When researching homesteading ideas, it is important to be familiar with the best mouse traps for the homestead.
This is true no matter what stage you are at in your homesteading journey.
Mice and homesteads go hand in hand. Where there are animals, animal feed, and a plethora of garden space, there are sure to be mice.
So how do you stay on top of these pesky rodents? What is the best mouse trap for the homestead?
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Catching Mice On The Homestead
I have been enjoying some level of homesteading for most of my married life. That means for more than 15 years I have been trying to keep mice from entering my home and destroying all my food (or the food of my livestock).
Unfortunately, the homesteading journey is very attractive to our rodent friends. Who doesn’t want a nice warm home filled with hidable plant matter and all the free food you can eat?
Over the years, I have tried many styles of mouse traps. Some have worked decently well, some were a complete dud, and some were absolutely amazing.
Today I’m going to share my mouse trap experience with you. With this expert knowledge, you too will be able to stay on top of mice on your homestead once and for all!
Why Do Mice Like Homesteads?
Mice are naturally drawn to homesteads. There are a number of different factors that contribute to why mice seem to prefer homesteads over other types of environments.
For one, livestock and their associated bedding supplies provide a ready source of food for mice. This means that all those yummy bits of feed (including but not limited to chicken feed) and livestock waste become easy pickings for hungry mice, who can simply scurry out from their hiding spots or burrows and chow down at their leisure.
Additionally, homesteads often tend to have a lot of structures and materials that make excellent areas for mice to nest and build their homes.
Bits of wood, fabrics, paper, and even trash piles can be perfect hiding spots for these small critters. And naturally, all this bedding material is also ideal for building cozy little nests where mice can feel safe and protected.
Overall, it’s no wonder homesteaders often have a mouse problem! These tiny creatures find homesteads such an attractive place to live!
The good news is, some homestead animals, such as chickens, will hunt down and chase mice. (Mice are like cracked corn for chickens)
But you’ll still want some mouse traps to help in areas your chickens can’t get to.
Why Don’t We Want Mice On Our Homestead?
Mice are a common nuisance on livestock farms and homesteads, but they present a number of serious problems for farmers and hobbyists alike.
For one thing, mice can spread disease to livestock through their bedding or food supply. Additionally, they can contaminate livestock feed with their droppings, leading to potential health issues down the road.
Furthermore, they are often very destructive, chewing through wood and plastic structures in search of food or shelter. And of course there is the fact that no homesteader wants to spend their hard-earned dollars on feed that the mice are just going to eat. We want all that feed to go to our livestock or to ourselves!
Given these issues, it is clear that we don’t want mice on our homestead. To protect our livestock and prevent unwanted damage to our property, we need to take steps to keep these pests out of our barns and sheds.
Proper livestock bedding and food storage practices can go a long way towards discouraging mice from setting up shop on our homestead. Additionally, traps are an effective way of catching any existing mice so that they can be relocated elsewhere.
Now you could opt to poison your rodents. Unfortunately, poison leads to a bunch of other issues such as mice dying inside walls or pets and livestock getting into the poisons. Finding a better mousetrap is usually the best option for those in our situation.
Overall, with careful planning and diligent effort, we can rest assured that our livestock will be safe from pesky rodents like the mouse! While it’s best to try and prevent mice as much as you can, you are going to see live mice at some point in time so it’s best to be prepared.
The Best Mouse Traps For The Homestead (These Mice Traps Work!)
We’ve experimented with a lot of different mouse traps in our day. Here are the ones that work the best (and why).
What Is The Best Mouse Trap? Top 5 Suggestions
In our experience, these are the top 5 mice traps on the market today.
Our Ranking - #5 - These traps came highly recommended to us by some family friends. However, we were not impressed and ended up throwing the whole box away after a couple of months.
How does it work - In theory, these are safe and humane mouse traps that are easy to set and good at catching and killing mice. You set the bat on the table, pull back the claw, and place the trap.
The mouse is supposed to come up and grab the bait, thus releasing the plastic claw. The claw is supposed to forcefully snap on the rodent's neck, instantly killing it with little to no danger to human or pet.
While we found they are definitely easy to set, they are absolutely NOT good at catching mice.
The number of mice we fed free peanut butter without actually catching any is absurd. I don't know if these guys ever actually killed anything.
They did, however, feed all the homestead mice a buffet of free peanut butter every night.
I do not recommend these mouse traps. They are easily outsmarted. The only good thing they offer is child and pet safety.
