Small mammal trap

[Queen bee]

Several years ago I recieved a small mammal trap for my birthday, and today I'm getting round to using it. It has clear sides so I don't need to handle anything I catch and risk hurting it. It has a trip mechanism (little mammal goes in, door closes) and I've set it below some climbing honeysuckle in the garden, baited with hamster food and good old Rice Krispies! XD There's some hay for bedding too and extra food to keep it going. I'm hoping to catch a Wood Mouse: when we had a peanut holder on the window, we'd get a little group coming visiting right in front of our noses. I'll check it every couple of hours, and if nothing comes today, I'll take it down as it's school tomorrow. I'll tell you if anything appears!

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Did you catch anything? Hope you've let it go again?

BWD

[m1.carson]

Hi,

Try chocolate or peanut butter, chocolate works a treat with fieldmice, we caught two at once in a humane trap like yours.

Max.

[paulinemiller10]

I would check it every morning, it needs water, and sometimes their tails can get trapped, mice can die from stress or dehydration. Pauline.

[Queen bee]

Well, success, I checked it in the morning and there was a little Wood Mouse inside. Must've liked Rice Krispies, because they had all been munched. Opened the door, but it decided it liked it in the hay (nice and warm, I expect) so after leaving it for 10 minutes to see if it would find its own way out, I took the tunnel off the nest box and it darted away. I could not see the tell-tale signs of its gender, but I'd guess it was a female by the size. Not that I'm any expert, though. Next week I'm going to place it around our bonfire site, which has a lot of thick, tall grass and nettles, and Max (our dog) likes chasing voles down there, so I might get one of those. Only time will tell though.

[rainmaker]

Be a little bit careful with that sort of thing - I've used them before, and they are supposed to be vole & shrew proof, because those little critters won't survive a full night without food/water - lo & behold, next morning, we had a shrew in one of ours & it was dead

[Queen bee]

Well, I set it down at the bonfire site (I took your advice, carson, and partly baited it with good old peanut butter) and in the morning I had another Wood Mouse. I released it and it ran into a hole I hadn't noticed before in the bank. I think the Wood Mice turn up most because unlike voles they are less reliant on set-out runs and roam further afield.
Yes, shrews do need very regular checking. They're the sort that go by "live fast die young". Though it's weird they went into a trap meant for mice, as they tend to go for meat, not grain or whatever...

[thunder]

Originally Posted by Queen bee

Though it's weird they went into a trap meant for mice, as they tend to go for meat, not grain or whatever...

I think they are just nosy - "Let's look in there, see if there is any food"

henrya

[Dan Salter]

always add some frozen carrot or a piece of apple to give the animals moisture/water

[Blackbrook Eye]

I know that I am not too quick on the uptake, but can you explain why you need to catch them anyway, is it some sort of survey or something ?

[Amylou]

Maybe for a general interest to see what sort of wild life there is around.
Im going to be using hair traps and longworth traps for my project. Iv used longworth traps before but never hair ones. I presume its a tube with sometihng sticky in it to catch hairs...? We also have to find Fox poop samples to see what they are eating...lovely

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Amylou

Maybe for a general interest to see what sort of wild life there is around.
Im going to be using hair traps and longworth traps for my project. Iv used longworth traps before but never hair ones. I presume its a tube with sometihng sticky in it to catch hairs...? We also have to find Fox poop samples to see what they are eating...lovely

just make sure its not so sticky that a mouse sticks to it - a lot of people use double sided tape - on the underside of fences etc on animal runs - this can tell you whether it is Fox, Badger, cat, Rabbit etc.

[paulinemiller10]

I have a shelter I built for my Hedgehogs, the woodmice also live there, I watch them live on cam every night, I have been watching some babes that are just out of the nest, they go looking to find food and water, and will often fall in the water bowl and get a soaking before getting the knack of standing on the side, I also have a female who is getting fatter by the day, she will have her babes soon, and I m just thinking of the little mice you may be catching, they may have a little family to look after who are waiting for their mother to come home, or the mother who is about to give birth, things you don t really think about, but can cause a lot of suffering if an animal is locked up for many hours. Pauline.

[Blackbrook Eye]

Here here Pauline, my sentiments exactly, If you are catching wild animals just for idle curiosity, I suggest that you have a re-think. For heavens sake , leave them in peace, they have enough to cope with without any unnecessary outside interference.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Amylou

Maybe for a general interest to see what sort of wild life there is around.
Im going to be using hair traps and longworth traps for my project. Iv used longworth traps before but never hair ones. I presume its a tube with sometihng sticky in it to catch hairs...? We also have to find Fox poop samples to see what they are eating...lovely

I did some field work in Scotalnd when I was at Uni - one of the girls with us was going through owl droppings, and it was brill - she was able to almost just unfold the dropping and get a complete vole or shrew skeleton!

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Blackbrook Eye

Here here Pauline, my sentiments exactly, If you are catching wild animals just for idle curiosity, I suggest that you have a re-think. For heavens sake , leave them in peace, they have enough to cope with without any unnecessary outside interference.

