Living out in the country it is not unusual to have mice. We do a good job of keeping them out of the house but they lurk outside in the chicken coup and in the woodpiles. Usually we have cats to constantly hunt them down and keep their population in check but the wildfires we sustained last summer caused a lot of big predators out their usually stomping grounds and into our backyard. All of our cats were lost to them, leaving us with no idea how to keep the mouse population down outside so they don't decide to come inside.
In the past we used regular snapping mousetraps to clear the problem up when it became and issue but those traps are scary to set, need to be checked everyday and can sometimes be very messy when they work. I wanted something that you could set and forget but it would keep doing it's job, something that could be set up outside. Then I stumbled along this little goodie!
This is a pin from fivegallonideas.com Actually, not this exact pin but I'll be darned if I can find the original pin that I found about this. In the original pin I saw the person put it together with a wire hanger with an empty hydrogen peroxide bottle on the wire. The bottle is coated with peanut butter and about an inch or two of water is put in the bottom of the bucket. The idea is the mouse climbs up the board, reaches for the peanut butter, falls in the water because the bottle rolls and then can't get out of the bucket. Five gallon bucket ideas builds the mousetrap basically the same way but with dowels instead.
When I built mine I used a wire hanger with an empty water bottle. I didn't drill through the bucket, I just wrapped the wire tightly to the metal handle where it attaches to the bucket. It seemed to hold very tightly. Hopefully my ramp is not too short but those mice seem to be able to climb anything. All I have to do is sit back and wait. We'll see how it goes.