Farmers trade tips for building homemade mousetraps
Farmers battling the mouse plague wreaking havoc on regional properties have been forced to come up with creative ideas for making their own mousetraps.
Beef cattle farmer Glenn Daley took to the One Step Closer to Rain Facebook page this week to share his mouse trap invention.
The elaborate trap requires a chemical drum with the lip lopped off, an empty wine bottle, duct tape, a pair of old jeans and a slathering of peanut butter.
Glenn Daley said his invention was a modified version of what he used to catch mice as a 12 year old during the mice plague of 1984. Glenn Daley
Once assembled, the mice are encouraged to scamper up the jean leg onto the slippery wine bottle as they try get a taste of the peanut butter.
Mr Daley told nine.com.au his trap was a modification of a device he made as a 12-year-old when the 1984 mouse plague swept through Cowra in central west NSW.
"The only thing that I changed was adding the hole in the side and putting the bottle through the bucket," he said.
"Normally you will see the designs with bottles hanging over buckets.
"Everyone tries to make the best mouse trap during a plague."
While Cowra had fortunately been less heavily-affected by the mouse plague than towns further north and west, there were still plenty of mice to be found, Mr Daley said.
Bec Allen said this trap helped her catch 400 mice in five nights. Bec Allen
"Over at mum's place, where they were quite bad, we were catching up to 40 mice in one trap overnight," he said.
"The traps seem to work very well and you put them in the places where you know the mice run along or congregate."
Bec Allen, who has a small cattle property near Roma in south central Queensland, was also keen to share her success with a wine bottle trap.
"We've caught over 400 mice in the last five nights in a couple of similar traps," she said.
For other farmers, it all came down to the condiments used.
"I have found they also love Nutella, like prefer it over the peanut butter," one farmer wrote.
"Anything of a hazelnut spread too. Any mice in the last two years that have been caught are with it."
As well as physical traps, other farmers recommended using a deadly mix of icing sugar and cement powder.
Simple but effective, this trap managed to snare piles of rodents. Facebook
However, Mr Daley said he preferred his tried and tested peanut butter trap.
"Those sort of recipes with icing sugar pop up all the time," he said.
"You see people say that they are not that effective and all they see if white mouse poo."
It is estimated the mouse plague has cost NSW grain growers more than $1 billion in damage to winter crops, prompting the State Government to announce a $100 million support package for landowners.
Earlier this week, it was revealed hundreds of inmates at Wellington Correctional prison will need to be evacuated after mice chewed through ceilings and internal wiring.
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