs could catch the poisoned mouse, especially if the mouse is already slowed down from the poison. Two of my dogs are world champion mousers, just like cats. They don't eat the mice but they will carry them around in their mouth for a while like a little trophy before they're ready to give them up.

I don't like to do it but I do use the glue boards. When the dogs started catching the mice on the floor, some of them were smart enough to take to the counter tops. I hate doing it but it was to the point where it was them or me! You also have to be very careful where you put the glue boards so your pets can't get at them - that would really be a mess! And even if I put the dog food bags up, the mice can still manage to get to them and chew a hole though them, even the foil lined bags. The best thing you can do is to buy a sturdy metal container with a lid to store the pet food in.
 

tawnya

New Member
put some peanut butter on the snap traps, and put a little piece of dog food on the bottom.

I don't care what anyone else says around here, I don't want to share my house with rodents.

Mice will carry dog food, bread, etc. all around. It doesn't have to be rats.

Get the snap traps and get rid of them. I wouldn't put any poison out, either, if you have pets.

I am still trying to get rid of the mice from last winter.

And, I have two rat terriers. So much for that!

Good luck!
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Ew........
OHhhhhhhhh
NO NO NO
UmmmmmmmmmYUK
and
nononononononoooooooooooooo

Seriously? Before you go to bed - put the food out - and dust your floor with flour. Whatever is coming in and out HAS to leave tracks - not necessarily poo. Mkay?

secondly - YOU are assuming it's a mouse or a rat. IF it's a mouse? Then you have more than one. You have one? You have 13. (NOT exaggerating) You have a rat? You have - OH (whistles a tune) not going to freak you out.....but lemme just say - RATS can climb, they can crawl - they can scale things........like coats in a closet so while YOU are looking for a hole on the FLOOR? THEY are coming and going from a hole in the ceiling, the closet, the top of the .....
and it's the urine that is getting all over everything so IF you think you have a rat or mice......lemme rephrase that. RATS OR MICES......you had BETTER be washing out all pots, pans, cooking utensils - BEFORE you use them because...(sorry here but) they have crawled in and out and over and pee peed on EVERYTHING. THAT can make you sick.

Now assuming that it is NOT rats or mice......and it is a single squirrel? Or Opossum (reminiscent of Janets midnight laundry room visitor and Dudes pantry buddy who had a penchant for his buddys Nutrasystems pretzels) Then you probably have ONE who is coming and going out of the attic or garage. Lucky you! My good news is that snakes don't like dog food, but bad news is cockroaches LOVE tomatoes, but then again if you have a MIX of critters? (more than likely I'm thinking you should not freak out and DUST THE FLOOR WITH FLOUR)

Oh and glue traps and snap traps? Uhhhhhhhhhhh (exhales) Here's what I don't like about both of those. Snap traps - YOU STILL HAVE TO TOUCH IT. Then it's a dead thing that could be diseased, then what? Do you throw it out? Bait a new trap? And tawnya is right peanut butter is a good thing to put there that won't move and they like it - BUT if you want "rat crack"? Air puffed cheese hulless pop corn makes them insane. As far as glue traps? My biggest problem with those are that I've used them long ago - 1st time was rats HUGE, HUGE rats - I mean HUGE - like 2 1/2 " teeth and over 14" long - the male literally chewed off his leg and left it on the trap. The second glue trap had an entire side of fur coat - so this tells me two things - NOW I not only had rats, but I had huge, angry, furless, lopsided hobbling, INFECTED rats....and rats are omnivores - so they would eventually "Donner Party" the sick ones. That creates another problem.

The other problem you have is IF you have rats and set mouse traps? TOO SMALL money wasted. If you have mice and set RAT TRAPS? Too big - Lil' guys get a reprieve from the death sentence. Most mice can 'work" a rat trap. They are fast-fast. As far as pellets. Okay - the obvious here is they eat it - they run off - they die, they stink and OMG do they stink. The worst? They eat the pellets, they lay on your floor and you have to watch their eyes bug out, their mouths foam, them writhe in pain, they literally do the CURLY shuffle over and over and over and it's a HORRIBLE death to witness.

Live traps are cool - humane......and reusable. You wind them up, bait them, put the lid on like tupperware..........set them down. Wait,,,,,,,and vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr mouse in the trap. Pick it up. Put it in a box.....drive it miles from your house, put your gloves on - open the trunk, open the trap, and voila - bye bye mouse.....and if he's lucky? He finds a nice girl mouse and settles down and has thousands of baby mice and isn't eaten by a hawk or snake. You go home and know you've done the best thing you could do before your mice mature ----------because mice are sexually active at 2 weeks, and their gestation period is less than a month - and well they have up to 3-13 in a litter and they are incestious little buggers.........so you do mouse math. GET LIVE TRAPS now. (after you flour the floor) Oh and if you need help identifying the tracks - send me a picture. (expert rodent tracker here) lol.

I hope personally it's a Bunny.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
So did you dust? Find any prints there C.S.I. ? I'm not sure how a bunny could get on the counter top and get the tomato's ---------unless the weasles are helping him.
 
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