Slight Mice Infestation in my Bird Room...

[senic]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, please excuse me if not.

Looking for some advice. One room in my house is dedicated to my birds and they seem to have a persisting mice infestation for the past six months or so.

We put out live traps in the room and sticky traps everywhere else in the house.
Even after catching 50 or so over the months they still seem to be multiplying at a rate faster than we can manage.

I vacuum and clean the birds cages every day. I don’t want to spring for poison and am very wary about sticky traps in the room since there have been accidents before. The food is kept in a sealed bin. But birds will be birds and there’s no 100% method of hiding all the food.

In past housing I’ve managed to keep the rodent population under control. This is the first time I’m beside myself.

Any suggestions??

 

[ChristaNL]

50+ mice is more than "slight" imho..
I would get a professional in (lol easy for me to say- I rent) but yes..it is difficult.
Mice will home in on anything edible, so I would not even be surprised it they've gotten into the cages if the barspacing would allow it.


You can go for the death-by-drowning traps in the birdroom (you know the old the bucket of water with a revolving dowel on top and peanutbutter smeared in the middle: mouse starts to walk towards it, loses balance and start swimming till exhausted it gives up... Not a nice or fast way to kill them/ neither are the sticky traps/ but they are toxine-free...)- just remove the buckets during the day...


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gve7VbsbgFU"]Best Mouse Trap Ever, How To Make Bucket Mouse Trap - YouTube[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIlYiiCGLI"]11 Mice In One Night. The Rolling Log Mouse Trap In Action. Best Mouse Trap Ever - YouTube[/ame]


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0wsMFvTQms"]Old Style German Mash-Pot Mousetrap - Catch Mice With Paper - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Laurasea]

At this level of infestation you yourself are at risk of several rodent born illnesses. It's difficult, I know from outdoor Avairy work. But you need to find how they are getting in the room, remove all places they are hiding and reproducing. I wouldn't use poison if you can help it, they will die in the walls and smell for a long time!!!

 

[noodles123]

Eliminate the food source and water supply. Vacuum multiple time daily. Remove food at night from cages and leave no seeds in catch tray. Remove clutter (hiding spots)
SERIOUSLY consider boarding your birds with someone 1-2 weeks while you move everything and clean +trap (+mask)--if you have a trustworthy person, it's not like you couldn't visit them, but you need them in a safe spot while you clean + they are often too messy to contain even with the best efforts...if in the SW USA, the Hantavirus is a serious issue (see link below):
https://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/index.html

I would pretend like I was moving and get everything outside---couches etc----disrupt their nests and clean up ALL stray crumbs, wash everything etc. DEEP DEEP DEEP CLEAN....organize your whole house and check for leaks under sinks (water=bad for you and good for them)---ANY PLASTIC BAGS WITH FOOD INSIDE SHOULD BE SEALED IN A HARD CONTAINER---THEY CAN AND DO CHEW THROUGH BAGS (a lovely lesson I learned...involving a once-full bag of "disappearing" quinoa, my parents 100+ year old farm-house basement and 24 hours...)..Yeah, that was terrifying...24 HOURS...never even saw a mouse, but there were apparently a million down there....If you use any chemicals while cleaning- be sure to air out WELL before bringing birds back in..like more than a day....

Avoid poisoning with things like D-con--- I attached an article about the dangers of rodent poison to birds of prey etc, but it also offers alternatives:

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2013/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer


Keep all traps and poisons well away from pets and small children (obviously). Snaps, sticky traps, poison etc are all hazards for absent-minded people and animals and general. If you use live traps, you have to drive the mice away from your house-----more than a mile....they can keep finding their way back in if you just release them outside.


POISON STORY-Against my (and their) wishes, my parents poisoned their basement (as it was my grandparents house before it was theirs and the poison was the only thing that my grandparents ever used with success due to open (dirt filled) crawl spaces). The quinoa thing pushed everyone over the edge lol. Over many years of sketchy (and ill-advised) poison usage, no mice died inside (as far as they knew) because they left to get water *side effect of poison* using the same route they entered--never smelled them. Nevertheless, it is bad for the environment...birds, cats, etc...and if the mice/birds/cats die and decompose, I assume the poison also goes into the ground/water (just a guess). The worst offenders are the "2nd generation" poisons that kill quickly....The older vitamin K disrupting varieties weren't AS BAD.

If you have points under cabinets or in the siding or foundation or crawl-space etc, you need to seal those up.

Rodents can start making all of you sick (birds included), chewing wires , causing fires, respiratory irritation, viruses, fecal contamination of surfaces etc....You need to deal with this ASAP....If you even "think" you might have an "infestation", you probably have a way worse problem than what you are actually seeing...and they multiply quickly, as you know.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Good ideas above.

