Rats By: Sydney Science Fair

Problem Will the food you place in a trap affect the mouse’s likely hood to bite the bait?

Introduction Mice are always thought of to be cheese lovers so when you want to get rid of mice you set mouse traps that have fake cheese on the end. Does that work best or would something more like their regular diet be better?

Background Info.  Mice are herbivores so they eat fruit and grains only. Many people say that their mice like peanut butter and grains. They also say that they typically avoid the cheese or save it for last. Mice also have a great since of smell. The more subtle smells may be better for them. Stronger ones may be overpowering.

Hypothesis I predict that they the peanut butter, bread, and banana will be visited equally, but they will avoid the cheese because it isn’t natural to them and has an overpowering smell.

Materials 1)Wood (1 12”x12”x1/4” 2”x1/4”x9’) 2)Plexiglas (1 12”x12”) 3)cardboard 4)20 mice 5)1 cup Shredded cheddar cheese 6)1 banana 7)Jar of peanut butter 8)1 package saltine crackers 9)radial arm saw 10)wood glue 11)paper 12)pencil 13)Computer 14)Tape

Variables  Independent The mice would be the independent variable.  Dependent The dependant variable would be the food the mice go to.  Control Use the same maze, same food

Procedure  Gather plywood and saw  construct maze using blueprint  buy 5 feeder mice  place small amounts of the four test foods on small squares of cardboard  Run 5 mice through the maze  record the food they go to, and if they specifically avoid a food  run those mice again an hour later  Record results in computer

Procedure Cont.  Optional Using the computer make graphs and charts showing the data.

Results  50% for Cheese  20% for Peanut Butter  10% for Crackers  20% were undecided  No one liked the Banana

Conclusion Mice really do love cheese. The best thing for you to bait a trap with is sharp cheddar cheese. 50% of the time the mice like the cheese. If you don’t mind using your cheddar that cheese will get you the best results.

Possible Cause of Error The mice I used were domesticated mice, born into captivity. Those mice may be different in the foods they prefer to your ordinary field mouse.

Major Observations  4 of the mice cleaned off the peanut butter after they touched it.  All of the mice (10) visited the cheese.  9 mice visited the cracker and Peanut Butter.  Only 8 mice visited the banana.

Major Observations  After I moved the corners that the foods were in the mice tended to go where the cheese used to be.  The banana was visited first most of the time.

Possible Application  If you’re afraid of mice and you live in the country you’re bound to have troubles with mice. This test gives information as to what type of bait works best for mouse traps if you are against using cats to hunt them down.

Further Research  Does positioning of mouse traps affect the likelihood of catching mice?  Do different combinations of food affect the likelihood of catching mice?  Would a different fruit be more effective than the banana?  Is cheese the favorite of wild mice too?

Time Spent  hours

Acknowledgments  Big thanks to my dad for helping me build the maze and handle the mice  Thanks Mrs. Riffel for supplying computers for recording data  Thanks Mom for giving me ideas to better my experiment  Thanks SHS for supplying the wood I used to build the maze