I sort of agree , but on the other hand look at gerald durrel - if you read the books about his early life nothing with fur or feathers was safe from his curiosity - but look how he turned out , I think its safe to say that he did more good than harm in the long run.

Personally so long as people ( I think i am right in thinking in this case young people) follow propper trapping discipline and check traps regularly I dont see that much wrong in it - far from being idle , i feel that this sort of curiosity needs to be encouraged if future generations are to value the natural world as much as we do.

its certainly better to be out trapping a few mice and examining them, learning about them and their lives than it is to be hanging on the street corner wearing a hoody and drinking blue wkd.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Amylou

We also have to find Fox poop samples to see what they are eating...lovely

you can tell a lot about Badgers from examing their poop too - interestingly this varies with time of year - for example in the spring their poop can be very dry and dusty - which indicates that they are eating lots of earthworms and ingesting grit and earth at the same time, wheras in the autumn their dung can be very loose and squishy as they chow down on fallen fruit in orchards and hedgerows

As an aside in the autumn you occasionally also find drunk Badgers who have got a bit tiddly from eating fermented windfalls - these are easy to approach and photograph , but dont go too close as like human drunks they can get a bit stroppy if disturbed

[Queen bee]

Maybe for a general interest to see what sort of wild life there is around.

Yeah, that's basically it. I'm having a rethink about leaving the traps out overnight. It does seem a little long to keep them in there (especially with my disgracefully late wake-up times Yes, eeyore, you're right-- I'm a teenager, which probably explains the dozing ) Now I'm on half term, I'll have more time to do things, so I can check the trap much more regularly and still have time for other stuff. I'm trying to set it in different habitats to see what lives there-- I think sometimes small mammals are overlooked a bit and are written off in some people's books as pests or boring. I understand that the trapping may set them back a little, but I'm trying to do all I can to keep their welfare a top priority.

My mum was telling me about how, when she was in uni, they went on field trips to catch mice and each individual was told apart (the mice, not the students) by which toes they had cut off after being caught previously (owch!) and they found the same mice kept coming back just to get the food.

[Amylou]

We are going to do trap - mark - release but not by cutting toes off! We will snip some fur off. This is to see how many migrate over to different parts of the golf course.

[Amylou]

Oh and there have been some sightings of Badgers. Whats the best way to look for signs of them? They make latrines (sp?) dont they?

[Queen bee]

Oh and there have been some sightings of badgers. Whats the best way to look for signs of them? They make latrines (sp?) dont they?

Yeah, they have a seperate toilet. A Badger has recently dug a hole down our track, and you can see in the leaf litter where it has been digging for worms and possibly for a toilet. Their setts often have bundles of dry grass outside-- bedding they've cleared out but haven't been bothered to move far. Low-lying barbed wire may have their hair caught on it, and in hedgerows, you may be able to see "runs", where Badgers have slid on their tummies down the slope. Good luck!

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Queen bee

My mum was telling me about how, when she was in uni, they went on field trips to catch mice and each individual was told apart (the mice, not the students) by which toes they had cut off after being caught previously (owch!) and they found the same mice kept coming back just to get the food.

ooof -- talk about bad practice. Standard practice to identify mice as individuals is to clip the fur in little circles in different places on each indivual. If you are going to be doing a lot of trapping it would be worth going on a Mammal trust training course which will cover best practice, how to handle rodents , identification , etc etc.

see if you can get hold of the amateur naturalist by geral durrel , or the new amateur naturalist by chris packham both of which have lots of advice on surveys and other stuff you can do. The former isnt in print anymore though you might find is second hand , while you can get the latter from most good bookshops for circa 20 notes - check your local libary for either as well.

[Queen bee]

Well, yesterday I put the trap on the steps next to a... darn, can't remember what it's called. I've been told it's name so many times... it's a plant... with little red, hard buds that bees and wasps like and small round dark leaves...um...begins with c, not clematis... anyway. I kept finding the bait in the tunnel was being taken but the trap was not being sprung. Later I decided this must have been because the creature was getting nice and full of peanuts beore it even got to the tripper and leaving, so I pushed remaining bait back and did not refill tunnel bait. I went to put the guinea pigs out, came back and found a shrew in there, no doubt cussing to itself. I identified it by its combined head and body length--45 mm-- and the fact that it was bi-coloured, without the buffy colour between the belly and back like a Common Shrew. So that's something new learnt: we have pygmy shrews round here and shrews like peanuts... o.O Weird. I let him go and left a little bit of bacon on the steps to say thank you. It vanished... next he'll be knocking on the window wanting to know where the free food has all gone!

If you are going to be doing a lot of trapping it would be worth going on a Mammal trust training course which will cover best practice, how to handle rodents , identification , etc etc.

Sounds good. Hoopefully I won't ever need to pick them up, because the trap has clear sides (I try to make sure it's in the shade-- lots of sun lately)

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Queen bee

Sounds good. Hoopefully I won't ever need to pick them up, because the trap has clear sides (I try to make sure it's in the shade-- lots of sun lately)

this is the link for the courses I mentioned ( I hope this is okay by the mods - it is sort of comercial but they are a charity ) Surveys: Training workshops - The Mammal Society I meant to say mammal society - it gets confusing because there is a mammals trust as well