Need advice, rodent in the house

[DRB]

I saw what I believe to be a mouse in my house Wednesday. Perjo was out of her cage and took flight and was acting odd, I’m certain she saw it and I suspect she’s seen it before as I’m going with the notion this thing has been here for more than a day.
First question should I worry about the mouse getting into the giant palace cage I have Perjo in?
I’m aware of how dirty rodents are.
I have various traps set and on night number one glue trap has disappeared but I can’t find it or the mouse.
Any advice on how to keep Perjo safe and sane while I try to catch this mystery mouse?

 

[ravvlet]

Please don’t use glue traps! They’re incredibly inhumane, and extremely dangerous if your bird gets near them! Poison is also very dangerous to wildlife if they eat the deceased mouse. If you must use kill traps, snap traps are more effective (it’s difficult for them to drag the trap around even if they’re alive), but all kill traps are hazardous to curious birds. I’d set live traps and then you can decide if you want to dispatch the mouse once you have caught it - then it’s not at all hazardous to your feathered friends.

Mice will absolutely go into your bird’s cage to eat anything left on the grate. I would bet they can climb the sides too.

 

[DRB]

Please don’t use glue traps! They’re incredibly inhumane, and extremely dangerous if your bird gets near them! Poison is also very dangerous to wildlife if they eat the deceased mouse. If you must use kill traps, snap traps are more effective (it’s difficult for them to drag the trap around even if they’re alive), but all kill traps are hazardous to curious birds. I’d set live traps and then you can decide if you want to dispatch the mouse once you have caught it - then it’s not at all hazardous to your feathered friends.

Mice will absolutely go into your bird’s cage to eat anything left on the grate. I would bet they can climb the sides too.

Perjo will not be set free unless with me so she’ll be safe from all traps.
My first concern is my parrot and then me, so I’m not worry about the rodent and the humanity of how it ends it’s time in my home. But thank you for the tips.
Perjo gonna have extra clean cage until this resolves itself.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I saw what I believe to be a mouse in my house Wednesday. Perjo was out of her cage and took flight and was acting odd, I’m certain she saw it and I suspect she’s seen it before as I’m going with the notion this thing has been here for more than a day.
First question should I worry about the mouse getting into the giant palace cage I have Perjo in?
I’m aware of how dirty rodents are.
I have various traps set and on night number one glue trap has disappeared but I can’t find it or the mouse.
Any advice on how to keep Perjo safe and sane while I try to catch this mystery mouse?

Yes! It will get into the cage at night to eat the food and scare the bird. A rodent got into my budgie's cage many years ago and Buddy had a horrible flapping fright during which he badly fractured a wing. Despite excellent vet care it healed but Buddy was never able to fly again. The wing healed fused.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Yes! It will get into the cage at night to eat the food and scare the bird. A rodent got into my budgie's cage many years ago and Buddy had a horrible flapping fright during which he badly fractured a wing. Despite excellent vet care it healed but Buddy was never able to fly again. The wing healed fused.

Please don't use glue traps. They are barbaric. The poor critter suffers so much and will even chew a limb off trying to escape. Snap traps are much better.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Please don't use glue traps. They are barbaric. The poor critter suffers so much and will even chew a limb off trying to escape. Snap traps are much better.

Make sure you only set traps at night when your bird is caged. Rodents are active at night.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Please don’t use glue traps! They’re incredibly inhumane, and extremely dangerous if your bird gets near them! Poison is also very dangerous to wildlife if they eat the deceased mouse. If you must use kill traps, snap traps are more effective (it’s difficult for them to drag the trap around even if they’re alive), but all kill traps are hazardous to curious birds. I’d set live traps and then you can decide if you want to dispatch the mouse once you have caught it - then it’s not at all hazardous to your feathered friends.

Mice will absolutely go into your bird’s cage to eat anything left on the grate. I would bet they can climb the sides too.

Also- you probably don't have "a rodent ". Rodents live in groups so where there's one there are surely more. Once you trap one, keep setting the traps at night for a few weeks until you don't see any more evidence of them. Set traps near the food source for best results. They run along walls so put traps along walls not out in the open.

 

[ravvlet]

With a glue trap it’s completely possible for the mouse to only get one limb caught and then climb onto furniture, your parrot’s cage, etc, and get the glue trap stuck there! They are seriously the worst. Even if you don’t care about the mouse (and you should - they carry diseases and are a pest, but as humans it’s our job to deal with these issues ethically), the hazard to everything else in your home is extremely high.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Also- you probably don't have "a rodent ". Rodents live in groups so where there's one there are surely more. Once you trap one, keep setting the traps at night for a few weeks until you don't see any more evidence of them. Set traps near the food source for best results. They run along walls so put traps along walls not out in the open.

As you can probably tell I've been through a rodent infestation before and I was living in a beautiful clean home in Malibu! Goes to show you that rodents are equal opportunity pests! At first I did catch and release but after catching a half dozen, I got fed up and started using kill snap traps. They were rats ranging in size from six inches to 10 inches not including their tails. Pretty gross.

