A HOMEMADE mouse-trap is knocking them dead in the southern Riverina. Alan Cullum says he went through 20 kilograms of poisoned grain and Ratsack before hitting on his ingenious idea.
With a piece of wood, a three-inch nail, a bottle smeared with peanut butter and plastic bucket filled with 10cm of water the former Rutherglen man has killed almost 60 mice in three nights.
The mice follow the wooden ladder to the bottle, slip into the bucket and drown.
Mr Cullum said their Mairjimmy property, halfway between Berrigan and Jeriderie, had been overrun with mice as neighbours began their rice harvest and ploughing paddocks for winter crops.
“Thankfully we have kept them outside,” he said.
“But they are everywhere, we even have to put our boots into a plastic box on the verandah to keep the mice out of our shoes.
“We used the commercial stuff and the poison from the Rural Lands Protection Board but putting down the poison is a risk to pets and other animals.
“This way it is all homemade and very effective.
“One night we caught 23 on the verandah and 13 in the shed.”
Mr Cullum says he can’t claim the idea as an original but the word is spreading.
“I think I saw it somewhere but can’t remember exactly where,” he said.
“But all the neighbours have seen how it works out here and are now doing the same thing.”
