To bait or not to bait

harvestmoon

I am about to leave 2 country cottages empty for 5 months. One has been empty for a month and I have baited for mice who have been and taken the bait but left no other evidence. My question is am I attracting mice by baiting as there is nothing else to attract them? Or should I bait to kill them off and stop them multiplying. Any advice would be very helpful.

Chunks

Guessing, since I have no experience, but if there is nothing for the mice to eat, there is probably an argument against baiting I would have thought. If they do consume bait which kills them, isn't that a problem too (worse)? I stayed in a cottage last summer and on arrival, one of the bedrooms was 'funky' (not in a good way). Found a dead mouse under a pillow, which was nice... Bound to be someone else along shortly with the answer. Good luck to you.

DTDfanBoy

It's not only food that attracts rodents, a house provides a nice dry environment for them to live/breed in. I always stick out some baits before leaving.

cyclonebri1

It's 5 months over winter and that's when they look for warm shelter.

Trap and bait would be my approach, get someone to check each week if you can.

Remember 2 mice tomorrow could be 50 in 5 months time :eek::eek: