Best bait for humane mouse trap

[phatbass]

Got myself one of those humane mouse traps (catches the mouse alive so you can then go release it in the neighbour's yard )

I really hate those back-breakers...

Anyway, anyone got suggestions for bait to use? What sort of stuff really attracts the little critters?

[scorpionldr]

yea, put a steak out there. Mice sure do love steak.

[Jim Campbell]

peanut butter,dog kibble,

[hbarcat]

peanut butter


/thread

[ehque]

Peanut butter, as featured in that weird movie.

[gold_member_321]

PB for sure

[SundanceChile]

Another vote for peanut butter.

[seanm]

PB + jam. Ok, PB is the best, but I wanted to be different from all the rest!

[bongomania]

PB is always a winner; bits of meat or cheese work well too.

Here's my little rant about the humane traps though--please overlook this part if you don't feel like discussing it:

When you catch and release a mouse, how far away are you really really going to travel to release it? If you stay within like a city block or two, it's just going to come back. It will follow its nose looking for the powerful scent markers it left behind. So the only way a humane trap works is if you hop on your bike or drive to some distant park or other neighborhood and drop it off. Then of course you've just given somebody else a mouse problem.

The back-breaker snap traps kill instantaneously--there is no time for the mouse to feel any pain. The mouse problem "goes away" for both you and your neighbor. Yes, you've just killed one of God's creatures, but then "He" (or the FSM or whatever) designed lots of different predators like owls and hawks and snakes that kill probably thousands of mice per day.

The only "bad" ways to kill mice IMO are poison and glue traps. Poison causes extended pain and the mouse usually dies in your wall and smells up the house; and glue traps are agonizing torture. I've seen a mouse rip most of its own skin off trying to escape the glue.

Well, I suppose a creative person could come up with some other bad ways to kill mice. Napalm for example.

Anyway, as an animal lover and a pragmatist I think the snap traps are really the best way. The humane traps are OK if you are really going to drive to a park on the other side of town.

[rcarraher]

Pb....but get the expensive stuff. Ha!

[seanm]

Originally Posted by bongomania

The humane traps are OK if you are really going to drive to a park on the other side of town.

Unless you release it close enough that it can get back, a "humane" trap and release means you have killed the animal.

You are going to release it into other animals territory where it doesn't know the safe places or the food places. The other animals are going to either kill it for food, or force it away.

Like bongomaia said, a snap trap is quick. A "humane" trap isn't.

[phatbass]

Originally Posted by bongomania

PB is always a winner; bits of meat or cheese work well too.

Here's my little rant about the humane traps though--please overlook this part if you don't feel like discussing it:

When you catch and release a mouse, how far away are you really really going to travel to release it? If you stay within like a city block or two, it's just going to come back. It will follow its nose looking for the powerful scent markers it left behind. So the only way a humane trap works is if you hop on your bike or drive to some distant park or other neighborhood and drop it off. Then of course you've just given somebody else a mouse problem.

The back-breaker snap traps kill instantaneously--there is no time for the mouse to feel any pain. The mouse problem "goes away" for both you and your neighbor. Yes, you've just killed one of God's creatures, but then "He" (or the FSM or whatever) designed lots of different predators like owls and hawks and snakes that kill probably thousands of mice per day.

The only "bad" ways to kill mice IMO are poison and glue traps. Poison causes extended pain and the mouse usually dies in your wall and smells up the house; and glue traps are agonizing torture. I've seen a mouse rip most of its own skin off trying to escape the glue.

Well, I suppose a creative person could come up with some other bad ways to kill mice. Napalm for example.

Anyway, as an animal lover and a pragmatist I think the snap traps are really the best way. The humane traps are OK if you are really going to drive to a park on the other side of town.

I can't count the number of times I've come across a mouse in a back-breaker still alive and in pain. A lot of the time they AREN'T instantaneous.

Also the idea of catch and release in to the environment (in my case a nearby park) isn't some eely-feely notion of it living forever; it's that, first off, it has at least a small chance of survival, and then when it is caught by a predator, it at least becomes part of the natural cycle of things (or at least as natural as things can be nowadays).

[::::BASSIST::::]

Call me sentimental but IMO humane traps are the way to go.

Let 'em go in the deep woods with a large source of food for them. As it the food runs low they'll adapt to the new environment and find new sources of food.

Personally, I applaud the effort.

[Muusers]

[vene-nemesis]

There is a trap that kill mose with electrical shocks... i believe its by far the most eficient mouse trap.

[Jake of Bass]

Originally Posted by vene-nemesis

There is a trap that kill mose with electrical shocks... i believe its by far the most eficient mouse trap.

It's that newfangled electric peanut butter.

[Mark Latimour]

Get one of the Mouse Guillotines they use in some research labs. YOu could call the mouse "Marie Antoinette"

[Febs]

Originally Posted by phatbass

I can't count the number of times I've come across a mouse in a back-breaker still alive and in pain. A lot of the time they AREN'T instantaneous.

If that is happening, you aren't using the traps correctly. Set the traps with the bait side against a wall in an area that you know to be mouse-infested. With the bait side against the wall, the mouse must approach from the side, which virtually guarantees that the trap will snap over its head or neck, killing it instantly.

I've collected traps within seconds after hearing them snap, and I've never come across a mouse that was still alive in the trap. On the other hand, on the one occasion where I've used a glue trap, the mouse had eaten off part of its own limb trying to free itself from the trap.

I really hate killing any animal, but mice in our house cause so many problems that they need to be exterminated, and the snap trap is by far the best way that I have found to do it.

[JimB52]

Honey roasted peanuts work as well as peanut butter and are far less messy.
Those little sesame stick things also work very well.

[Visirale]

Peanut Butter, as featured in this picture.