Cladding cavity insect/rodent barrier

[Jeremy Harris]

One thing I missed out on our build was putting an insect/rodent barrier in the cavity behind the garage cladding.  On the house we used catering pack sized stainless steel scouring pads, unrolled a bit, a suggestion from someone on Ebuild.  I've just got around to doing the garage, and awkward job, but it has to be done as we have a massive mouse infestation in the loft space (more on getting rid of mice later).  As an experiment, I bought a roll of stainless steel wire wool, intended for use as motorcycle silencer packing.  The stuff I bought came from this eBay seller: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10m-x-3-Wire-Wool-Wrap-For-Exhaust-Silencers-Stainless-Steel-T304-High-Grade/111442420150?epid=2008975940&hash=item19f27c61b6:g:Or4AAOSwq7JUKXI~

 

It seems ideal for using as an insect/rodent barrier, as, before it's compressed, it's about 100mm wide and maybe 50mm thick.  It will nicely fill a 25mm deep cavity, and is a tight enough fit to stay firmly wedges in place.  Stainless wire wool has been tested as being an effective rodent barrier, too, so it should help keep the mice out.

 

FWIW, I found where the mice were both getting in and where they were nesting, by using this stuff, together with a UV torch: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UV-Tracking-Blocks-In-Mouse-Boxes-Mice-Poison-Mouse-Killer-Mouse-Poison/392274391592?hash=item5b55603228:m:mzwkxA-6QRVHAcyGaBL5S0w  This works well, and their tiny footprints glow brightly in the dark when illuminated with a UV torch (it was like something out of CSI wandering around with the UV torch tracing their footsteps).

 

Getting rid of the mice once they have established somewhere as a home seems difficult.  I've been catching between 2 and 8 a night for well over a week now, with no sign of the numbers abating (they really do breed like mice, it seems).  So far I've refrained from killing them, and have been live-trapping them and releasing them about ½ a mile away (guidance I've read suggests they need to be released at least ¼ mile away to prevent them returning).  For those interested in live trapping mice without buying an expensive collection of traps, then I can recommend making a simple walk-the-plank trap, fitted to the top of a tall bucket, with a lid fitted around the pivoting plank to prevent the mice from jumping out.  There needs to be a ramp up to the plank and the plank needs to be counterbalanced so that it always resets.  I used a small magnet and a screw to hold the plank steady, only allowing it to tip the mouse into the bucket when the weight near the baited end is about 12g (about the weight of an AAA battery).  It helps to add a small drop of cooking oil in the bottom of the bucket, making sure the base and sides are well coated.  The oil stops the mice jumping (a great help when you are trying to lift out a bucket containing 8 fairly frantic mice and relocate them).

 

For those not fussed about killing mice, then filling the bucket with a few inches of water will drown them.

 

[ToughButterCup]

[Russell griffiths]

Are you sure it’s not the same mice returning, my dad did the same thing and in the end he painted all the mice he caught to confirm they weren’t returning, lots of mice running around the country with little white Mohican haircuts. 

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

 

I reckon that cat would transform from a 15 W heat output one  one to a 30 W version after a few weeks on munching on my mouse population...

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Are you sure it’s not the same mice returning, my dad did the same thing and in the end he painted all the mice he caught to confirm they weren’t returning, lots of mice running around the country with little white Mohican haircuts. 

 

 

I can't be sure, but advice I've read suggests taking them at least ¼ mile away is enough to prevent them finding their way back.  I'm taking them about ½ mile away, and across the other side of the village stream, so to get back they'd have a fair old hike.  I could set up one of the UV marker boxes by the trap, so that all the trapped mice leave UV visible footprints, then go and look to see if any are making their way across the bridge opposite our drive (that's the only bridge over the stream they could use to get back).

[MikeSharp01]

3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

(that's the only bridge over the stream they could use to get back).

Dont forget that Ratty had a boat.

 

[Onoff]

3 hours ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

Ah yes!

