What is the best bait for mouse traps? If you are asking this question, rodents have moved into your home or business. Almost 15 Million homes in the USA have reported seeing rodents in their homes in the last year. Nobody likes to live with mice. They are filthy creatures that can spread disease, and they are highly destructive. Keep reading to get concise, effective info to tackle this problem right away – or else your next google search will be “Help! I have an infestation”.
Getting Rid of Mice in Your Home or Business
Many people rely on mouse traps to remove unwanted mice from their homes. These may include snap traps or live traps. Both types of traps require a bait, which lures in the mouse and then traps them. That brings us to a question we hear a lot: “What is the best bait for mouse traps?”
How we answer that question depends on a few factors. One of those is how hungry the mouse is. Leaving cover to forage for food is dangerous for mice. In the wild, it leaves them open to predation from creatures like owls. In a home, pets such as cats are also a danger.
Hunger makes mice more willing to risk death as they hunt for food or water. That is important information because it brings us to why bait for mouse traps sometimes fails to attract mice. The problem may not be the bait, but the risk of getting caught.
Make sure to place mouse traps in areas where the risk to the mouse makes it worth the adventure of going after the bait.
What Is the Best Bait for Mouse Traps?
There is some confusion around this topic. For instance, if you were to search Amazon for “Mouse Bait” you would see a list of products that are actually poison scented like food. Those “baits” are for a different method of ridding a mouse from your house. Luckily for you, mice have keen noses and they can smell food from a great distance. When you eliminate the risk of getting caught, many foods will work as bait. One of the most popular foods for your mouse trap is peanut butter.
The rich, nutty smell will pull mice into the trap where the trap can do its job. Here’s a detailed list of foods that work as baits for mouse traps.
1️⃣ Peanut Butter
Does not matter about the brand or the style so long as it has a rich, nutty smell. If you can smell the yummy scent of the peanut butter the mice will have little problem finding the trap.
2️⃣ Jerky and Meat
Mice are not overly picky about food. While they are depicted as lovers of cheese, they are more opportunistic when it comes to food. The faster they can find food and get back to their nest the less danger they face. Meat, such as jerky, salami, luncheon meats, etc., are excellent bait foods to attract mice to a trap.
3️⃣ Nuts and Seeds
In the wild, mice are omnivores. They are also keen on storing foods which means they follow the plant cycle. In the early spring, they rely on their stash of food and grains to keep them fed. They may supplement that with fresh green leaves, flower buds, and flowers. As the summer progresses, they turn to the bountiful abundance of seeds. As the flowers die, they produce seeds, and many pests including mice and insects, emerge to feed on the bounty of seeds. It makes a lot of sense that using nuts and seeds in a mouse trap as bait is a good idea – It is. The keen noses of mice will seek out grains, nuts, and seeds.
4️⃣ Candy
It might seem a bit odd, but consider that fruity smell of gumdrops or Mike & Ikes, and you may begin to understand why certain candies will work well to attract mice. Fruity smells work best, and you can find those in gumdrops and other fruity candy.
5️⃣ Pet Foods
You may notice how stinky wet pet food can be. The wafting aroma of tuna or other “flavors” works incredibly well to attract mice to a trap. Dry food will also work, especially if you can smell it. The noses of mice are much more powerful at depicting odors. If you can smell they will too.
The biggest reason bait for mouse traps fail to attract mice is not because of the bait, but because of the risk associated with getting the bait. If you are having a hard time catching mice in your traps, consider moving the trap to a quieter or sheltered location. Inside a cupboard, in a pantry, or behind an appliance are all spots that work well.
Give these baits a try in combination with a safer and quieter location and see how many mice you trap. The most important piece of advice you can take away from this article is to take action. Don’t delay and don’t give up! If you can’t find any of our suggested baits in your pantry right now, here is a short list of crazy baits that have worked for our other readers: Cheetos, Snickers, butter, anchovies, herring heads.
Here is an Amazon link to the mouse traps that I use personally… yes, they guy with a pest control website has pests!!!
PRO TIP: The springs in the Tomcat Mouse Snap traps tend to get “over sensitive” if they have been stored in the closed position for a long time – If you have trouble keeping the trap open right out of the package, try bending the spring sideways with your finger a few times.
This image shows accurate placement of the mousetrap in a protected location.