As you're solving the bigger problem... to protect the birds...

I'd use Vaseline to grease the cage legs... mice probably won't traverse that. ORRR... put the cage legs/wheels/whatever in big bowls/pots of water .

Sorry for your hassle.

Good luck!

 

[sonja]

Please switch to snap traps instead of glue traps or drowning. Glue traps are incredibly cruel. Snap traps are fast and efficient and don't cause the mice prolonged suffering.

 

[EllenD]

Yeah, this is a HUGE problem in your entire house, not just in the bird room. The fact that they are congregating in the bird room makes it much more dangerous for your birds, but trust me when I say that you have mice breeding inside the walls of you house, that's why they are "replicating" faster than you can deal with them.

This is not at all a "slight" infestation (there is no such thing as a "slight" infestation anyway, it's either a few mice or an infestation). I can't even imagine catching 50 mice in my house, let alone have it going on for over 6 months. You and everyone in your home, including your birds, are at great risk for serious health issues. Wild rodents carry all kinds of diseases, not to mention parasites, bacteria, fungi, insects like fleas and ticks, etc. And you absolutely have mice feces all through the walls, under the floors, just everywhere in your house, and if you and everyone else, including the birds, continue to breath that in, you're all going to become seriously ill...

You have a very, very serious problem that can only be helped by a professional exterminator. I'm sorry, but putting out traps, sticky tape, etc. (which are not good for your birds either, please stop that ) or using chemicals that you can buy in the store (don't use chemicals, they will kill your birds) is pointless, as the mice are simply breeding in the walls of your house, and there's nothing that you're going to be able to do to stop it, other than hiring an extermination company and having them tent your entire house, and do what they do in this situation. You'll need to vacate your house as will your birds for a while, but honestly your birds shouldn't be there right now anyway, nor should you. Mice droppings can be extremely dangerous, you're all breathing that in all the time that you're in the house, and you're all going to eventually become horribly ill or worse if you don't do something about this now. And you need to do it now, as the longer you wait and mess around with traps, strips, sprays, etc. that are doing nothing at all, the more difficult it is going to be for them to solve the problem, and the more expensive it's going to be. I'm sorry you're going through this, it happens, but please, for your sake and the sake of your birds, get a professional extermination company in there now, and get your birds out of that house. You don't realize it because you can't see it, but you literally have hundreds of mice in your walls, flooring, etc.

 

[Laurasea]

Please you need to wear a mask when cleaning around any place mice have been. Gloves too. Mice can carry many deadly diseases, plague, hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis...ect these are global diseases I don't know where you are from, but it is terrible that the landlord isn't fixing this!!! You need to wear a mask when cleaning!

 

[LordTriggs]

yes have to say 50+ is crazy numbers. seeing 1 or 2 would be slight but this really does need a professional not just to do the initial routing of the mice but to also find where they are getting in and sealing it and of course to dispose of the bodies as their germs whilst alive are not good and there will certainly be dead ones out of sight releasing rotting body germs and bacteria into the air

 

[Sandy19]

You're going to have to get everything out of there including the birds and do a major, thorough cleaning. Set traps, eliminate any water or food they can get to and figure out where they're coming in at so you can fix it. My husband had a mice infestation at his warehouse and thats what he had to do. They were coming from the warehouse next door which is a vending machine company and the mice were coming in with all the boxes of potato chips and stuff. Most people probably dont stop to think when they get something out of a vending machine that there were hundreds of mice crawling all over it. They also urinate all over everything as well so all of your upholstery and carpets will need to be deep cleaned too.

 

[itzjbean]

You've gotten some great advice so far.

We have mice too...except my cats take care of them. But we only find one every couple months or so. The amount you're describing here is not a slight problem but a big one that seems to require professional help.

 

[Sandy19]

You can also by predator urine online. The professional pest control companies use it. Here is one brand that I found and it's safer than poison and will drive the mice away.

https://www.predatorpee.com/

 

[dhraiden]

Noodles and everyone else in the thread have given great advice.


I had mice in my house, I discovered on returning from a trip to Asia in the Fall of 2016. The birds were boarded with my folks, so I assume it was weather and warmth that attracted them. I could not be sure I had really gotten rid of them until a YEAR later. It really takes a lot of effort and energy to "think like a mouse" - and examine every crevice, crack, nook, cranny, and potential hidey-hole for signs of activity and leavings. Somehow, they got into the old house, and made a home for themselves throughout the downstairs living-room/kitchen area, and worse yet, our bedroom and BED.

