so
so welcome today we're going to talk about trapping mice is october mice and rats if
you have those are moving into your buildings your out buildings your basement your garage
your storage sheds your feed bins your b houses and your b storage areas so what i'm doing with
this video is walking you through step by step how to build my mouse trap box that guarantees
they go in and don't come out now this is a rat trap size right here these are metal
they're made by a company called made to catch and they're a little different than the victor
wooden mouse and rat traps because they have these teeth around them they're stamped out of metal
they're going to last a very long time here's a really old one that's been out in the weather
they hold up and they come in different colors silver galvanized the golden color you just saw
and this is called black burnished which is the most expensive one these rat traps are no joke
you will really injure yourself if these trigger on you but what i'm showing is the
trigger mechanism itself see that copper piece in the middle there this will not work as well
in my mousetrap box which keeps the traps shrouded so when a mouse or a rat goes inside
your cat can't get to it your dog can't get to it and other animals
other than your target animals don't get in and get snapped now i'm going to be using these
inside buildings for this demonstration and we're going to go step by step how to build them
look at this right here these are the mousetrap sizes so we're going to talk about the wood and
the reason i'm making this video is because people kept asking me make a video on how to
make it so it's over 19 inches in length i use scrap wood for this the wood thickness doesn't
really matter so we're going to show you that 19 inch length bottom boards we're going to
make two at once here or 48.26 centimeters so we're going to cut this on the chop saw
we're going to cut two of them of course because we're going to make two takes just about the same
amount of times it does make one we're going to make it 2 and 5 8 of an inch wide or 6.6
centimeters and that's because we're building based on the size of the traps you're going to use
so if you're using these made to catch traps this leaves you just enough play so that you
can still place the traps and not have a problem next we're going to build the side walls so we use
for the starting gauge of this the thickness of your bottom board and then just the arc of swing
of the kill bar on your mouse trap right there so then you mark it on the side bar there we go
rough cut lumber and leave a little space there we want a mouse or a rat not to be able to jump over
the kill bar when it moves so 2.25 inches above the baseboard or 5.71 centimeters so again you
just adapt it to whatever thickness bottom board you're using you can use two by fours for example
here we are just verifying that we have plenty of space there and we'll go ahead and look at this i
chose another slab of wood that's different in thickness to show you that it doesn't matter
what matters is the interior space and those dimensions also you can screw the traps down
to the bottom but i highly recommend you don't because you don't need to
and here we are two and five eighths it looks like so that's the width which will accommodate
these traps these traps are cheap they're about two dollars a piece or you can get a
eight pack for 16.99 on amazon i'll put links down in the video description for your convenience
and now we have two of them the wood is all chopped up ready to go
and they're just laying in there to show the general placement of your traps i like to put
groups of four and now we're going to glue it up with type onto type on two has a pretty quick
tack so you can push your pieces of wood together and they tack up nice and you can clamp them and
you can come back later and put screws in them i'm going to show you all of those steps
so here we go i like to do it right on the concrete floor inside my garage
and that way it's nice and flush and i'm going to clamp two of them together at the same time and
the wood doesn't have to be perfect these traps don't have to be perfect all you're doing is
creating a shroud for your metal or wooden mouse or rat trap so if it's a rat trap you just scale
up the dimensions and follow the same procedure here i'm going to use these dewalt clamps and let
me tell you what these are very stout so i'm just going to clamp it up with glue long enough couple
of hours to make it hold so that i can put screws in it and you can bypass that of course and just
put screws in and also the good news here tight bond cleans up with water so now here they are
and the other thing is you want to make sure and look at the ends there now while those are clamped
up and gluing i'm going to go ahead and make the end pieces and i'm using a forstner bit here and
we're doing an inch and a half in diameter so if you don't have one and you buy one an inch and
a half is great mice and rats can go in through that and you can use it for making your bluebird
houses if you want to because those entrances are also an inch and a half in diameter now i'm using
2x4 stock here and i want that opening to come right into that box at floor level so all i did
was mark off the thickness of the wood of the base boards and you will too i also mark off and drill
all of the holes because there's four total because we're making two of them so i drill
the holes first before cutting into smaller pieces it just makes it easier to manage that way
inch and a half hole inch and a half thick material because it's a 2x4
there you go just gonna drill some more of those
go to the slow motion sequence in slow motion i can see that my
drill chuck actually moves quite a bit anyway we're all done let's cut those
pieces just cut right on that center line there again they're going to be wider
than the box and that's fine because this will add stability to your mouse trap box
there we go so i already put stainless steel screws in these through the sides pre-drill
them because that's oak on the sides there you don't want to split your wood have some pride
in your craftsmanship there you don't want stuff to split and come apart so we're also going to
pre-drill the end pieces we're going to glue them up and clamp them first just like we did the sides
so i like to glue and clamp before i put the screw holes through and this way we can check it
