I built this tipping ramp mouse trap
last year and it works really well at
catching mice and I was thinking I could
use this with a bucket as a sort of a
one-way most valve and then send the
mice through a maze which I'm building
right here
mazes done. Now I just have to screw
those pieces this maze about a few false
exits to try to tempt the most to go
the wrong way. The mouse injector
devices is gonna mount on here
I added these little things with
holes in them just to make it more
interesting but the mouse overall is
probably gonna say screw this im just gonna
jump over the edge so I've got this
glass cover here and that will be held
on by blocks like this
Here's my computer setup by raspberry pi with the
camera module monitor here's the maze
I put peanut butter here and here just
to make it more interesting and I put
sawdust in here which makes it more
difficult for the mouse to jump up well
in the first week Ihad it set up all I
had these creepy creepy shadows and that
turned out to be insects crawling over
the lens i added more fresh peanut
butter to the tipping ramp itself and
also a bunch of bait to the path leading
up to it and hopefully the mouse would
actually find it up there.
And I also up a second camera this one is mounted
on the homemade wooden tripod and i have
two computers here and two keyboards
with all this technology
all that's missing is the mouse a real
mouse that is and finally a mouse scurrying around
plus of course the usual bugs on the lens
and finally I've got a mouse coming up to
the trap here it goes
come on... come on.... ha ha!
I really don't understand why the muse
actually came back into the maze after leaving it
So after that first dumping
something is not quite working right
about my trap or at least never
successfully dumps the mouse again
I was starting to question whether I needed
a trap at all to get the mouse into the maze
It seemed to be quite happy to explore it
just coming in from the exit
Somehow that mouse wisened up that trap
But... oh I see it got stuck on here and that's
why the mouse never got dunked again
because it was always tipped a little
bit so the magnet was not effective
and here's where those creepy crawlers that
I keep seeing call over the camera lens
not sure I'll be able to convince the
mouse to go for this bait again I'll put
some further back here
um I figure if I just put that little
bit more bait in here just to see how
the mouse learns to traverse the maze
now putting the glass back on and we're
ready for round two
after eating all the peanut butter and
amazed them most is finally back on the
run and it falls in
I think this time around the problem is
that my trap cars too much force because
the most of all the peanut butter off of
it and only when it gets the very very
edge of it that it tips off at all
I put a little bit of bait on the bottom
of the end of the ramp so the mouse has to
kind of bend over it and that seems to
be what's enough to get the trap the tip
one thing's for sure the mouse has gotten
much more effective at getting out of the maze
And now back again to re-bait
that trap and also tweaked how much
force it takes to tip and i thought while
I was at it maybe smear some bait to the
inside of the the bucket just to see how the
mouse is going to get at it
The mouse has gotten very good at traversing the maze
It is pretty amazing to see how the mouse
gets at the peanut butter in the bucket
there's a lot more running around by the
mouse beyond this but nothing really
interesting except for the one time that
the mouse kind of came up near the camera
to check that out and
And after a week I came back put more peanut butter on the trap
and also on the inside of the bucket
because I wanted to see how the mouse
would get out if it's further out of reach
and I also put some sunflower heads inside
the maze because i want to see what the
mouse would do with that
what's interesting with the sunflower
seeds that the most keeps munching away
at those and then leaves and then comes
back it leaves and come back and leave
and come back and looking at the footage
is actually usually but a minute expired
between the most leaving and coming back
it's just that part of skipped the
video so i think what's happening is the
mouse is taking the sunflower seeds and
stashing them somewhere else every time
eventually the mouse has gotten to all
the easy to access and sunflower seeds and
peanut butter so it's time for the
harder stuff
first up I guess was the sunflower head
in the tiny little cubby