# HELP!!!! Wild mouse infestation!



## Tikmio

I breed my mice in the loft of my barn, and it's always been full of wasps and
lady bugs and flys, but now i think we have WILD mice chewing into our mesh cage lids and
pooping allover our barn and leaving urine, and I know it's not my mice escaping because I
counted them and there all here...

I really need help fast, we moved the mice to our garage but that has to be temporary... We
replaced our paper bags of food with bins and buckets and we took a few thing out of the barn until
we got attacked by wasps (I know, in the winter?), but we still have 8 big dirty cages up there.
Have advise how to get the mice and the wasps away I will greatly appreciate it!

My cat is always on the hunt for mice but she didn't find anything when we let her up there, this
is by fare the worst thing that's happened to the mousery since Sierra died of diabetes.

~Thanks in advance~


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## sys15

where are you located and what species of mice are they?

in general, getting rid of any accessible food and relocating or killing the mice currently living there will reduce wild/feral rodent populations to unnoticeable levels.


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## SarahC

you should keep pest control in place all the time so that it's nipped in the bud.Either traps or safely situated poison.I use both .


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## Frizzle

For wasps you can get those sweet traps, where the wasp flies in to eat it but gets stuck. But this only takes care of individuals, not the nest. I'd take all the mice out of the barn first (idk if you have anything in the 8 cages), and then spray the nests with that insecticide that can shoot 15+ feet, then RUN! Repeat, until no-more wasps fly out during the attack, then break the nest down. I guess you can use a stick, but I wouldn't want to get too close. We've used tennis balls before to break down nests. Is it winter, winter where you live? Assuming that these wasps are moving because your barn is warm, I would open up the door and let it get cold inside (assuming this is just a mousery, no other livestock). It will make the wasps more lethargic, and you can much more easily take down the nests and burn them. I hate wasps.

Keeping the feed in bins is a great idea, depending on how large your mousery is you could always store the food elsewhere, and fill an ice cream pail with feed to do the rounds. Or a 5 gal bucket.


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## Tikmio

Thank you for an actual response Frizzle, we have sprayed and knocked down the nests before
and they keep coming back. We did have snow a few weeks ago, and right now it's sort of warm,
and I left the barn door open yesterday morning and it's today morning right now so i'll go
close it in a bit. Are those glue traps any good to put on top of the cages that there chewing
into? I have herd they can be inhumane, witch I don't want to be, I love mice so if there mean please
let me know someone... I'll also buy some spring traps that get their neck, those are not bad, right?

~Thanks~


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## Frizzle

Here is the thread that discusses glue traps. I'd just go with good old fashion snap traps, baiting with peanut butter will catch just about anything. Do you have to worry about rats?
http://www.fancymicebreeders.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=9564&hilit=glue,+traps

Yeah, once the wasps find a nice spot, they keep coming back, so its important to regularily take down nests while they are smallish and only housing a queen. And as SarahC mentioned, keeping traps/poision out constantly will keep most problems down.


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## Autumn2005

When we need to catch mice, we use something sweet, like frosting or pie filling... works better than any other bait we've tried! :nar


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## Tikmio

K, no glue traps...  (for the poor mice/rats). And yes i'll get some peanut butter and frosting see
witch one works best. For wasps i'll use those poison bags and hope for the best!


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## Frizzle

Autumn2005 said:


> When we need to catch mice, we use something sweet, like frosting or pie filling... works better than any other bait we've tried! :nar


Huh, I've heard of bacon, but sweets are something new!


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## Laigaie

We always used peanut butter in our live traps (I prefer them to killtraps, personally), but I noticed that the last wildy who got in actually killed himself eating dark chocolate bars. They love sweets. I think moustress uses kibble, which wouldn't go bad so quickly in the traps, if you're wanting to leave them out all the time. One great thing about live traps is that if you do get an escapee, you won't kill them.


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## Tikmio

Hey that's true... We watched one of mice pur today, and she escaped, but then she was a wimp,
and went back in her cage, hehe.


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## Autumn2005

We had a mouse living behind our stove, and set kill traps out for it... We caught a buck, but it was one of the prettiest bucks I've ever seen, it had a nice blue color, with dark points. Maybe a blue burmese? Not sure how that came about, but if the guy had been in a live trap, I would have liked to see if I could replicate his color.


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## Cait

tikmio said:


> Hey that's true... We watched one of pur mice today, and she escaped, but then she was a wimp,
> and went back in her cage, hehe.


