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Take care where you put the mouse traps
nutcutlet
Posts: 27,445
We had a blackbird caught in a mousetrap yesterday. Not one of ours, they're all inside sheds and are all still there.
OH managed to net it when it got caught up in a bush. He got the trap off but I fear it won't survive, there was blood on the trap.
Just be careful where you put these things
In the sticks near Peterborough
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I can never see the point of using mouse/rat traps, there are hundreds of rodents in the garden, whatever is the point in trying to catch one!!!!
This goes along with my other hate of fat balls in nets. Both lethal for birds.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention Nut.x
Also avoid loose netting over soft fruit.
Lynn, the trick is to use lots of traps at the same time. I did once have a frog caught in one of my mouse traps in my garage!
But over the time I've been using them I've caught lots and lots of mice, heres a tally Ive kept on my garage wall...
best bet is to put the trap under a piece of guttering, wont stop the frogs, but will stop the birds.
We try to get rid of the mice in the attic by putting down humane traps, baited with peanut butter or chocolate spread, which has been sufficient up till now. No idea how I'd react if we had a plague.
Outside, it's a matter of live and let live. I'm not a veg grower though and I can imagine the frustration.
I had mice in the garage during the freezing morass of 2010 winter but used a humane trap - they climb in but cannot get back out. Did not know you could even buy those old fashioned ones on springs that kill them.
I let the captured mice go a few miles from the house and they never came back.
They like to access the roof space of our wood framed house and garage/shed, you can hear them at night, especially in autumn. The chew things and make nests out of our stuff
They get zapped. The garden they're welcome to.
In the sticks near Peterborough
We had them in our garage, went on 2 weeks holiday came bacK to find they had chewed through the freezer cable, can you imagine the smell, it had been full of meat.
Leadfarmer... that looks like a prison wall countdown, so you have caught 2 or 3 families of mice then.
I use traps in the polytunnel, otherwise they eat the seedlings.
After finding a dead blue tit in the old fashioned traps, I now use the type which have a little compartment for bait which is set off when the mouse lifts it to get to the bait.
I've never seen a bird go near them thankfully.
I have just put traps in the GH. Something has nipped off the new leaves on my cerinthes
and I found some mouse droppings.