How to Kill Mice

You have a pair of primary options if you’ve found your home or business infested with mice. First, you can hire a professional to eradicate the vermin from the premises. Second, you can exterminate mice that have infested your home on your own. If you elect to pursue getting rid of a mice infestation on your own, there are some tactics that you can employ to kill and eradicate these rodents.

Ways to Kill Mice

These are a number of ways in which you can kill mice infesting your home or business. The most common of these methodologies are:

Traditional Snap Trap

The traditional snap trap is the most effective and the most highly recommended of the various methodologies that exist to kill mice. Most people are familiar with a device that comes complete with a spring-loaded bar on a small piece of wood. The device is baited with a food or nesting item that is attractive to a mouse. When the animal tugs on the bait, the bar is activated and snaps down on the rodent. In most instances, the mouse dies instantly.

If you are concerned about humanely eliminated mice from your home, experts do have an opinion about this trap. They maintain that this is really the most humane manner in which to exterminate a mouse.

Electric Trap

A derivation on the mousetrap theme is the electric trap. The electric trap operates on a principle fairly similar to that of the snap trap. The electric trap is baited with food or nesting material appealing to mice. When the mouse enters into the trap to retrieve the food, the physical presence of the animal completes an electric circuit. This results in the electrocution of the mouse. In most cases, the mouse dies instantly.

Glue Trap

The glue trap gets a thumbs down from nearly all corners. As the moniker indicates, a glue trap is coated with a gooey or sticky substance. When a mouse makes contact with the glue, the animal is trapped. The mouse is held in place until the mouse dies from dehydration, starvation, or the elements. In some cases, when a home or business owner checks on a glue trap, they find themselves in a position of having to personally exterminate the trapped mouse.

A glue trap is baited in a manner similar to the snap trap or electric trap. A preferred food or nesting material is used to attract a mouse in the first instance.

The glue trap is considered the most inhumane way to exterminate a mouse. Indeed, in some locales in the United States, the use of the glue trap has been banned.

Poisoned Bait

Another way to kill mice is through the use of poisoned bait. If you have children or pets in your home, this strategy is not recommended. These products can be harmful to children, pets, or even an adult that consumes it.

The three most commonly used types of poisons designed to kill mice are:

  • Bromethalin
  • Vitamin-based
  • Anti-coagulants

Bromethalin is a neurotoxin that kills mice within about an hour. If you purchase packaged mouse poison or rat poison in the store, it nearly always will be this chemical. This substance presents a real danger to humans and animals. There is no antidote if it is ingested by a human or animal. Some people and animals can recover after ingesting it, assuming it is a one-time occurrence and a smaller amount entered into the system. 

Vitamin based products are the second type of poison. They kill a mouse over the course of about a day. These products flood a mouse’s body with fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin D. A person or pet who ingests this substance accidentally can be treated.

Finally, there is a line of anti-coagulant products that are used to kill mice. These take longer than the other options, death occurring after a number of days. This type of product also presents a health risk to humans and pets.

Feline

Finally, a cat is another way in which you can kill mice. Some cats are enthusiastic mousers and will stalk and kill mice in a house, business, other building, and around the property. The issue is ensuring that you get a cat that is a mouser. The idea that all felines will stalk mice is a misconception.

In this day and age, many cats are born to indoor felines, mothers who have no experience out of doors and never stalked mice. While there is a level of instinct when it comes to cats seeking food by stalking and hunting, kittens nonetheless need to be taught the process. A mother cat who never hunted mice will not teach her kittens to do so.

If you want to eliminate a mouse issue at your home or business, you will want to consider a cat that was born to a mouser. A prime example of this type of mouse is a barn or farm cat.

As an aside, one cat is probably not going to be sufficient to effectively eliminate a mouse infestation. You will need to consider seriously obtaining more than one mouser to accomplish this objective.