Humane Mousetraps

Videos

How To

Statistics

Topple bottle (How to) (Videos)

This simple setting enables one to catch a mouse in a way appropriate for ulterior transportation. It is easy to build and to set up. Its main limitation is that it only allows the entrapment of one mouse at a time (as almost every common trap, however unlike our one-way wheel trap!). A plastic bottle containing the bait is placed horizontally at the edge of a box, in an unstable equilibrium. When the mouse ventures too far into the bottle, the latter topples vertically in the box and the mouse is caught. Nice for the mouse: it has nothing better to do than peacefully eat the prepared bait, before being carried away...

One-way wheel (How to) (Videos)

More effort and creativity is necessary to build it but it is the only home-made trap we know that can catch all the mice you have in your house at once, without any external intervention ("flushing"). The trap's entrance is a wheel than can turn only in one direction. From the outside the mouse climbs on it and reaches its top (our mice love to climb). At the moment the mouse crosses this unstable position, the wheel starts to turn (by the gravity acting on the mouse), accelerating it into the trap. Once inside, the mouse cannot climb again on the wheel because the latter starts turning towards it.

History

When a friend told us she had a mouse in her appartement but didn't want to kill-while-catching it we started thinking about non-harming mousetraps to help her solve her problem.

Self-imposed conditions

• above all: the well-being of the caught mouse
• being able to build the trap easily with material found in everybody's home, so that anybody can do it without buying anything specific

Preparation

• We performed catching experiments starring two "test" mice:
  Angela M.
  
  and Pamela A.
  
  (acquired for the occasion). Such pet mice surely don't show the same behaviours as their real wild cousins. However, we expect them to share sufficiently enough characteristics so as to reveal whether a traps' principle works or not.
• We used one of our kitchens as the experimenting ground. We positioned our traps randomly around it and eliminated all possible escape routes. Most books seen in the videos are aimed at obstructing small holes in the kitchen.
• We put the mice in the kitchen and let them walk around until they were lured by the bait.

Disclaimer

We currently cannot guarantee by any means the efficiency of our traps with wild mice. We are only awaiting your own experiences to build relevant statistics, which we consider will build (or precisely not) the ultimate confirmation.

Links

Check out another humane moustrap, which we also tested, and check out this one, looking good and more professional.

Contact

humanemousetrap[ät]ichfasses.net

Made by

Pascal B. and Aric G., November 2005