Are Glue Boards a Good Trap for Rodents like Rats or Mice?

I'm only writing about glue boards because they are so terrible on so many levels. First of all, they are cruel. Mice and rats are mammals, demonstrated in countless lab studies to have strong social skills, problem solving abilities, nurture their young, and so forth. When caught on a glue trap, they die a slow, miserable death in which they struggle and die of hunger or exhaustion or possibly eventual suffocation if they're lucky to go sooner. If you don't care about that, then maybe you'll care about the fact that they are just plain dumb tools - they are totally ineffective compared to lethal snap traps. Half the time they don't get stuck, or they gnaw off their foot and free themselves. Rodents are less likely to step on a glue pad than a snap trap. In addition, they are one-time use, as opposed to snap traps, which you can re-use indefinitely. Glue boards are just plain shitty, and some jerk invented them and marketed them, but they have no place in any kind of rodent control program. Do it the right way and get your rat or mouse problem solved permanently. Learn more about proper mouse prevention with home repairs, and following that, the correct methods for mouse trapping to get rid of them for good.

If you have rodents in your home, you know that you need to get them out of there as soon as possible. The longer rodents are in your attic, walls, or another area, the more likely they are to cause damage or put you at risk of disease. The best way to get rid of rats or mice is to hire a professional to take care of the problem for you, but you may be tempted to do it yourself. Whether you want to tackle the rodents yourself or are hiring a professional, one of the methods for controlling them you will easily find are glue traps. While these are easily available, that doesn’t mean they are a good trap. In fact, they are a very bad choice in terms of effectiveness and lack of humanity.

Highly Inhumane
The biggest problem with using glue boards to catch rats or mice is that they are an incredibly inhumane method of dealing with these rodents. Rodents have been proven to be intelligent mammals with social skills and problem solving skills and many of the traits humans have, such as caring for each other. Because of this, you should always aim to use a humane method to take care of them; glue traps are the opposite.

A glue trap will not always catch the rodent completely and they will then struggle to get free. Rodents have been known to chew off a limb or let their fur tear off in order to escape from these traps. Either of those actions will be incredibly painful for the animal and traumatic and may even lead to a slow death. Put simply, forcing a rat or mouse to do something like that is inhumane. Even if the trap does manage to successfully catch the rodent, it won’t be much better in terms of being humane. The glue boards won’t kill the animal instantly. Instead, they will simply leave them stuck in place to die of hunger, dehydration, or exhaustion. A mouse or rat can spend a long time slowly dying on these traps while suffering, something everyone can agree is inhumane.

Less Effective
Even if you aren’t concerned about opting for a humane method of catching the rodents on your property, you should be concerned about effectiveness. Because glue boards won’t always catch the rodent, as mentioned above, they simply aren’t as effective as other methods. If a rat runs over the board and doesn’t get stuck or is able to escape by ripping off a patch of fur, that is one less that you have caught. Alternative methods, such as snap traps, are nearly always effective in comparison. This means that while you will waste time with a glue trap that is not the case with a snap trap. Rodents are also more likely to run over a snap trap than a glue board.

Not Reusable
You should also keep in mind that if you choose to use glue boards, the price will add up. These devices are not reusable so as soon as you have caught a rodent on one, you have to toss the entire board and buy a new one. Snap traps, on the other hand, can be reset an unlimited number of times, saving you money.

Additional Dangers
In addition to the issues mentioned above, glue boards come with a few extra dangers. If you come across the glue board with a rodent on it, you won’t have any method of humanely euthanizing it yet if you get close to the trap while the animal is still alive, you have a high risk of being bitten, causing disease. There is also a very real risk that a household animal will get stuck on the glue board. Smaller pets won’t be able to escape and larger pets, like dogs or cats, will lose fur or even skin when getting away. In most cases, a pet stuck to a glue board requires a trip to the vet to get off.

What To Use Instead: Snap Traps
Since glue boards are clearly a bad idea for trapping rodents like mice and rats, you may be wondering what to do. With these animals, live trapping and relocation is somewhat pointless as they are creatures of habit and are likely to die in an unfamiliar area. Therefore, most experts suggest giving them a quick, humane death via snap traps. Snap traps are highly affordable and reusable and will almost always kill the rodent instantly, meaning it will not suffer at all. When you place the snap traps in the right areas, you will be able to catch all the rodents in your attic or other area quickly. This is why the best wildlife removal experts rely on snap traps to take care of rodents. You should never hire one that says they use glue traps.