1)Torture for a bit

2)Bite off head and devour,

3)Bite off arse end and tail ditto. 

4)Action of 3) will have extruded all the best bits. Devour.

5)Always leave the gall bladder.

 

Just the nightly show on our patio really.

[Hastings]

Mice are good swimmers and not afraid of water.

Be aware of UK law when it comes to dispatching them

https://www.gov.uk/pest-control-on-your-property

Edited October 8, 2019 by Hastings

[Jeremy Harris]

14 minutes ago, Hastings said:

 

Best to delete the above if you can, as I am fairly sure it's illegal in UK.

https://www.gov.uk/pest-control-on-your-property

 

Mice are good swimmers and not afraid of water.

 

 

Thanks, but I think I'll leave it for individuals to use their own judgement. 

 

I've been clear that I only use live capture traps, and that I always release the mice caught some distance away (far enough away for them not to come back). 

 

If others want to kill them, then it's their choice as to the method they choose to use, whether their conscience is OK with it and whether it's lawful.  As far as I can see drowning mice is not unlawful, and arguably it's no less humane than using a cat, poison or some other method of eradication.  Like others, I've witnessed a cat playing around with a mouse.  Not a quick or pleasant death, by any stretch of the imagination.  Not really natural, either, given that domestic cats are an invention of man.

[Bitpipe]

On 18/09/2019 at 17:37, JSHarris said:

 

 

I can't be sure, but advice I've read suggests taking them at least ¼ mile away is enough to prevent them finding their way back.  I'm taking them about ½ mile away, and across the other side of the village stream, so to get back they'd have a fair old hike.  I could set up one of the UV marker boxes by the trap, so that all the trapped mice leave UV visible footprints, then go and look to see if any are making their way across the bridge opposite our drive (that's the only bridge over the stream they could use to get back).

 

Once again @JSHarris you're coming up short of expectations.

 

I would expect you to cobble together (from your shed of ex MOD spares) individual mouse trackers to monitor their return.

 

Either that or blast them into space with a hobby rocket.

 

BTW our cat is so lazy it would end up sleeping in the bucket with the mice as company.

[ProDave]

A previous cat we had would catch them but never eat them.

 

One one occasion he came in with a mouse in his mouth, put the mouse down in his bowl of cat food and proceeded to eat the cat food.  The mouse just sat there preening himself seemingly not bothered at where he was, until we took him back outside.

[Hastings]

In this day and age and the Animal Welfare Act (2006) legislation http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents , I personally wouldn't take the risk of publicly suggesting something that might be illegal, which deliberate drowning of a rodent almost certainly would be. The law is complex, often quite surprising and little known about by the general public.

 

Certainly there is no particular right in the UK to choose any method we like to kill an animal. Relocating and releasing a live-trapped vertebrate is possibly unlawful in the case of mice, definitely unlawful in the case of certain specific species (and not just pest species like grey squirrel or signal crayfish).

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

 

Once again @JSHarris you're coming up short of expectations.

 

I would expect you to cobble together (from your shed of ex MOD spares) individual mouse trackers to monitor their return.

 

Either that or blast them into space with a hobby rocket.

 

BTW our cat is so lazy it would end up sleeping in the bucket with the mice as company.

 

You're going to love the Mk 2 live capture mousetrap.  Here's a sneak preview:

 

 

The black arm can pivot downwards when the locking pin moves out of the way.  This is triggered by a mouse crossing the IR proximity sensor towards the end of the arm, whilst trying to reach the peanut butter at the very end.  When the arm drops, the mouse falls down into the bottom of the deep (empty) bucket and the mechanism recycles to the "cocked and ready" position, ready for the next mouse.  I 3D printed the mechanism, and just need to print up a housing, plus a mount for the LCD counter module I've bought.  The LCD display will be mounted remotely so that I can quickly check how many, if any, mice have been caught, so that I know when I need to empty the bucket.

