Wild mice problems. ><

[azmodane]

So I've been breeding feeders in a room within my garage for a while now and I don't know why I didn't have a problem until recently but now I do. I've got easily 5-7 wild field mice running around eating the food and just pooping everywhere. I have tried using traps with Peanut Butter but they are just going right by them and getting the food out of the hoppers. I've got an outdoor cat that is just useless and won't do anything with them. Any suggestions of what to try next?

[Izzys Keeper]

Guns. Fully automatic...

Lol.

Maybe pull the food from the hoppers for a day and make it so the only food easily available is on the traps.

[rlditmars]

Have you considered letting a ball python hang out there for a while?

[Andrew21]

Get the mouse traps with the big yellow pan. Put it against the wall where there is poop or just by your rack, no bait. Mice run walls.

[snakesRkewl]

Have you considered letting a ball python hang out there for a while?

Seriously?

Try some meat, mice love meat

[rlditmars]

Seriously?

Try some meat, mice love meat

Perhaps I need to put JK or LOL or Haha after some of my remarks so people realize it's a joke. Sorry for the dry humor.

[Sita]

The key is to eliminate the food source. If they can't get food, they won't be in there. Store all your extra food in metal bins they can't chew through, and either get bowls and put the food directly inside the cages, or fix metal covers over the food hoppers.

If you think you have a problem now with 5-7, wait a couple weeks. Those mice are going to be breeding, and you're going to have dozens, then hundreds of mice within a couple months.

I'm sure you're aware that wild mice can easily pass diseases and parasites on to your mice, and several of those parasites can be transmitted to your snakes when you feed. This is a big problem, so good luck in taking care of it!

[azmodane]

So light I cleaned all cages, removed all the food out of the hoppers and put it in the tubs. Then I moved the extra food inside the house. I set up some mouse traps along the edges of the room and also a few in the center of the room. Went in this morning and found 2. I'm going to rinse and repeat until I see no more traces and stop catching them. I think I might be leaving extra traps down even when the problem is gone just for safety reasons. Does anyone know if there is something you can put around the room or spray that will keep them out?

[Sita]

Sounds like you're on the right track! Keeping traps down afterward sounds good, to help prevent it in the future. The reason you didn't have problems before was probably because they just hadn't found the food yet.

I don't know of anything you can do other than physically sealing off the room (which is near impossible). You wouldn't be able to use any sprays because it might affect your breeders.

[JohnNJ]

First, close up any openings they can use to get in. Steel wool works to plug up small holes. Second, get some fox urine from a hunting store and spread it around the outside of the garage. You won't smell it but they will.

Mice get leary of snap traps but they don't seem to catch on to glue traps. Having a mouse stuck to a glue trap seems to attract other mice to the glue trap. Use the large rat size. They drag the mouse size around and can get loose. Check them frequently and replace them quickly. I used the rodent block in the center for bait.