Thread: Rats..... a first time for everything

Originally Posted by No.3

I dunno, but I do know for a fact we get some big hua mice same as the fat arse rats. I think the issue may partially be to do with the fact that peanut butter is not our go-to bait as the little sods have too many other options in the form of garden and tree crops. Apple is one of our mainstay baits for traps - and those little plastic traps with the 'bait tray' arrangement with little nubs works for peanut butter but not for apple or other fruit baits.

What I've been doing is using the peanut butter as a 'glue' to hold the fruit option in place, and it works with tube traps and the victor style traps but I think the issue is the tray on the plastic traps allows the mouse to pull the tastier fruit piece away before they trip the trap. I think that this means that the plastic traps might only be getting a peripheral whack on the end of the snout or something that isn't fully fatal and it's allowing the rodents more fight time to eventually pull out from under the trap's jaws. With the Victor-type traps the fruit piece is hooked into the trigger plate and any movement or pulling on the fruit pings the bail arm straight onto mousey's head/neck which is quickly fatal.

I’ve used fine fuse wire to hold a sultana on the plate on those wee grey plastic traps, fiddly to do but one sultana is good for 4-5 mice (at least)