Living out on the country eventually you have to deal with different critters. Normally my biggest hassles are dealing with bears and mice. Mice try to move in this time of year for food and warmth. Bears are a pain as they are always looking for an easy meal. One even ripped the molding off around my basement door looking for a way in.
I’ve got about four or five different ways of killing mice. It seems they don’t always fall for the same kind of trap. Poisons aren’t used as other animals could eat poisoned mice and get sick. Mice aren’t a problem right now.
Bears are in hibernation. That’s handy. It gives us a break. One of the things that discourages bears is careful disposal of trash. The trash is put out at the last minute on trash day. Normally I wouldn’t worry about last minute disposal since the bears are hibernating. Unfortunately there’s a family of foxes living nearby and they’ll pick through trash too.
Tuesday morning I had to deal with a critter in the house I’d never dealt with before: a flying squirrel. My lovely wife and I were woken up by a very disturbed flying rodent. It’s pretty weird chasing a squirrel around the house when it leaps and glides everywhere. Eventually I got it corned in the kitchen and was able to whack it. It might have been nice if I could have captured it, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was hard enough to hit it, never mind capture.
-Sixbears
Aren't squirrels prone to Rabis? I saw in the news that a fellow in CT found a hibernating bear under his deck. I guess it's more common than not.
ReplyDeleteAll mammals are rabies possible. Plenty of other interesting diseases from the rodent family most flea spread.
ReplyDeleteRodents have always been a real problem to the human food supply, soiling what they don't eat.
I also don't like indiscriminate poisoning of rodents because I love hearing the owls outside my home. They hunt but LOVE the weak and slow rodents (even flying squirrels) and that how they get poisoned.
Between sticky traps and terriers' rodents are suppressed in my area.
Please share some of your mice eradication tactics,. I'm always looking for novel methods.
ReplyDeleteA cat.
DeleteA cat might kill a few rodents once in a while.
ReplyDeleteA ratter terrier will seek out and dig up and destroy the nest as well as every rodent it spots.
Yes, I have to fill the holes but the nests are the real problem and I have few rodents around my place. My don't harm nature neighbor with the chickens (who calls me for pest removal) has lots of rodent issues.
When it's not freezing weather I set up a 5 gallon pail half full of water as a stairway to heaven trap. I've gotten as many as 8 in a day when I empty it in the morning.
The water bucket traps work well. Frankly, cheap snap traps are efective for most mice. Some can steal the bait and not get caught. There's the black plastic clamshell type traps that work. I like to put the bait well inside so they have to struggle deeper into the trap and that trips it. Tractor Supply carries an electronic zapper trap that works fairly well. Usually I bait with peanut butter.
DeleteI've used the water bucket trick on chipmunks. I saw it called the "Bucket of Death". Used sunflower seeds as bait. I have one useless cat around. I'll pass there.
ReplyDeleteDo we own the cat, or doth the cat own us? 80)
ReplyDelete