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Will DE work on mice?

 
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Hello Folks, does anyone know if DE will work on mice?  I've gotta real problem with 'em . . . .  
 
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Sorry, DE will not work on mice. There should be a video somewhere on Permies. Anyone have a link?
 
Jerry Sledge
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Here is a link to dozens of traps on YouTube.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=mouse+trap+bucket+video&atb=v1-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMEaAlxCgO5U
Looks to me like you can make a trap out of what you may have on hand.
 
pollinator
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Laurel Bishop wrote:Hello Folks, does anyone know if DE will work on mice?  I've gotta real problem with 'em . . . .  



Nope, sorry. It may rid them of parasites at most.
When you say you have a real problem with them, could you be more specific? In the winter, they need water, food, shelter, not necessarily in that order if they can go in and out to get at some water/ snow. So that is your challenge: Give them none of the above and they will be gone!
1/ are they in your dwelling?: If so, there is a (are) hole(s) somewhere. For that you should go all around your home and see where they could be coming in, then plug these holes. It is cheap and effective, plus your heating bill may go down.
https://www.fleetfarm.com/store/detail/great-stuff-12-oz-gaps-cracks-insulating-foam-sealant/0000000202253/1500?gclid=CjwKCAiA_Kz-BRAJEiwAhJNY7z0GHrw1LnW0tA-0mzIHsNivySLYNAJ05gEvptkswTUT6nNbb01UBRoCagMQAvD_BwE
2/ Are they eating stuff? The solution there is to remove anything they could consider food from their reach. No more plastic bags or food left unattended on the counters overnight: If they can't reach any food, they will move out to where they can get some. All food should be in hard containers that you can close tight anyway.
3/ are they in your dependencies, like sheds where they chew the wires of your nice motorcycle /lawnmower/ 4 wheeler? Most sheds are not rodent proof, unfortunately, and these critters love to gnaw on electric wires, the foam of your Harley seat, your lawnmower seat. [Ask me how I know ;-) ]  Here, you may also be able to keep the shed tight with the same product, but sometimes, we leave a shed open while we go putter with something and don't get back until rodents have made their way in. For that, a good mouser of a cat, if you have one, could be installed comfortably in the shed. That failing, try to keep the tight shed closed and use rodent traps. I really like the glue traps if you can install them in a place where children/ pets can't get at them: A place that is dark but spacious enough.  
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Real-Kill-Mouse-Glue-Traps-4-Count-HG-10095-4/100187510
Think like a mouse: If I were a mouse and a cat was nearby, where would I hide? That is where you will find them. I have chickens so I have a mouse that likes to get in and eat their grain. But I have a waterer on a heated pad. The heated pad is on top of a hive lid, supported by 4 small bricks. So I know they can hide there, and I've seen scat. Fastening a glue trap reaps mice harvests! When I change their water [every 3-4 days] I can lift the whole contraption, remove the rodents that are now dead and give them to my chickens to eat: I know they died without poison in their bodies because I just don't use poisons.
I hope this helps
 
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Laura, here are some threads about mice that might help:

https://permies.com/t/51329/Grid-John-Mice-Bucket

https://permies.com/t/133362/controls-mice-ideas-brainstorm

https://permies.com/t/11578/Mice-Home

We have a trailer for our hunters that has a hole somewhere that we have not found.  The best thing that works for us are sticky traps.

We tried the bucket in the first link but then the mice got smart.
 
pollinator
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Your climate may play a role in what is effective and what isn't. Here it's dry all year round, so the mice want water bad after being in the house for a week.

I've found the comment from Cristo (from one of the threads Anna linked) to be similar to what has worked for me.

Cristo Balete wrote: John, it's worked for me for years, having buckets out partially filled with water that mice and voles jump into all the time. I've found them in empty buckets, but more often in buckets with water, so I assume they are looking for water. I also have a couple of garbage cans full of water for a quick bucket filling, and I even found one in there. Not sure how it even got up that high. I keep the lid on upside down so the tree frogs will stay in it and eat mosquito larvae. It happens at night, when there is all the running around. This past summer there were 6 in one bucket.

It doesn't happen every day, but every few days in my 8 buckets there is usually one. The only caution I would add is that a bird, that come in with the big flocks, to my garden morning and evening, will sometimes jump in the buckets, too. I hate when that happens, so I don't fill them up too much so it can get out again.  


An icecream pail (4 Litre pail) with 2.5-3 inches of water in it is eventually how they end up leaving the house, and usually the pails had cherries/berries in them that I was soaking for cleaning. But I've had them even jump into antique 1 gallon jugs that I had left with soapy water to soak as well.

---

The sticky traps only seem about 80% effective for me - which is still good. But it seems like some of them identify the smell of the glue on the sticky pads, and then learn to avoid them. I've had as many as 25 pads out at a time and there was always one mouse that will learn this strategy to avoid them.

I no longer use the sticky pads, as the house I'm in is over a 100 years old with small holes everywhere, so mice coming in (especially for winter) is expected. It's not much fun accidentally stepping in a sticky pad either. (I can't be the only one who's done it... :) )

Just a smaller pail with some water in it, and maybe add something sugary to it to attract them even more.
 
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