Our Ranking - #4 - These traps ranked #4 because they are pretty effective but also super gross and not very humane.
They are also not reusable. But we were still pretty happy with these traps overall.
How does it work - These glue traps seem simple enough. You lay the trap where you know mice walk. They run across and get stuck to the bottom. They can't get off and you can then dispose of them as you will.
These traps are not very humane. The mice must lay there and slowly starve unless you step in and intervene (which is no fun for anyone). They are also a hazard if you have kids or pets.
You would not believe the number of socks or brooms we got stuck in our glue traps! But if you have an area that doesn't get disturbed, these traps are a pretty good option.
Keep in mind, these traps are not 100% consistent. While we caught dozens of mice with these glue traps, we also had many mice get stuck and then get unstuck by sheer willpower and strength before we could get to them.
Our Ranking - #3 - Another glue trap that we used for many years.
These mouse traps are similar to the glue traps ranked #4 except these ones can fold up into little boxes/cubes.
How does it work - This glue trap is fairly straightforward. You place the sticky platform in an area where mouse like to run (such as behind cupboards or on pantry and closet floors. Alternatively, you can fold the trap into a cube.
Folding without getting your finger stuck is somewhat difficult but worth it if you want to place your trap in an area where kids and brooms frequent. The cube shape helps to cut down on captured socks, brooms, and mops.
Unfortunately, these sticky traps still leave your mouse to die a long and painful death. Plus they are less sticky when they are in the cube shape so you lose more mice than is ideal.
Our Ranking - #2 - These were our favorite mouse traps for a long time. When they snap, they are very good at killing so there was never a need to dispatch a half-dead mouse.
Unfortunately, these guys are difficult (and very scary) to set. Additionally, our mice are getting smarter and are figuring out how to eat the peanut butter and other baits off of the trap without actually setting it off.
(We've got some light-footed mice around our homestead.)
How does it work - These wooden snap traps work with a spring-loaded lever. You bait the trap, pull back the bar, and (very carefully) set the lever. Then you place the trap where your mice like to scavenge and wait.
Theoretically, the lever will snap and kill the mice when they come to get the bait. When they work, they work really really well! They just don't always work.
Our Ranking - #1 - This is the best mouse trap on the list, bar none.
This mouse trap overcomes the issues that all previous mouse traps faced. It solves the problem of the light-footed mouse and can easily trap even the smartest and sneakiest of mice.
How does it work - This mouse trap comes with a small compartment where you hide your bait. We spread peanut butter on cheese and bratwurst for an exceptionally tempting smell. It's a great bait!
Hide the bait in the compartment, lift the bar, and set the trap.
In order to get the bari, the mice must physically life the compartment's trap door. As they lift the flap, the bar snaps and the mouse is instantly killed. (Who doesn't love the quick kill method?)
This is a very humane trap that is child-friendly and skittish housewife friendly.
It's even reusable! All you have to do is release the bar to dump the mouse, then reset and leave it do its thing!
Seriously - it doesn't get any better than this.
More Helpful Homesteading Tips And Tricks
Liked this article and need more tips and tricks? Add these ideas to your homestead!
- Homemade Fly Spray For Keeping Your Chicken Coop Pest-Free
- Keeping Chickens Out Of The Dog Food
- Uses For Colloidal Silver For Sheep
More Options For Catching Mice
In addition to the mouse traps listed above, you can also implement some of these mouse trapping options:
- Free range chickens – our free range birds LOVE chasing and eating mice. They do a good job of keeping the mice under control (plus it’s free protein!)
- Dogs – our dogs are actually pretty good at catching mice. Our LGD even catches mice and brings them to his chickens so he can watch them chase. It’s pretty funny!
- Cats – we have some pretty severe cat allergies but we know other homesteads have success with barnyard cats.
- Homemade traps – YouTube is filled with instructions for homemade mouse traps that seem like they would work. (For example – many use the rolling log or the water-filled bucket methods.) We’ve never tried them but probably will one of these days.
What’s your favorite mouse trap?
Do you have any tips or tricks for keeping mice off your homestead? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Charlene has been dabbling in and learning about the homesteading lifestyle for almost 20 years. She recently started a real-world homestead with her extended family and is excited to share 20+ years of knowledge and experience with the world!
While she certainly doesn't know everything about homesteading and is learning more every day, she is excited to learn and grow along with YOU!
Charlene blogs about about homesteading at https://secretlifeofhomesteaders.com/.