Rodents win again

[twowoode]

Are you sure it’s not a squirrel problem? Squirrels do a-lot of damage . I had them eat all the rubber hoses on an old caddy, not the new soy based stuff. They also ate trailer wiring and a friend had the abs wiring and headlight harness destroyed. Caught the squirrels on game cameras.

 

[Bobrown14]

My 18 month old Deere cab tractor was totally disabled about a month ago by either rats or mice. The total damage ended up costing about $11k as the little critters chewed on a variety of wiring harnesses, fuel lines, coolant lines and even the DEF lines. Seems like the Deere dealership had to disassemble half the tractor to get to and fix the damage. It had been parked on a gravel pad under a car port but looks like I need to move it to the concrete pad barn to at least get a little more protection. Been looking through a lot of posts and may look into Tom Cat, cayenne pepper, and some of the other suggestions. I have dogs so want to be careful with poisons. My truck has also been parked under the carport and have noticed evidence of mice on several occasions as they would eat my starlight peppermints and leave their wrappers all over the floorboard. I then put a live trap on my floorboard with the peppermint as the bait and have caught 5 mice in the last six months. I had previously used dryer sheets and heavily scented trash bags in my glove box where they had chewed on kleenex before but not sure they had any effect. All the damage to the tractor was underneath the cab which Deere had to totally remove so I need something I can use under the cab.

My tractor is finally being brought back this Friday. If anyone has any new updated ideas, I am all ears.

Buy a small bag of Sulfur prills pure sulfur its like 99.9% elemental sulfur. Spread some around the perimiter of the areas you want to get rid of rodents. They absolutely HATE sulfur. If they walk in it which they wont they will stop and lick it off their feet (very acidic) and it will kill them eventually.

Its an element so it wont break down it will adsorb into the soil and bacteria will change its state and actually beneficial to your soil and plants. Not for use in gardens at this potency.

I stumbled on this one using a sulfur vaporizer in the greenhouse. Had vermin after vaporizing sulfur no more vermin.

You problem likely is squirrels AND the insulation on the wires was made out of vegetable oil and should have been a silent recall. I.E. you show up with a tractor with eaten wires and insulation they fix on the manufacturer dime. It's been a thing at Toyota using chinese wires insulated with soy based insulation.

I've had it happen to me. Interestingly enough we also have snakes. They will track down the vermin at all costs had a red squirrel got chased by a snake up under the hood of my pickup truck. The squirrel while waiting for the inevitable ending chewed thru wires on my spark plug wires. Found the vermin poop on the intake manifold where the wires were chewed then found the snake skin the snake left behind under the pu truck after eating the squirrel. True story...

I now every once in a while run the sulfur vaporizer in my garage. My dogs haven't been hunting my garage since I started doing that with the sulfur.

 

[sunandsand]

I use snap traps with peanut butter as bait. I take a small cotton puff, knead the peanut butter into it, and fasten the resultant "pill" to the trigger with a strand of copper wire from a lamp cord. The wire keeps the mouse from absconding with the bait and also triggers the trap. Works well. The traps are placed with the trigger end facing the wall, perhaps half an inch away. Mice avoid open spaces and prefer to run along walls. The combination of that and peanut butter has proven to be irresistible to them (so far). Gotta wash my hands first because the mice can smell people and they'll avoid the bait.

If you can seal the building, that also helps keep them out in the first place. I have some data cables which enter the building through 1/2" pvc fittings. The holes are plugged with steel wool and silicone caulk.

Finally, there is an 8 by 7 roll-up door on the back of the building. I bought brush seals (not very expensive but sometimes hard to find) and installed them.

I still get an occasional mouse, but they get trapped pretty quickly. Evidently peanut butter is more attractive to them than the wiring of the vehicles or anything else in the hangar.

We did catch a snake in the building once (came in while we were working with the door open) but had to evict it because even though it was harmless to people, the startle reaction ("Oh **** a SNAKE!") could result in injury from jumping back from it.

Best Regards,

Mike/Florida

 

[fishdrivel]

I have had best luck is "sticky boards".... But you have to have strong stomach with live critter wiggling in sticky goo and have to send it off (.177 cal. pellet pistol) to its final resting place...

Would actually prefer "snap" traps but finding a bail they like has been a mystery....

Peanut butter, crunchy is best!

 

[dasranger]

Grey squirrels nest in trees. Ground squirrels (chipmunks) nest in the ground. Pine squirrels, or red squirrels, prefer dwellings. They are not welcome on my property.

 

[dh206]

Unlike tomcat traps (which I personally use and like, but I only have a small mouse problem near the chickens), something like this can catch a huge number of mice on a daily basis without intervention:

 

[Oaktree]

Grey squirrels nest in trees. Ground squirrels (chipmunks) nest in the ground. Pine squirrels, or red squirrels, prefer dwellings. They are not welcome on my property.

Not welcome on mine either, but that doesn't seem to stop them.

Actually, for some reason rodents aren't a big problem here. Not sure why. Have a couple cats that are good mousers, but don't seem to have any interest in chipmunks or squirrels. Do have some lynx around here, maybe they're keeping the population down. Wish they'd do something about the moles...nothing seems to eat them. Don't seem to get into anything, but they sure make a mess of the yard over the winter.

 

[RMRDallas]

I have squirrels, mice, and field rats so could be any or all of them. I've never seen the squirrels around the barn or carport but who knows what they do at night. The tractor will be moved to the barn with a concrete pad but will still be fairly open as I only shut all the doors when storms are expected. I may try a combination of things in hope that at least one works. Life on the frontier.

 

[twowoode]

A friend of mine bought an ultrasonic device off the internet after replacing the headlight harness twice and abs wiring on his truck. It plugs into 120 volt outlet. He says he hasn’t had any problems since putting it under the hood. The only drawback is remembering to remove it before driving.

 

[DutchUncle]

Don't get 1 barn cat, get 2 or 3. Your rodent problem will abate quickly. Dont feed them much cat food so they stay committed to finding those little chewing bastards!

This ^^ exactly when we moved into our house our barn was full of mice. We got one cat and then another. We feed them, and they have a heated water bowl, and right now they are parked on a Lazy-Boy I found in someones trash with a heating pad on top. We have zero vermin, and they help with the Chipmunks. They hunt as a pack and based on the paw prints in the they also patrol around the house at night. They actually took down a full grown Rabbit and left it as a present for my wife. I'm not a cat fan, but I see them as a tool to keep the rodents at bay. LOL