I saw a comment from Zelda the Zealous, demanding immediate jihad against the Lair’s mice. Took me back to a conversation I had with Neighbor J, just day before yesterday.
J has a thing about mice. He has festooned his buildings with traps like something out of a Tom & Jerry cartoon and frequently boasts of his body counts. His declining body counts, which certainly seemed to indicate that his ongoing jihad was having positive effect – until the weather turned cold. Then the count went right back up.
This has been a bad year for rodents of all types, I make no argument to the contrary. And I am probably too laid-back on the topic for my own good. I have reason for not using attractive poison, but could (and, I keep promising, will) do more with traps in an attempt to get them more polite if not completely gone. Thanks to the dogs, mice and rats stay out of the Lair. The only ones I’ve ever seen inside were carried inside by cats, and I have no more cats. I have eyewitnesses to the fact that I do kill the occasional packrat, but have always left the mice alone because what’s the point? They’re here in their millions, and will continue to be long after I’m dead. I’m happy to live and let live – as long as they will.
But this is the second strike. I mentioned how much one nibbling mouse just cost me on the Jeep, I’ve been embarrassed to mention the mess a bunch of them have been making of my reloading shack. And there, I have a freer hand: The dogs don’t go in there. So at least patchily, I really am cranking up a War on Mice.
Just an observation . . .
In my experience (considerable) with mice, when you put poison outside in the barn or elsewhere, the silly mice eat it and then come inside the house to die, with the expected odoriferous results.
But I do sympathize, having recently dealt with mouse-eaten vehicle wiring.
I’m open to suggestions . . .
Hi Joel,
I had a situation where mice were in our vehicles doing lunch. Did a little research and found that peppermint extract soaked cotton balls will help to keep the little pests out. I put a couple in the engine compartments in a old cotton sock taped to the firewall and so far they are staying away. Only thing is that the cotton balls need to be changed monthly.
I know… Where the hell was I with this information before the jeep issue? My bad.
http://how-to-get-rid-of-mice.com/peppermint-oil/
I used to have fun hunting home-invading mice with a BB gun.
Joel,
Have any unallocated 5 gallon buckets? Some idle 12 oz beverage cans? Peanut butter? I haven’t tried this myself (2 cats keep the rodent population down here), but I’ve heard good things from others: http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/747201/5-gallon-bucket-mouse-trap
I’m not a big fan of poison myself since I usually have other desirable critters around who may decide to munch on the newly-found rodent carcass.
I like someone elses idea in the bucket thread. He feeds the dead mice to the chickens…
Cant do that with the poison idea
FOMCL and ROTF
No jihad Joel, not possible. I’m not Muslim…
But I am relatively poor, very frugal, and unable to pay many hundreds of dollars in repeat repair bills when mice eat my wires and whatever else they decide to munch. So I don’t and can’t have your benevolent, tolerant, protective, live and let live acceptance of out of control rodent damage repair bills. Your rodents are very, very lucky to live where they have such a kindhearted and concerned caretaker. This is a softer side of the reclusive relationship-and-people-averse hermit. (There are many suggestions on the Internet for dealing with wire and car part damage that involve protecting wires and car parts and are interesting reading. There’s a suggestion for building a low cost car corral that is rodent proof. Tanglefoot would be interesting if it worked, but you’d have to peel the dead rodents off your wires and other car parts. The water filled peanut butter on the rim plastic bucket has a history of success, and buckets can be left anywhere.)
Given how many very nasty diseases rodents carry in their bodies, in their feces, in the fleas and mites in their fur, when critters get sick after eating mice and rats is it for sure that they got sick from eating a poisoned rodent, or did they get sick from one of the many diseases the rodent was carrying? I don’t know the answer yet, but am going to do some research. I’ve been poisoning rodents for years, and I can tell you that I can smell the difference between a poisoned rodent and one that I hit with a shovel or a high pressure water stream. My sense of smell isn’t anywhere near what a wild critter has. And if poisoned rodents smell that bad, they probably don’t taste very good either. I’m not a wildlife biologist and don’t play one on TV, but the assumed causal relationship between poisoned rodents and sick or dead wild or domestic critters sure could be a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Needs more investigation. Just saying.
Use the dead mice as coyote bait and have some target practice!
Joel, I know you’re probably not going to resort to poison because of the dogs. But if you decide you must use it to avoid vermin eating your Jeep, here’s something you should know.
The old types of rat/mouse poison contained the anti-coagulant warfarin, which is slow-acting enough that if a dog ingested it you’d have a long time — maybe even a couple of days — to get to the vet. And the treatment was relatively inexpensive.
Under pressure from (guess who?) the fedgov, companies are now replacing warfarin with chemicals they claim are “less toxic.” Furrydoc just gave me an angry earful about this. Seems some “less toxic” chemicals are catastrophic for dogs. Basically, you have almost no chance to save the dog and if you try it’ll cost about $10k.
Furrydoc says that the makers of D-Con are still using warfarin and actively fighting the change. So if you DO resort to poisoning rodents, be extremely, extremely cautious. And better yet, get cats even though I know where they are on the desert food chain.
Here’s some info:
http://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedailyvet/jlee/2011/june/my_dog_ate_rat_poison-what_should_I_do-11346
Not surprised about pressure from the feddies. OTOH, mice and rats are developing resistance to warfarin. Seems to be happening mostly across the pond. I won’t be surprised if it happens over here as well.