 

I might try marking the captured mice somehow, just so that I can be sure the same ones aren't coming back, although 1/2 mile seems a long trek for any mouse, especially as they also have to cross the stream.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

19 minutes ago, Hastings said:

In this day and age and the Animal Welfare Act (2006) legislation http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents , I personally wouldn't take the risk of publicly suggesting something that might be illegal, which deliberate drowning of a rodent almost certainly would be. The law is complex, often quite surprising and little known about by the general public.

 

Certainly there is no particular right in the UK to choose any method we like to kill an animal. Relocating and releasing a live-trapped vertebrate is possibly unlawful in the case of mice, definitely unlawful in the case of certain specific species (and not just pest species like grey squirrel or signal crayfish).

 

 

 In general, our legal system is such that anything is deemed to be lawful unless there is a law that states it is otherwise.  Also, just because something may be unlawful doesn't make it illegal.  To be illegal an act has to specifically contradict criminal law.  I'm not in any way doing anything either unlawful or illegal. 

 

I could legally poison these mice, kill them using a cat or dog, or kill them with any one of dozens of different, perfectly legal, lethal traps.  I could even choose to shoot them if I wished.  Despite having lived on a farm, and grown up controlling vermin as an everyday job, I don't happen to like killing things unless I absolutely have no choice, hence the efforts I go to in order to live capture nuisance mice.

 

We live out in the country, and at this time of year we get a lot of mice trying to get into buildings.  These aren't urban house mice (at least I've not yet seen a house mouse in those I've caught), they are either field mice (the majority) or the occasional yellow necked mouse.  Both are native species, and the recommended advice is to relocate them when caught in a live trap, rather than kill them.   The recommendation is that they need to be relocated into suitable habitat at least 1/4 mile away from the point of capture.

 

I've been following this advice for years now, and have yet to see any evidence that it's been contradicted by any reputable authority (although one or two locally that have seen me carrying mice for release seem to think I'm bonkers).  If we were having problems with house mice, then I'd probably not use a live trap, although TBH I'd not feel that comfortable with killing them, it's just that house mice aren't likely to survive if let loose in open countryside, anyway, as that's just not their natural habitat.

 

 

[Hastings]

I would definitely not release mice any further away from where nearby resident ones will already be living, probably just a matter of a few metres from your garage. Finding any suitable but also unoccupied territory at any distance away is practically impossible, and the further away you take them the greater the stress and likelihood of death you cause them.

[ToughButterCup]

Thanks @Onoff, always wondered which bits of mouse I need to pick up most mornings..... (gall bladder)

Ermmmmm, how do you know it's the gall bladder?  My guess was the  Colon. 

 

[Onoff]

41 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

Thanks @Onoff, always wondered which bits of mouse I need to pick up most mornings..... (gall bladder)

Ermmmmm, how do you know it's the gall bladder?  My guess was the  Colon. 

 

 

I may be wrong. I've also heard caceum. Something to do with acid making it taste bitter.

[Onoff]

If you WANT mice, rats and squirrels...get one of these:

 

 

F***ing useless! I've actually heard it say:

 

"Ooh look a RAT Dad, best we get a cat!" 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

On 08/10/2019 at 15:11, Hastings said:

I would definitely not release mice any further away from where nearby resident ones will already be living, probably just a matter of a few metres from your garage. Finding any suitable but also unoccupied territory at any distance away is practically impossible, and the further away you take them the greater the stress and likelihood of death you cause them.

 

 

There's standard, approved, advice on this, from the manufacturers of these live capture traps: 

 

These Rentokil live capture traps that I've been using say this in the instructions (my highlight):

 

Quote

How to use

Apply bait to the inside of the end cap, such as chocolate spread, tuna or peanut butter. After capture, make sure you release the mouse in a remote location far enough away from your home, that it cannot find a way back.

 

Years ago, when I first started using these traps  I looked around for advice as to how far away a "remote location far enough away from your home, that it cannot find a way back" needed to be, and the advice given was at least 1/4 mile, with the release habitat being appropriate for the type of mouse captured.  In the case of field and yellow necked mice this is typically somewhere like an overgrown field margin or hedge, where they will find food and be relatively sheltered from predators.

