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Post by Tringa on Dec 1, 2017 22:28:29 GMT
We have quite a few wood mice and short tailed voles and some pygmy shrews in the garden.
Sometimes the wood mice and the voles come into the house and I have, in the past, tried live trapping.
It hasn't been very successful and when they get into the loft there has been a fair bit of damage to the insulation around water pipes and I've been concerned they might eat into the insulation around electrical cables.
In the last week I have used killing traps and caught three short tailed voles.
I wasn't too happy about this but at least these voles are very common.
A few minutes ago I heard the trap go off and I went up to look. It had caught a pygmy shrew and I feel really bad about it.
Dave
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Post by accipiter on Dec 2, 2017 9:54:41 GMT
Just proves you are a member of the human race Dave, just well hell of a shame there are not more of us around, three cheers for WAB1 and its members.
Alan
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Post by ianr on Dec 2, 2017 11:12:36 GMT
I'm a plumber by trade now retired but I remember years back when they started to use plastic water pipes indoors 'horrible and untidy stuff' on one job the pipe run was up a wall and through the ceiling space of a very posh entrance porch. Being greenbelt land there was no shortage of mice around and it wasn't long before they found the pipes. long story short the pipes looked like a sprinkler system and no access to the space would mean the ceiling had to come down and wood work cut away to effect a repair, oh boy did I laugh, never happened with copper pipe  and I've removed many a toasted mouse from electric cables and junction boxes. So don't feel to bad it's not nice to have to kill but flooded or burnt down  OH I read somewhere once that if you ask them nicely they'll move out and back into the woods ian |
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Post by Tringa on Dec 2, 2017 13:21:34 GMT
Thanks guys.
I have to take some responsibility because I put food out for the birds, pine martens and badgers so this encourages the wood mice, short tailed voles and possibly shrews - though I think their diet is less vegetable based than that of mice or voles, to be close to the back door. From there it is short step to getting under the house and then up to the loft.
Anyway I'm stopping the trapping unless I see more damage.
Your comment Ian, about toasted mice reminded me of many years ago when I couldn't work out why using a particular socket always tripped out the circuit breaker. All the connections I could see were good and only when I investigated where a cable went through a wall did I discover a rather long dead mouse that had tried to enlarge the hole by chewing into the cable.
Dave
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Post by rowanberry on Dec 2, 2017 20:31:16 GMT
I am fond of our woodmice, but I do worry about how to deal with the situation if they started to come indoors... I just hope that so long as they have adequate food outside, and the nice dry frog hotel to live in (which they took over) they'll be happy to stay where they belong. It's trying to maintain a balance as best we can... providing for the wild things, while at the same time ensuring they don't cause our own shelters to catch alight and burn down around our ears! Dave, at least you're not putting out poisons at the first sign of a rodent, which seems to be the general way to deal with anything these days, (if our landlord knew about the foxes which he refers to as 'vermin', I think that might be their fate as well.  |
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Post by Tringa on Dec 3, 2017 16:20:39 GMT
Thanks RB. Poison is horrible. If I have to kill an animal then it has to be quick. I know sometimes killing traps catch a leg but most of the time they do their job well.
Many years ago a neighbour was talking about mice he had in the house. He told me he had put down glue traps, caught the mice and then he drowned them! I was so surprised I couldn't respond in the way I know I should have done.
I think glue traps are little better than poison.
Your comment about your landlord's view of foxes is interesting. I often wonder about folks who regard foxes in that way. Have they ever had any bad/disturbing encounters with foxes? In urban areas they raid bins - or more correctly they raid things which should have been put in bins but were not, but generally they cause few problems.
Dave
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and I've removed many a toasted mouse from electric cables and junction boxes.
