Mice attack sown seeds

[Tucson Grower]

I sow many of my starts in cell pacs on heat mats. Earlier I had a roach nibble on a few sweet potato leaves. And I did manage to start several different varieties of squash, but most recently whenever I plant any other variety of squash, one, or more mice dig up the seed and eat them. Poison bait (overdose of vitamin D) are already available, and I added many, sticky-traps, they are the only type trap available to me, until April. Recently I baited each sticky trap with a cushaw seed (hopefully that might help). There are many other seeds planted and seedlings growing, but the only others they seem interested in are the barley (these are already sprouted, but they chew off and discard the leaves, and just eat the kernel).

[FrostyTurnip]

And this part is why I love snakes.  Are they not awake yet?  Now, if this were me and it were happening right now, I’d pot up the squash seeds and transplant, but mostly I’d wait on the snakes.  They’re not awakened here, yet.  


Ours are only rat snakes, so I needn’t worry about them hanging out in the garden.  Your snake population includes meanies. 

consider arial predators, too, mostly the night ones.  Set a trap at night along a flight path?  Well, then there would be a squeaky vike in the clutches of an owl with sticky tape in the air.  I dunno bout that one!  Ha 

[FrostyTurnip]

 I mean ‘vole’.  Stupid autocorrect.  

[Tucson Grower]

Nope, still too cold for the reptiles. Snakes (king snakes) have entered the house to chase down mice,and I appreciate that, but I had to help free them from the sticky board traps.

Well, good news is, mice did not go after any seed or seedlings. Bad news, there are no new, planted seed for them to go after. I'm fairly sure they're omnivores, and not cannibals, why else would a 3 month dead cockroach be suddenly missing from its sticky board trap, leaving only its antenna behind. Yet, its trap companion, a baby mouse, remains untouched.

[heavyhitterokra]

Tucson,

I used to have a windup galvanized steel mouse trap here that worked really, really, well, but not until you manage to catch that first mouse somehow.

That particular trap had a spring loaded, revolving flapper that would flip the mice into the storage bin end, where you would have to take them out and kill them by drowning or other means. (Car exhaust into a black garbage bag works well).  Once the first mouse goes into the trap, the smell of it lures many others. I used it in the makeshift kitchen where I cooked meals on Fridays for the crew at the powerhouse, so there was a seemingly endless supply of mice there because of the men throwing wrappers on the ground or dropping crumbs of food from the tables.

I tried every kind of trap I could find, but the windup trap was the only one that ever even came close to eliminating the mouse problem there.

Back then, all they had for poison bait was Decon, which never worked very well, but nowadays they make little green bars of TOM CAT brand mouse poison that works really well. I don't know what they put in that stuff, but mice can't seem to resist eating it.

Here's a URL to the stuff I'm writing about. They sell it here in bulk at Lowes or at the local farm supply stores.

www.lowes.com/pd/TOMCAT-Bait-Chunx-4-lb-Rat-and-Mouse-Killer/50249191?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-lwn-_-ggl-_-LIA_LWN_241_Chemicals-_-50249191-_-local-_-0-_-0&ds_rl=1286981&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8e-gBhD0ARIsAJiDsaWRFyqXFHcktTjL22qRIhtiB3Q8auUXbmPA7tSd3c7RRwjjBSxp-OMaAti1EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds