Effective Ways to Get Rid of Mice In Your Garden And Home
If you have been gardening for any length of time you will have come across field or house mice. Possiblely one of the quietest creatures in the garden they can be devastating to your gardening ambitions eating your favourite plants and seeds.
You are never going to completely remove the problem of mice in your garden especially if you live in a rural location but here as a few ideas to help insure you do not get over run with a mouse problem in your house and garden.
- Keep a tidy garden. Unkempt gardens are good for wildlife and as mice are definitely wildlife an unkempt or untidy garden will encourage mice as well as other wildlife. So you have a strike a balance, maybe keeping the part of your garden for wildlife away from your house and greenhouse.
- Feeding your garden birds. It’s a popular pastime feeding your garden birds but be careful the clear up all the seed that drops from your bird feeders as this seed if left will encourage both field and house mice.
- Compost heaps. Install a fine wire mesh netting around you compost heap to prevent rodents such as house and field mice from entering the heap and making it a home.
- 4. Sowing seeds. Field mice love freshly germinating seed especially the more expensive seeds so if you are germinating seeds in your glasshouse make sure the seed trays are protected with clear lids or netting.
If you have a problem with a mouse or mice control can be quite difficult. The 3 main methods the GardenAdvice team use to control mice in the garden or house are.
- Traps – simple mouse traps are the quickest and most effective method of controlling both field and house mice.
- Poisons – The GardenAdvice team have found poisons are not as effective as traps and have the added risk with wildlife such as hedgehogs and family pets such as cats eating the poison
- Baits – After traps our favourite method. We create our own baits using sweet corn and thick molasse sugar mixed together and placed in a clay plant pot set on its side. Field mice, house mice and rats have a hard time digesting sweet corn and will die from serious indigestion after eating this bat. The benefit being that its harmless to most other family pets and wildlife plus your children.
If you you find yourself with a mouse problem in your house or garden it’s always worth doing a bit more research to keep you up to date with the latest control methods.
Source