If your pet mice can get out of their cages, they can be mated by the wild mice and bring home a half wild litter for you. If you keep mice in an outbuilding, they need more secure cages.


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## Tikmio

Yes! Don't worry MouseBreeder, right after we saw that we found holes from the wild mice in her tanks
plastic wire, and we rushed inside and replaced the plastic wire with steel wire, I bet that will keep
her in! Oh, and thanks for you concern


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## Cait

Keep an eye on her, she may have already gotten pregnant...


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## Tikmio

She is looking a little pudgy... Can wilds give her parasites that she can pass on to her cage mates?


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## WoodWitch

tikmio said:


> She is looking a little pudgy... Can wilds give her parasites that she can pass on to her cage mates?


Yes, that's possible and very likely.


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## Tikmio

Why would she go in and out of a cage like that though?


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## MoonfallTheFox

The cage is home to her. My bird will sometimes decide she wants some out time when I don't want her to be out, and flies out when I open the door. Even though it's fun for her to play in my room, the cage is home and she always returns there.


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## Laigaie

I used to have a rat when I was a kid who went in and out of his cage as he pleased. He was very good-mannered about the whole thing, and mostly got out to hide food somewhere his brother couldn't get to it, retrieve tissues to bring back home, or curl up and sleep inside my pillowcase. They go back home for the same reason you do, and go out to play or get away from their housemates. As our rat was only getting out because he'd lost so much weight due to a bone spur, he stopped being able to get out once he fattened up again.


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## Tikmio

Oh. i hope there fine. She is no longer able to escape though.


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## Autumn2005

I think the popular treatment for internal parasites is called iver-on, can someone correct me on this? You just put a couple drops on their scruff, I believe.


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## Laigaie

For internal parasites, I prefer ivermectin in the water using Eqvalan as described in the AFRMA newsletter. I keep iver-on for external parasites. Others seem to get good results with iver-on for internal parasites, though they're fairly rare except in lab, pet store, and wild mice.


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## Tikmio

Ok, we can get some Ivermectin, but I need to be 100% sure it will not hurt the mice. _Please_ be
honest with me, if the mice do not have anything will it hurt them? I think it's for horses, and cattle.

But anyway I must be _sure_ it will not hurt my mice.


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## Laigaie

We are always honest with you.  Ivermectin in most forms is designed for horses and cattle, and so must be used off-label at different dosages in order to treat mice. We cannot tell you how your mice will react. We can only tell you how hundreds of other mice have been treated, and what the results were from that. What type and brand of ivermectin you buy will drastically change the dosage and method of delivery, to let you know before you buy. Eqvalan is the best brand to use for distribution in the water bottle, because of the way it goes into solution, but is rather complicated to work with. Iver-on is a simpler method of delivery, and dosage is less exact.

The biggest concern I've heard with ivermectin is that pregnant does may lose pups, and that nursing does shouldn't be dosed at all, as they can transmit the ivermectin at increased dosages to nursing pups. Personally, the mouse I dosed with ivermectin during her pregnancy was fine, and neither she nor her litter suffered ill-effects. This was quite early in her pregnancy, as your mouse might be. There are other chemicals that have a synergistic relationship with ivermectin, and using these in conjunction with ivermectin (as is done in labs) drastically increases your chances for problems. To be entirely honest, parasites are more dangerous than wisely-used anti-parasite medications.


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## Tikmio

Ok, but I don't think we'll be needing it anyways.

We got to the bottom of this mouse thing and it turns out, 2-3 of our mice were escaping, due to bad
enclosure, and were coming in and out of there cages to pee and eat our treat mixes and such. We also
figured out there are no wild mice bothering us, because we set a ton of traps and caught nothing...


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## tinyhartmouseries

Ivermectin is also a really good preventative and can be used once a month, much like flea treatments for dogs, just in case.


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## Tikmio

Oh, that sounds good!


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## Cait

Just because you didn't catch anything doesn't mean there aren't any wild mice. I have tried live traps and poison when I know there is at least one wild mouse about because I have seen it, and it has never worked. You need to err on the side of caution - treat your mice and watch for pregnancy.


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## Tikmio

OK.


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## tinyhartmouseries

I would not suggest any kill traps when your mice are not secure in their cages. I learned that a cage was not secure in a bad manner and it was a really cruddy way to find out.


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## Tikmio

I secured all of the bad ones


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