look at that mouse or rat is going to come right through there in this case this is a mousetrap box
and the theory is that when we put these things together any mouse or
vole or whatever your target species is when they go into this they can't avoid the traps
so really baiting the traps themselves isn't so critical as putting a food resource in there
that they want to get to so then they go in and walk over the traps and that's what triggers them
that's also why i like to put in multiple traps instead of just a single one now these holes make
this box appealing to mice they naturally seek out hidden spaces cavities and things like that
and you can put this along the wall and they'll naturally investigate it on their own
and then you just put blackwell sunflower seeds in here and voila you've got a box
that they want to check out and once they go in as you saw in the opening sequence of this video
they really don't come back out also the hole serves to keep the trap in there so if you had an
animal that was not completely killed they can't run away with your trap so it'll still be in there
now we're all done it's been a couple of hours and the end pieces are on we're just going to take
those clamps off and then we're going to drill them out and put some deck screws now on the ends
there's the bottom these things will last many years especially if they're inside but they also
work in your garden or places like that if you've got problems and now we'll just drill it out
the pine that the 2x4 is made of it's not such a problem but we're close to the end so i don't
want to split it out there and these are these heavy deck screws they're over three inches long
and they're self notice the cutting leading edge there they come with their own bit for your drill
so now we're screwed and glued if you want to put some kind of identifier or name on there
that's fine too but it's 22 inches long with the 2x4 end pieces and you'll notice
that they stick up a little higher than the side walls why would it do that well
we're going to cut the roof for it and i'm going to show you that in a second
be very careful of course hearing protection eye protection and don't
let your hand get close to these blades these are diablo blades that i like to use
always use a guide or something to push the wood through don't play games with your hands
nice thick slabs of wood that a friend brought over and gave to me
so here we go the width is five inches they're both the same
and these are your top see this is very easy if you're if you know basic woodworking you'll
be able to build these and you scale them again according to the size of the traps you're going
to use now notice the gap on the side the ends actually raise the board the cover a little bit
and that's because we want those mice to smell the food inside there but not be able to get
in through the side we want them to go through this hole and when they get in there they're
going to see a row of traps and then they're going to step on these wide trigger plates
and again you don't have to put bait on the trigger plate i've been doing this for many years
in fact i'll put a link down to my original box of certain death
and you'll be able to see how i did those i did rat traps and mouse traps and people were upset
that i used so much dramatic music through that video and i stagger them the other thing is the
way i'm showing it set up here is backwards i actually want to face the trigger plates
towards one another you also put a little teaser food out there and we're going to be putting this
in my observation beehive building which right now is being visited by too many mice to be honest
so we got to get them and we're going to use this box i don't like glue traps i don't like anything
that's going to let them suffer if you're going to kill mice or rats make sure you put something
together that will in fact kill them there's no reason letting them suffer people put live
cat traps out and they forget the trap is out there and then they've got an animal that just
starved to death so here they are in place there are two of them in the same building
and when you put four traps in there you can catch multiple mice at one time some people say
mice and rats smell death so if one's in there and it's dead you're done that's not true
when there's a dead mouse in there guess what the other mice do come right in and walk right over
the top of them and here's what i'm showing you with the trigger plates facing each other that
way if a mouse gets in here and tries to jump over the traps they land on the very next trigger plate
and off it goes and most mice trigger trigger more than one trap when they visit this box
you can even put this inside a chicken coop for example because the chickens can't get to it
so it's a great way to trap your problemed rodents now we're back it's been an overnight
see lots of rat dropping mouse droppings here open up and see if we were successful and of
course we were we got three mice in one night in the same trap that's how it's supposed to work
now what do we do with the mice afterwards we don't just throw them away let's recycle them
we're going to toss them out in this field next to the wood line and we're going to see what comes to
eat them now you can do this with your trapped animals once they're dead there's no reason
just throwing them in the garbage put them out for wildlife and here comes the fox it's kind of picky
sorting through him deciding which one he's going to eat first he even gives one a little flick here
he came through at about 11 o'clock at night there he tossed one of them off to the side
and he partially eats one now fox will cash their food in other words they'll run off with them and
go stuff them in holes bury them and things like that and then they come back and get them later
this fox made a mistake he ran away with one of the mice
thinking it's going to come back later but in the meantime a skunk came through and took it
now the fox doesn't have anything to get and even marks the spot here a little bit watch right there
marking and off he goes so that's it that's how you build a mousetrap box of certain death set
it up if you're really going to trap mice do it this way it's a guaranteed kill works all the time
but remember there's always more mice out there and if they're outside that's fine
but when they come into your spaces the basement the attic your bee shed
you might have to set out mouse traps thanks for watching i hope it was
helpful