How Do I Prevent Other Animals, Pets or Children Getting Caught In the Trap or Stealing the Bait?

All animals, including children, will find food attractive if they come across any. This, of course, will include bait left in a mouse or rat trap. If they try to take the bait, they may be injured. This is why you have to be very responsible and knowledgeable when setting traps.

In the case of household pets and small children, it is best to restrict their access to places where you have set traps in the house. A cat or even a dog, for example, can get a very nasty injury from a mouse snap trap if they decide to eat the tasty morsel of bait they find there.

A small kitten could easily enter an electronic trap with disastrous results. Also, a hamster or guinea pig, if they escape from their cage, and these pets often do, would find the bait in a trap very appealing, and of course, that would be the end of them too. If you use mouse or rat traps in your home, you really need to restrict the movements of pets and small children.

While a child may not be able to enter the Victor electronic mouse traps, the child could easily put its arm in to the trap to reach the bait, thereby triggering the trap. While the resultant shock may not kill the child, it will certainly cause considerable distress.

If the trap is outdoors, as in a humane trap and release type, it is much more difficult to ensure that only the animals you are trying to catch do in fact get caught. If you are trying to catch squirrels, for example, and you get a rabbit or raccoon instead, that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Targeting the bait so that it is best suited to the animal you are trying to trap is one way to deal with outdoor traps. Of course, all animals will be attracted to most foods, but a squirrel, for example, is more likely to be attracted to nuts than a rabbit. This can increase the likelihood that you will catch a squirrel in your yard, and not a hungry rabbit.

It will never to possible to ensure that animals other than the ones you are targeting will be the only ones you catch in traps set outdoors. However, if you are targeting an annoying squirrel, but you catch a possum or raccoon instead, that shouldn’t really be a problem, as that animal is most likely causing a nuisance on your property as well.

You will be able to control the situation much better in the home as the only animals likely to be attracted to the bait in a trap, other than the mice or rats you are targeting, will be pets and children. This makes it fairly easy for you, as all you have to do is restrict their movements in the area where the traps are set.

It is also a good idea, however, to check on your traps on a regular basis. At least once a day is a good idea, and more often if you can. That is the most responsible thing to do. Here is some more info on how to get rid of mice.