I thought this was going to be another of your recipes.

 

Imo, you are putting too much food on the trap. I would only use about 2 teaspoons but I might be wrong.

 

Agree, you don't want to make it too easy for them. If they can smell even a trace of something like peanut butter, they'll be all over that thing trying to get every bit. Seeds or grains are good too, but the peanut butter is like crack to them.

As for the chewing, they'll do that to anything. Doesn't have to be edible. They're always chewing. Their teeth grow continuously and need to be ground down.

 

Never heard of or used bait station. I grew up on a farm so I have experience with rodent eradication.
Just put 1 teaspoon or less of pnut butter on the active part of the trap.
Imo because you are providing all the food on the station, the rodents will never need to get close to the traps. Therefore you are not going to kill many rodents.

 

wow - nobody even asked me if my methods have worked in the past. Maybe I should start showing photos of dead animals. I had no idea there were "rules" in rat killing.
Maybe all you "rodent eradication experts" should post the How To on baiting traps . . . then we would all benefit from your input and be more successful.

 

OK John, you're on. My method for mice is to put a tiny bit of peanut butter, think maybe half or one-quarter of a pea, on the trigger. They have no trouble finding it, and when they do, they're in the right spot to get caught.

Rats might require a bit more, because it's a bigger trap. Squirrels love apples. Just about all rodents like sunflower seeds, and a 3 or 4 of those can help generate rodent interest in the trap area.

I've watched thousands of mice on a security camera I have set up in my shed. Their behavior is pretty predictable. I've tried adding bait around the trap area in an attempt to "lead" them to it. They just see it as an all-you-can-eat buffet and ignore the traps until it's gone.

I tried smearing a bit of peanut butter oil outside one of my "plank" bucket traps in hopes of getting them close enough to the plank to smell it. All they did was lick it all up, then scurry away. But without that, they had no problem finding the bait at the far end of the plank (and getting dumped off it on their way to it.)

For the record, it's been four days since I saw any mice in my shed. This time of year the shed should be full of them. But my traps catch every one before they can set up housekeeping.

We each have our own methods. I'm only sharing what I've learned first-hand by watching the mice actually interacting with the traps, in hopes of offering others some options. But as always, you do you.

 

I have no doubt your methods work.

I do kinda similar to CaptTom...a little dab will do ya no matter if a small snap trap, tom cat rat trap, bucket trap. I do put a small dab on the top of the ramp for my bucket trap. As mentioned, it does get licked but I do have mice in the bucket.

Old boys on a tractor site claim a sunflower seed wired to a snap/tom cat trap works and you don't need to bait as often. I've never tried it.

Now that you mention it...it is time for me to set up traps as well.

Happy hunting...Don.

 

Get you a big ole neutered Tom cat.

 

What is this Wasting good peanut butter on a critter.

I use just a pinch of bread crust on a snap trap.

Gets em every time.

All this trying to outsmart them is wasting your brain and good peanut butter.

Besides that, I have a neighbor a few hundred yards away that feeds feral cats, a few of them hunt my patch regularly and keep the vermin out.

So, he feeds cats, I benefit by letting them hunt vermin.

ED

 

Not questioning John's experience with what works for him. And thank you for sharing what works for you.

But I do want to add that rats like chocolate as well - I had some canisters with chocolate in a closet, and the rats chewed into them, and made a major mess of that top shelf while doing it.

The company that makes Reese's Peanut Butter Cups might want to pay attention - rats love peanut butter and chocolate.

 

Did you hear about the cat that ate peanut butter and chocolate?

It waited at the mousehole with baited breath.

ED

 

Did you hear about the cat that ate peanut butter and chocolate?

It waited at the mousehole with baited breath.

ED

Oh no, be careful of using chocolate where dogs and cats have access to - I think it's toxic to both in large quantities.

 

The topic was to emphasize soy oil in plastics. It sort of got off topic somewhere down the line.
Rodents (RATS & SQUIRRELS) and Soybean Products

 

emphasize soy oil in plastics.

Ok...but...I don't see mfgrs changing anything to help the common man and his vermin. Knock wood...I've yet to experience the issue you had w/the trap, others have had w/vehicle wires but I did have to replace many feet of 14ga wire within my home that mice had chewed in the sill plates and such holes, exposing bare wiring when I was doing my exterior siding. House was built in 1986. Did they use soy that far back? I don't know but figure, in my case, mice were going from one side of the wall to the other, hole needed to be enlarged a bit and sparky is what I felt.

FWIW...Don.

PS....caught 2 mice in my buckets...peanut butter(smile).

 

I'm OK with thread drift, if we come away with more knowledge about how to catch these vermin.

I've never tried bread. I'll give it a shot. One problem with peanut butter is that ants will eat it, too. And even if they don't, it still needs to be replaced occasionally. I also like the idea of wiring a sunflower seed to the trigger. I'll try that, too.

I'm not convinced the soybean content is why that trap got chewed. They'll chew anything, edible or not. I will concede that it's possible they'd rather chew that than something without soybean in it. But it could also be that they just found a convenient edge to sharpen their teeth on.

 

Sorry if I took it off track, but many chocolate products do also contain soy, including Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, so maybe there's a connection there, and maybe the reason the rats like chocolate, because of the soy in it?

 

I watched a squirrel bite a hunk from my wooden garage door. Specifically it was the frame around the garage window. It did not have pnut butter nor soy oil on it!

 

How does one know if a certain plastic contains soy?

I know in FL homeowners have experienced rodents chewing and puncturing plastic pipes such as CPVC and PEX in the attic and wall cavities but those do not have soy in them.

I know that many of the foam products like spray foam or ridgid foam insulating pads have soy in them do they get chewed on by rodents?

 

I had a foam tray that came with hamburger on it.

Left it in the garbage too long and found it chewed into little bits.

I then set my snap traps with bread crust and got 3 mice.

So, they chew meat foam trays also.

Maybe after the smell of the burger or something.

ED