Advanced search

Answers


Do mice like cheese?

When I kept pet mice and offered them cheese they wouldn't touch it but I read an article about mice plagues and what to bait traps with and one of their suggestions was smelly cheese.

sssss
 (no votes)

submit an answer
  • Asked by marnie
  • on 2010-10-29 00:16:53
  • Member status
  • none

Categories: Animals.

Tags: cheese, mice.

 

Report abuse


5 answer(s)


Reply

petethebloke says:

It's ok for baiting traps because it sticks a bit and the mouse has to work at it to remove it, but it's not a food they seek out. Unbaited traps work too, simply because the mouse pokes around and sniffs about and sets it off. Peanut butter is better bait, apparently. If I've ever had to set traps I've pinned a sunflower seed onto them because they really have to pull it to get it off.

A friend of mine is a virologist and had to catch a lot of (live) rats for his work. Clever blighters that they are, they stopped coming to the traps until he started using chocolate. The trick is to get them addicted to it first and then use it as bait. They can't resist once they are familiar with it.

sssss
 (2 votes) average rating:5

Tags: cheese, mice.

top

posted on 2010-10-29 09:07:24 | Report abuse


Reply

MikeAdams#367 says:

Pete is right about peanut butter: it is our bait of choice. They have to exert pressure trying to lick it off. I can also attest to the addictive nature of chocolate, though luckily no one seems to be trying to trap me with it. Going back to the cheese: it may depend a lot on the type of cheese: American processed may fail to give off the same delectable odors as a others. SAgain, I would go with  a softer cheese since it harder to simply grab and run before triggering the trap.

sssss
 (no votes)

Tags: cheese, mice.

top

posted on 2010-10-29 18:40:45 | Report abuse


Reply

ecstatist says:

Yep! Mice are primarily seed eating rodents (=gnawers). Being small and energetic, they require fast high energy food (not cellulose)  They are, (given the choice) vegetarian and would not normally seek animal fats and protein (cheese)

Remember! the second mouse gets the cheese while the early worm gets eaten.

sssss
 (no votes)

Tags: cheese, mice.

top

posted on 2010-10-29 18:43:29 | Report abuse

Reply

Jon-Richfield says:

Sorry Ec, but there I must take issue.

It is true that among the many kinds of mice around the world some really are specialist eaters of seeds or bulbs, but typically even such are only too happy for the occasional fat-and-protein-rich treat if it comes their way, as many a grasshopper or mealworm has found out the hard way. There is nothing unusual about this; most animals will relish an exotic food that presents the right gustatory and olfactory (and often visual) stimuli.

Just for example, where do you suppose our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have acquired their taste for say, bacon or chocolate? 

Also, many mice are carnivores for choice, their main diets being invertebrates or lizards, though I do not offhand know of any actual specialists. I suspect that most or all of them would happily benefit from the occasional vegetable treat of fruit or nuts, say.

More to the point, the mice in question in this discussion probably are house mice, and house mice are notoriously omnivorous. I guarantee that a sufficiently hungry house mouse would gorge on cheese of any kind, given the chance and no choice of diet. I furthermore guarantee that some cheeses would attract any house mouse, though I have no idea what was proffered in this example.

Just for one live anecdote concerning murine carnivory, a student friend of mine had a cage of domestic mice, and any time he caught one of our local large garden grasshoppers, which have huge, spiky, painfully kicking hind legs, he would release it into their cage. He had to be quick; the mice went mad; some of them would be kicked right across the cage, but bounced right back, and no grasshopper survived for more than a minute or so. Conversely, I have seen naive mice screw up their eyes and retreat hastily at the mere smell of a far smaller, more inoffensive grasshopper if their first experience of such a delicacy had been a kick on an investigative nose.

sssss
 (no votes)

Tags: cheese, mice.

top

posted on 2010-10-30 14:58:47 | Report abuse


Reply

translatrix says:

My parents had a problem with too many mice in the greenhouse of our garden. With cheese they didn't catch anything. With bacon they caught mice but also shrew mice, which was a pity. With pumpkin seeds they caught only mice. Though I think pumpkin seeds are way too expensive to use them for that, but peanut butter is not as cheap as in America, either.

sssss
 (no votes)

Tags: cheese, mice.

top

posted on 2010-11-01 07:27:33 | Report abuse


The last word is ...

the place where you ask questions about everyday science

Answer questions, vote for best answers, send your videos and audio questions, save favourite questions and answers, share with friends...

register now


ADVERTISMENT