I have tried the 5 gallon bucket traps(have 3 of them) but honestly I don't have much luck with them, , IMO< the main reason is, there too tall, , even adding strong smelling scents to things, I don;t get many that will climb the long ramps to get to things,( I have also tried using shorter buckets, but still not as effective as other things for me)
and after a few days the bait scent dries up and or gets moldy on me here and stops attracting them for me! have yet to find a bait they will keep coming after , without having to rebait things every other day or so! which tends to be a hassle to me!
I have even tried gluing some corn, sunflower seeds to the top of the inside of the trap door, to keep them from eating yet hoping would still attract and last, but doesn;t seem to have the scent needed for them to know there up the top of the ramp, adding things to ramp will lure them up, but its a never ending game of re sallying things on the ramp, which again grows old IMO!
tips?, on the buckets deal, I found using used fry oil over water in summer time, helps keep smells down and works to attract things, in winter time I have used old radiator coolant, so it doesn;t freeze up on me!
I have tried many things, (poison bait works best for me, and they do make and sell some that is pet SAFE) I have tons of wildlife in my yard all the time, have yet to see a dead critter that ate a mouse that ate the poison, NOT saying it doesn't happen,
but most things that eat mice are much larger than the mice that ate the bait, and odds of them eating a enough mice to get enough poison to harm them IMO< is rather low and why its legally sold!,
Like I said, I am NOT saying it doesn;'t happen, I just have never had or seen it here! and been using bait for 20+ yrs here
a short story about bait though, HAHA!
ONCE, I had a raccoon eat a whole Tomcat Green color mouse bait block (maybe two) I had INSIDE the cab of a skid steer, had the door off one night
and the darn things apparently didn;t like it after eating the whole block
it apparently was looking for more of them in the cab a while, tore up and tore the seat all up?? had another bait block under seat it could reach , and had to replace seat from damages it did!)
it then had a reaction to the bait, they must have a HIGH body temp, as it MELTED the bait into a liquid ??
which it proceeded to throw up the green waxy material all over the inside of the cab, it threw up on the floor, all windows, even the the ceiling , and the controls , the entire cab basically was coated in places with the NOW HARD green bait!
which was a nightmare to remove as it was like melted wax, it would NOT come off with hot water or any chemical clearer I could find, had to be heated with a heat gun and scrapped off to remove it, took hours!
The coon, I gather the same one was back the next night as I have a camera system set up over things and seen the same looking coon again trying to get into the cab, climbing all over the machine, but door was now back on it!
apparently it wanted to try the bait a second time to confirm it was not good to eat!
SO< using bait has other flaws I gather, but it gets my vote still on the most effective way to maintain there numbers and not just deter them from getting into a machine or shop!
as if you have mice, they will just keep multiplying, unless you kill them some how!
