What Is The Best Bait To Catch A Mouse?

[anthro-nerd]

I bought a humane mouse trap yesterday and set it last night using a bit of a Mars bar... I bought a humane one because I don't want to actually kill it, just set it free somewhere that won't mean my dogs are constantly trying to catch it! So the mouse runs in to snaffle the bait, and the door closes behind it. Then I could release the mouse in a field a few miles away.

The mouse trap worked in the fact that last night I caught a mouse. But the mouse was dead?! Why?! I didn't want to kill it! Was it the Mars bar? Did it suffocate?

[murraymints]

Chocolate usually. Maybe shock did for it ?

[Fitzer]

Well I've always used just a normal bit of milk chocolate or a bit of digestive biscuit and had no fatalities, maybe the toffee or nougat in the Mars was too much, might have glued its jaws or something, then could have been stress.

[anthro-nerd]

MM, genuinely upset find it dead... but it had eaten all the Mars bar... so probably a good way to go? Maybe I put too much in.

[dannyk13]

Try the old method- cheese

[Tuvok]

I was told peanut butter.

[anthro-nerd]

Spath, mars bars / chocolate aren't poisonous to mice, in small doses of course. That's why I chose it. Putting something that will kill the mouse in a humane moue trap is a bit counter productive.

[straydog]

We buy peanut butter especially for the mice that live in the shed (and yes it works!)

[murraymints]

Have used peanut butter successfully

[emmie]

i had the little blighters running over my flat, sorry to say i couldn't find a humane way to dispose of them, so a broom came in quite handy at times.

[Ric.ror]

I once smeared a little peanut butter to the outside of a bag of poison- a rat catcher complimented me and said if that doesn’t get them he’d have to use glue traps

[anthro-nerd]

Ric, can't use poison because of the dogs. But peanut butter does seem to be quite popular.

[emmie]

i tried traps, peanut butter the works, all to no avail.
i had to kill them in the end with the help of the pest control guy.

[Ric.ror]

I also once bought a device that was supposed to electrocute them but they had gone by the time I got to use it - it was battery operated so I don’t think it would have been much good

[4candles]

Another vote for peanut butter - mice and rats.

[ubasses]

I found hamster food to be most successful.

[ladybirder]

You do know you have to take them a couple of miles away don't you Anthro? Because they'll find their way back if you don't. Tests have shown they can make their way back inside 24 hours. A good idea is to put them on the other side of a stream or any body of water. That confuses them;-)

[ChillDoubt]

I recall a programme once that recommended bacon rind.

[paddywak]

I use a chocolate raisin, and I never have to bother about them coming back as I use the old fashioned "neck breaker" type of trap.

[anthro-nerd]

Ladybirder, yep I've heard they can find their way back, so I was planning on taking them to the other side of town where I go running!