(03-10-2021, 03:05 PM)Cooler Wrote: My old Maine Coon cat was a good mouser. He never killed them outright. He would play "catch and release" over and over again until they dropped from fatigue. And he never ate one either.
My Norwegian Forest Cats had no interest at all in mice. Hunger did not seem to play in the formula.
I had good luck with the humane catch and release traps, which end up being cheaper than the catch and kill traps. Once you've killed a mouse in a trap they avoid it like the plague. I guess the odor remains.
The key thing that the instructions made clear was that you should always wear surgical gloves when handling any traps. That way your odor is not on the traps. And if you are going to release them, do so at least 3 miles from home so that they don't make it back.
Neither of our cats were reliable mousers. They both took way more birds than mice.
Maybe Iowa mice are different, but the mice here have never shied away from the traps if I've handled them; I used to wear nitrile gloves when handling them, but no more. I also reuse traps over and over.
We have a rural acreage. When we moved out here in 2014, the house and shop building were overrun by mice. I started with the standard snap traps. I had 12 traps set all the time. Daily take maxed out at 11. However, the mice figured out how to rob those traps without setting them off, well over 90% of the time. I tried baiting in certain ways, baiting a piece of string tied to the trigger, fine tuning the sensitivity...you name it, I tried it. I tried the 5-gallon bucket thing; only ever caught two in the bucket.
I tried a couple of the Jawz traps. Early success led me to keep a dozen of those traps. They are all I use. I use them until they break, and that has only happened to three of them over the past six years. They have caught literally hundreds of mice. I only clean them if they become bloody. Several of the traps have damage on corners where mice have tried to gnaw their way out of the trap.
Using the Jawz traps, I gradually narrowed "mouse zones" to three specific spots in the basement, and all three are on the sill plate on top of the foundation. I haven't found the entry holes for those hot spots, but I keep traps there, and I get 3-4 per month now. There is no evidence (mouse damage/droppings) anywhere, so I have them under control. I think those traps are getting them soon after the enter the dwelling. Shop building hasn't had evidence of a mouse since 2015.