There were bags of food that had been chewed into - needed to put those into sealed containers. There were times I heard rodents crawling into the trays of the birds' cages to get at the dropped crumbs of nutriberries and what not - had to change those CONSTANTLY (like every hour). Had to take out the trash and ensure not even a single small crumb, or a scrap of onion or garlic skin, or anything remotely edible was around. Constantly spraying and wiping down counters and kitchen floor with cleaner + ammonia (they don't like the smell, apparently).

On top of that, I set SO many traps. At first I tried the non-lethal kinds, that simply trap them...I caught ONE that way, and released him far, far away. Eventually I had to switch to lethal-snap ones, baited with peanut butter or rice, or a bit of food-pellets. I caught maybe about half a dozen that way. I even used fancy battery-powered electrical-zapping traps, which killed another two or three. Eventually through a combination of luck, effort and vigilance it caught what must've been the largest mouse which was the source of the smaller ones, I imagine. That was only last year around September or so.

It an exhausting thing - be prepared to become OCD about cleanliness, hygiene, and fretting over your Fids absolutely not helping at all (we joked they would fling crumbs everywhere so the mice would scurry around and entertain them).

Here are two other threads in the PFs on the matter (just re-reading my own posts there gives me anxiety, gah haha...)

• Mouse problems, please advice.
• Rats: any advice?http://www.parrotforums.com/647669-post10.html

 

[senic]

Thanks everyone for your help! "Slight" was definitely the wrong word. We've had an exterminator come through. We've had the house sealed by professionals too. Problem is it was sealed after mice had already gotten in. I'll try some of these suggestions and report back!

 

[ChristaNL]

Best of luck, mice are cute (sometimes) but an overkill... no fun!

 

[Scott]

Chiming in late, but my best advice for an infestation is to call in the experts! Find a reputable and diligent exterminator, and discuss your "red lines" if any regarding sticky traps, poison, etc. A good service will inspect every door, window, vent, etc for rodent accessibility from the outside. If not plugged, you'll be dealing with this forever. Once the house is sealed, you can work to eradicate the ones inside. Been there, done that.....

 

[EllenD]

Well if the exterminator/company you had come in didn't know how to handle the mice already being inside the house, then you didn't call the right company. Seriously, professional pest-control companies know exactly how to handle this situation that you have, and they certainly know how to handle the mice that are already in your walls, floors, crawlspaces, etc., and know how to properly seal your home and the right timeline for doing it in coordination with the treatment. You just need to find a different and more professional company, and you're going to have to just do it, pay for it, and then move on, because honestly, and I'm being as straight-forward as I can be with you, messing-around with traps, chemicals and other treatments, etc. is only allowing your problem to get worse and worse, literally by the day. Mice have a very short gestation-period, like 12-15 days, and they have large litters, and they just keep breeding and breeding and breeding. And in-turn, they keep pooping, and pooping, and pooping, and this is a hugely serious and very dangerous risk to you, your family, and definitely your birds. We just had someone else on here who had mice that were reaching in through the cage bars and not only biting/hurting their birds, but spreading bacteria and disease to them. And these are wild mice, and it only takes one of them having a lethal disease or infection for them all to have it, and for it to make everyone in your home extremely ill. I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't happened yet based on the severe infestation that you have. And the last thing you want is a bunch of dead mice in the walls of your house, because the smell never goes away, and it's "decomp" smell, which is the worst smell in the world.

So please, for the sake of you, your family, and all of your pets, please contact another profession pest-control company and have them come out to your house to do a complete survey and give you a plan and a free estimate of what it will cost, because the longer you wait and try out different traps, glues, chemicals, treatments, etc., the more and more mice are being born inside of your walls, your floor, your roofing, etc.

 

[ChristaNL]

ehm,decomp-wise speaking .... can't you just sent some cadaver-eating beetles after them (not all mammal-killling-toxins affect insects as well) or flies? At least it will get rid of the smell (and leave you with a lovely flie-explosion in the house, but at least that one wil be temporary)

 

[EllenD]

ehm,decomp-wise speaking .... can't you just sent some cadaver-eating beetles after them (not all mammal-killling-toxins affect insects as well) or flies? At least it will get rid of the smell (and leave you with a lovely flie-explosion in the house, but at least that one wil be temporary)

Christa, I just responded to that other post about the spiders, so if you read it you'll see my feelings on insects...I'd rather have a thousand decomposing mice in the walls of my house than one "cadaver-eating beetle"...No joke.

 

[ChristaNL]

Whoops, sorry... I am very scent-sensitive so I though it might be a solution to that problem...