 

Before deciding on a DIY live capture trap, I looked at these UK made, multi-mouse traps: https://trapman.co.uk/mouse-traps.htm

 

The instructions for these state:

 

Quote

If you're using one of our "humane live catch mouse traps" ( I hope you are ), you'll have a live mouse ( or hopefully lots of mice ) running around inside inside your mouse trap. Don't just launch them over next doors back fence, mice can very easily find their way back to your home. Instead, take them on a little holiday, a nice drive in the country perhaps and find a spot at least half a mile away from your house ( this spot should not be someone else's house or garden, unless you want even more hassle than just mice).

 

I can find no evidence to support the view that "the further away you take them the greater the stress and likelihood of death you cause them".  Unlike voles, neither field mice nor yellow necked mice seem to be territorial, so they are fine as long as they are in the right sort of habitat.  They can and do travel long distances if they know of somewhere there's food and shelter, though, as anyone who's caught a few, marked them, taken them some distance away, and had then return very quickly to be caught again, will verify.   There's no point at all in using a live capture trap, only to release the caught mice close to where they have been caught, as they will be back in there before you've cleaned the trap and prepared it for the next capture.

 

The law seems clear, in that as long as you ensure that you check a live capture trap at least once a day, and release any non-target animals into a suitable environment (which in this case would be any native, or resident animal not classified as vermin), then you're not breaking any law.

 

 

 

[Hastings]

 

Universities Federation for Animal Welfare:
“Release of an animal elsewhere is not necessarily a humane thing to do – translocated animals may fail to adapt to or integrate into new territory and may suffer and die as a result (Mason and Littin, 2003). Killing is much less likely to carry a risk of causing suffering than release in an unfamiliar area…”

 

Humane Society International:
“Treating the symptom by eliminating a single rat/mouse — or even an entire colony — is ultimately futile unless the conditions that encouraged them to take up residence in the first place are addressed. Over time, others will simply move in to the vacated territory.”
“Captured mice should be released in the garden in dense vegetation (such as a hedge) or, even better, near a shed under which they can shelter, as far from the house as possible.”

 

The reference to Mason and Littin 2003 is a study by Oxford University dept of Zoology “The Humaneness of Rodent Pest Control” that puts catch and release lower in the humaneness score than killing.

 

With small mammals, checking a live trap once a day isn't frequent enough.

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Hastings

[Jeremy Harris]

Bear in mind that these mice won't have been living in my garage, they will have travelled maybe 300 metres or so from the nearest open farmland to get to it.  They aren't there during the spring or summer months at all, being field mice they will all be living around the local field margins, in exactly the same habitat as I release them.

 

I could just kill them using an approved rodenticide, but that carries some risk to other animals, even if done in an approved way, plus I'd end up with smelly carcasses in very difficult to access locations, which themselves are likely to attract other pests, like flies.  Lethal trapping wouldn't be very effective, as these field mice are arriving in fairly large numbers at this time of the year, both the live capture traps I currently have are normally occupied when I check them in the morning.

 

BTW, the guidance you've copied and pasted applies mainly to house mice, not field/yellow necked mice.  The two species of field mouse in the UK,  don't normally live in or near habitation, they migrate to it at this time of the year, usually as a consequence of their habitat being disturbed by harvest and ploughing related activities. plus the change in temperature. 

 

House mice are a different issue - despite my reservations, if we had a house mouse problem I'd use lethal traps, as there is no way to relocate them, as this would mean moving them to someone else's house, as they don't survive long in the open.

 

It's easy enough to tell the difference between house mice and field, or yellow necked, mice, although pretty hard to distinguish between field mice and yellow necked mice.   These photos may help if anyone wants to know which sort of mouse problem they have:

 

                   

                              House Mouse                                                                       Field Mouse                                                                   Yellow Necked Mouse