 

[saxguy64]

As you can probably tell I've been through a rodent infestation before and I was living in a beautiful clean home in Malibu! Goes to show you that rodents are equal opportunity pests! At first I did catch and release but after catching a half dozen, I got fed up and started using kill snap traps. They were rats ranging in size from six inches to 10 inches not including their tails. Pretty gross.

Yuck! We had rats frequenting under and on our porch last winter. Finally figured out why when I did spring cleaning out there. One of the kids had left a bag of chicken feed out there and covered it over with miscellaneous stuff, so I had no idea it was there. The rats, however, were thriving on it until I found it and got the remains of it out of there. No food source, no more rats. I did have to dispatch some of the determined ones. I used multiple snap traps in a large box with holes big enough for them to get in, but too small for my dogs to get their noses in and get hurt.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

As you can probably tell I've been through a rodent infestation before and I was living in a beautiful clean home in Malibu! Goes to show you that rodents are equal opportunity pests! At first I did catch and release but after catching a half dozen, I got fed up and started using kill snap traps. They were rats ranging in size from six inches to 10 inches not including their tails. Pretty gross.

The rats were living under the house in the walk in "crawl space" and were coming inside at night any way they could. It got so bad that I finally put poison in the house under the kitchen sink, etc. I know. Lots of reasons not to do that but the poison I used is not really poison. It's called Rat-x or Mouse-x and it's just corn gluten which causes fatal digestive upsets without poisoning the critter's body in case something eats the body. Anyway, they all died but they died in the walls of our house! The smell was pretty epic so I called an exterminator for advice about getting rid of the bodies and smell. They said nothing they could do and I just had to wait out the "rot cycle" for a couple weeks! Sure enough, in a couple weeks the smell was gone BUT my house filled up with those big blackish green flies that came from the fly larvae that consumed the bodies! Yikes! Out comes a shop vac to vacuum up the live but sluggish flies hanging out on the large glass windows. Finally, no more rats, smell, or flies. Two months later our house burned in a wildfire that consumed 300 homes in Malibu in less than 24 hours. Rebuilt the house two years later and guess what? The local rats moved back in!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Yuck! We had rats frequenting under and on our porch last winter. Finally figured out why when I did spring cleaning out there. One of the kids had left a bag of chicken feed out there and covered it over with miscellaneous stuff, so I had no idea it was there. The rats, however, were thriving on it until I found it and got the remains of it out of there. No food source, no more rats. I did have to dispatch some of the determined ones. I used multiple snap traps in a large box with holes big enough for them to get in, but too small for my dogs to get their noses in and get hurt.

Very clever idea! I'll remember that one.

 

[ImaParrot]

I saw what I believe to be a mouse in my house Wednesday. Perjo was out of her cage and took flight and was acting odd, I’m certain she saw it and I suspect she’s seen it before as I’m going with the notion this thing has been here for more than a day.
First question should I worry about the mouse getting into the giant palace cage I have Perjo in?
I’m aware of how dirty rodents are.
I have various traps set and on night number one glue trap has disappeared but I can’t find it or the mouse.
Any advice on how to keep Perjo safe and sane while I try to catch this mystery mouse?

I hate mice. I know someone whose cat caught a mouse and then brought it into the house while it was still alive. As soon as the cat set the mouse down, it scampered away. All the boys in the house started trying to catch the mouse and it was a whole commotion. Then, my friend walks into the room and the mouse runs towards her. She jumps up and then CRUNCH. She lands barefooted on the mouse, and it dies.
That's the kind of stuff nightmares are made of. Good luck!
(My mom has found the electric traps very effective, but I doubt they're bird safe.)

 

[DRB]

I appreciate all the replies but I don’t care about the life of the rodent. Catching it or killing it is the goal. All in the name of protecting my baby and keeping my home as sanitary as possible.

 

[DRB]

The mouse is dead.
Snap trap got it. When I found it the mouse was still breathing. Giant lug ratchet put and end to that. Amazing how far they’ll get from where the trap was laid.
Perjo will rest easier tonight.
Leaving two traps out for a couple weeks as a precaution.

 

[aussie_wings]

Disinfect the area where it's been. Unfortunately, we've been dealing with a rat nightmare here. Of course, when we bought the house, no one mentioned this issue. The final boss rat has yet to be caught. We just used the Victor kill traps, making sure ALL the animals are in their cages before deploying them, and collecting the trap in the morning and hiding it in a closet the pets cannot access in the morning before we let them out. Again, also disinfecting the kitchen floor in the morning.
That final boss rat... I HEARD the trap go off one early morning, then about 10 minutes later, I heard it MOVE... Came out after waking up and the thing escaped death.
One evening (wasn't even night yet) Junior was sitting on Starlight's cage, and then I saw the putrid rodent CLIMB INTO HIS CAGE while he was away from it and was absolutely MORTIFIED. We immediately took everything out and disinfected his items in dish soap and hot water and cleaned the whole cage out, disinfecting from top to bottom. If the cage stays open, it is possible for these things to get in. They climb, and they climb well, so always keep your cages shut and secured as much as you can, especially around early morning, evening, and night.
Hoping to catch this menace soon.