It's simply incredible, we are up to nine voles under the sink. The eighth was caught New Years Eve morning. Unfortunately as I took it in the trap out of the front gates and a little walk down the drive, I felt a wobble in the trap and looked to find it had escaped. No sign of it anywhere, it had just ran into the undergrowth as quick as anything.
So I re-primed the trap and put it back under the sink. checking up early on New Years Eve, there was nothing in the trap, but all the Peanut Butter had gone. So I took it out and found this to my surprise.
In a short period of the afternoon, one had chewed a hole in the trap to escape! This really took some doing. It had started with one of the drainage holes that can be seen in the bottom of the trap and just gnawed through the plastic. Bits were everywhere on the shelf. It's possible that this is a returning vole from the one that escaped, although it is difficult to see how they are getting in here other than the way we speculate on, by one of the cats bringing in a heavily pregnant female.
I have now made a repair with a mouldable filler and wait for it to really harden. Meanwhile I found another of my live mouse traps and have put that under the sink, although it is not one of the most successful kinds I have used. But it may do the trick.
Thankfully voles as well as mice are not as hard to catch as rats in a live trap. Rats are so intelligent and you have to use your wits against them. It's easy to make them suspicious of a trap and I have found you have to put some really delicious stuff in to tempt them. If you fail once with a rat and it gets out of the trap before it springs, it is a heck of a job to entice them again as they have learnt not to trust the trap.
Mice on the other hand don't seem to pick up that the trap is out to get them and will come back over and over again to the same trap to eventually get caught.
Minimum distances
If you do catch things in live traps, there are minimum distances to release the animals. Mice and small rodents should be released no less than 100 yards as the crow flies. A bit further away just to be safe. Any less and they will keep returning.
Rats on the other hand have to taken 1 mile away from where they are caught, otherwise you will be plagued by the same animal who is a lot more wily for the experience.
Caution
A word of caution. Here in Britain, rats are classed as vermin and as the law stands once caught cannot be released again even into the wild (this also includes Grey Squirrels). So it is left to your discretion if you are in this situation. Some people catch them live and then drown them. This too is illegal and anybody caught doing so can be prosecuted for unnecessary suffering of an animal.
Happy New Year
Welcome back Neil, and Happy New Year.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I also recently caught a small mouse (not a rat). She named him Huxley and wanted to keep him. :)
She eventually helped me to find a nice, far-away home for him. Thanks for sharing humane ways for treating the little guys.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteOne of the cats brought back a wild rabbit some time ago. We put it into an old run to make sure that it was alright after the experience. Even thought we may have to keep it.
It spent all the time huddled in the corner of the pen, not even going into the house it had. So I found a safe hole under a tree for it to adjust back in the wild.
Unless you get wild animals really young, they just don't seem to adjust, and it's better they are returned to their true environment. So she did the right thing.