Does anyone have any idea how to freshen glue traps?

I have some glue traps that are pretty much fresh out of the box, but the glue is dry enough that the mice are having little problem working their way free.

In the past week, I caught four mice with old traps that worked fine, but then had to get some new traps to replace them. Since then, I've only caught one mouse that didn't get free. In that same time, about five or six mice (or the same mouse five or six times) managed to get free.

Any suggestions?

Searching the web, I found one site that says you can make your own glue by mixing together a quart of water and a quart of corn syrup and bringing it to a boil.

Does this mean that a pecan pie would make a good glue trap?

is there a reason for not using the old fashion spring loaded traps? They've worked well for me in the past.

I do best with them when they are at choke points the mice have to pass through. The spring loaded traps only work if the mouse goes after the bait.

Put new ones out but keep the old ones out as well.

Even the old ones will grab scorpions and spiders and such.

The ones I've had sitting around for a while worked well. I never saw any sign of a mouse escaping from any of them. The last of them got used last Sunday morning.

It's the new ones that I'm having trouble with. And those are from two different places. Some came from a WalMart and the rest from the local hardware store. The old ones came from the same local hardware store.

With the previous ones, if I accidentally stuck my finger into them, it would take some fairly good scrubbing to get the glue off. I accidentally stuck my finger into one freshly opened that was just bought and all it did was feel a bit sticky. If any glue got stuck to my fingers, I couldn't find it.

[This message has been edited by eric76 (edited 8/28/2010 5:03p).]

FYI, If you do have a mouse on a trap and instead of shooting it, or clubbing it or a more humane death, just don't set it on fire.
The glue will loosen and the said mouse now on fire will streak across your yard during a burn ban and set your backyard on fire. I know from experiance... it looked similar to this until it spread.

quote:

---

So TSA agent tells me my CHL is no good for an ID "here or anywhere else". Besides being a pompous ass, that policy is dumb. Any dbag with a pulse can get a DL.

---

Bait + trap in one! WIN!

A&M used glue traps when I worked out at Riverside Campus. It was the worst idea ever. Most of the time, we'd find little mouse feet and/or parts of their tail that they gnawed off to escape.

Before the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication effort my crop counsultant had me try a trapping method that he heard was popular in the Southeast. We bought a 5 gallon bucket of the same glue that is on sticky mouse traps. 5 Freakin' Gallons. Then we smeared it on 2'x 2' plywood squares with a phermone bait in the middle. It did catch a bunch of weevil but what I remember most was what a sticky mess the whole ordeal was. After a month or so they became coated in dirt and dust and wouldn't stick anymore. 5 Gal!

I use the "rat sized" glue traps with good luck...I normally will put a peanut in the middle of that glue trap...works like a champ. Worst part is using needle nosed pliers to extract the prisoner !

Several years back I put four glue traps in the kitchen. I forgot to tell my wife (actually she had already gone to sleep). Needless to say she stepped on one when she went in to turn on the coffee pot for me. It was dayum funny to watch.

For the cost, why not buy another pack?

Like toilet paper, it is one item that is not worth recycling.

I used them for the first time in the garage a few months ago and didn't catch anything but I did step on one and it was hell getting it off the sole of my Reebok.

I put another one down with a dab of peanut butter in the middle and it worked great.

Just caught two more mice in the glue traps.

I was walking back from the restroom and saw them in the kitchen on the floor in front of the stove. I put out some glue traps and went back in the hall in the dark and waited. After a few minutes the two mice were back out in front of the stove.

After a couple of minutes, I heard some rattling. I went in and found one of the mice in an old glue trap but only by one foot and his tail. He probably could have gotten lose. The other mouse was in another old trap by the kitchen door. He was really stuck and wasn't going anywhere.

Maybe what I need is a sound detector that flashes the lights to get my attention so I can find them before they get loose.

By the way, someone suggested putting a corn chip in the middle of the traps. I tried that, but didn't catch anything in those traps. i almost caught a dog, but he managed to get the fritos out without getting stuck. These latest glue traps don't seem to be real sticky.

I had big fun with sticky traps at my run-down rent house in college.

I would find the mouse alive and well but stuck. Being a broke college kid, I needed to use the sticky as many times as possible.

So, pick up trap with mouse, thump mouse in head (stuns them,) peel mouse off of trap, put mouse in old metal coffee can with lid, shake can vigorously to "euthanize" mouse, dump mouse in field away from house.

I got to use the sticky traps for at least three mice. Usually one unlucky mouse would be stuck so well that when I removed him after the thump, one of his legs would remain on the trap. That's when they would get thrown away.

Cody
Fightin' Texas Aggie c/o '04