Strange mouse problems

[Joliet Johnny]

Its winter and my garage has attracted a family of mice. Decon didnt seem to do anything so I set old fashioned snap traps baited with peanut butter on Saturday morning. Saturday night Two traps were minus bait and not set. One trap caught the mouse perfectly. The other one was triggered but the top half of the mouse was gone. I meant to clean up the mess and reset the traps when I got home Sunday morning, forgot and went to bed. Sunday night before I went to work I cleaned out the perfectly caught mouse and went to deal with the messy one but the mouse and trap are gone. I cant find the trap anywhere. I have wasted two hours of my life looking for it. I find no evidence of other animals in my garage. Any ideas?

[Mudderoy]

Its winter and my garage has attracted a family of mice. Decon didnt seem to do anything so I set old fashioned snap traps baited with peanut butter on Saturday morning. Saturday night Two traps were minus bait and not set. One trap caught the mouse perfectly. The other one was triggered but the top half of the mouse was gone. I meant to clean up the mess and reset the traps when I got home Sunday morning, forgot and went to bed. Sunday night before I went to work I cleaned out the perfectly caught mouse and went to deal with the messy one but the mouse and trap are gone. I cant find the trap anywhere. I have wasted two hours of my life looking for it. I find no evidence of other animals in my garage. Any ideas?

A mystery!

[xj-jake]

Sounds like a weasel problem to me.

[nickyg]

I'm afraid to say it but it sounds like you have a zombie problem


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[abebehrmann]

Not sure if this is your answer, but I work with laboratory mice and they tend to eat each other even when they have plenty of food. I'll walk into the mouse room to check on them and find a previously healthy mouse half eaten in his cage with his brothers. They seem to start at the head and move backwards. If you don't think another animal got in, this would be my guess.

[XJ Wheeler]

Not sure if this is your answer, but I work with laboratory mice and they tend to eat each other even when they have plenty of food. I'll walk into the mouse room to check on them and find a previously healthy mouse half eaten in his cage with his brothers. They seem to start at the head and move backwards. If you don't think another animal got in, this would be my guess.
Thank you, not getting the cannibal mouse image out of my mind for a while.

"Zach, I told you not to eat your brother!"

Sent via messenger pigeon. I talk, he types.

[Joliet Johnny]

Not sure if this is your answer, but I work with laboratory mice and they tend to eat each other even when they have plenty of food. I'll walk into the mouse room to check on them and find a previously healthy mouse half eaten in his cage with his brothers. They seem to start at the head and move backwards. If you don't think another animal got in, this would be my guess.

That makes sense. I set a couple more traps and put them in the center of a large 2X4 triangle. If these traps vanish I may have to set up a camera.

[slvmart]

I prefer the "sticky traps". And have had the disappearing mouse issue. I have a pole barn, and that is usually their resort for the winter. They are a messy bunch in more ways than one. Eventually, I will find the skeleton somewhere.

Mainly, I use the "sticky traps" because I have dogs and cats, so I don't need to provide them with a "food" source. And I especially don't use the poisons.

I don't mind them outside, but they can be destructive. So I don't want to live with them.

[Brasscatz]

I'm kind of weird... I had the glue traps in my old house's garage and it caught several mice along with numerous lizards. I always felt bad for the mice that got stuck (one had his eyeball stuck to the thing) and I'd much rather them have a quick death than die of starvation. This is probably because I used to have a mouse named Mr. Jingles as a pet. I ended up getting those plastic traps with the toothy jaws and that did the trick and was an easy cleanup where you never had to touch the mouse (if you're adverse to that sort of thing. I'm the type of guy that doesn't even like to see road kill lol)

[slvmart]

I hear you on the don't like killing part. But I suppose that my tact is that I rather have a mouse stuck than have one of the dogs or cats drink or eating something that would kill them.

I'm out in the country and the critters like to take over the barn. Last fall I think one of the mice was trying to imitate a cat. Usually, I set the traps out in fall, when I actually spend a lot of time in the barn, getting ready for winter. Do the rounds and check the traps almost daily. So if I see one that is alive, and stuck, I just take a shovel and pretend it's Mary Antoinette. I was out checking the bird houses, this past fall, and there was a mouse that set up residence in one of them. It looked nice and comfy in there. I just left it. But it's getting evicted in spring.

[Joliet Johnny]

Update. I killed all the dumb mice. Now my peanut butter laced traps are licked clean. I'm with Brasscatz on glue traps. If I can't kill quick and efficient I feel bad even if it's a mouse. I have done some research and it seems a bucket with a ramp then smear peanut butter just below where they couldn't steal it without falling in is the way to go. I'm going to add a small self of duct tape in case a paw tests waters before trying for it. Too cold for water so I'll either shoot them with a CO2 Bbw gun or drop them near the abandoned house at the end of the block.

[4.3LXJ]

Gotta tell you about a funny glue trap story.

My wife wanted to try the glue traps in the house, so I said OK. Turns out I caught all the mice. But we just left the traps under the kids bed and forgot about them.

Then one day she brought home a bunny. She likes to pet soft fur. We let the bunny have the run of the house and awhile later we heard a horrible commotion in the kids room. Then this bunny comes streaking out of the room and around the living room a few times, back down the hallway, back into the living room. We had to let the bunny wind down to catch it. Fortunately she was not related to the Energizer Bunny. She had walked across the trap and only gotten both hind feet in it on the far edge which left plenty behind her. Every time she took a step, it slapped her in the :ass: The more it slapped her, the faster she went. The faster she went, the harder it slapped her :smiley-laughing021: