10-07-2006, 04:23 PM
posted to uk.rec.gardening
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Please Help me with the RAT/MICE problem
"david taylor" wrote in message
...
"Sally" wrote in message
ups.com...
Alan Holmes wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
We have 2 sheds outside in our back yerd. They are quite a distance
from out house and I do not have a problem in the house, but one of
the
sheds has been taken over with these critters. we clean the shed out
monthly and do not keep things like paper in there. we store ice
chests
and 5 gal buckets etc. Now they have eaten 5 ice chests and a plastic
bouncing horse that we stored in there. they all have huge holes in
them, and have been thrown away as of this evening. The floor is
covers in droppings and it seems to be getting worse. We have placed
several boxes of Decon and we thought the problem was resolved. It was
not until I just read that the mice/rats will eat the poison and get
ill but will not die and then are learly of the poison. we will find a
couple of rats a month in the chicken coop, that is next to the shed,
and we discard of them. this is normally right when the decon is put
out and then they stop dying near the chickens, it could be that the
critters go in there for the water and the chickens just attack them.
Please help me with this problem,, before they enter my other shed
(that has all my husbands tools, fridge, and storage items. we have
not
seen them in there yet.
Any help please!!!!!!
Sally
Put down nipper traps, bait with peanut butter, check them every day,
you
will soon find they will all disappear!
You can get nipper traps for rats as well, but I don't know what you
would
bait those with.
An alternative to the nipper traps for rats is a rat/mink trap from Mole
Valley Farmers who have branches in Somerset, they will also tell you
how to
bait them.
It is not wise to use poison when they may be eaten by other animals.
Alan
Thank you for responding and helping me out!! Is a nipper trap the same
as the wood traps that you find in a store that just snap with the
mouse stands on them? we will try this and I think we will put many of
them so they can not get around them, We have new houses being built
near us that use to be nothing but fields, so I assume they are coming
from there. we had a couple here and there but like I said it is worse,
and I think because of the building. Thank you so much, I will let you
know how it works..
Sally
You may get 20 baby mice in a litter and if the population has taken off
you will have to resort to poison.
$0 years ago I shared a flat with three other chaps. There were mice in
the flat and we had a trap and scorecard on the kitchen wall.
We had got up to about 6 when two of us-the most fastidious were called
away to commission a plant on the other side of the country.
When we got back the place was overrun with mice. trapping can be messy as
the poor creatures are not always caught cleanly. I bought some poison
bait and the mice actually broke into a drawer to eat it, thus solving the
problem.
Rats are more cautious and difficult to trap-and poison is a better
solution.
Cats are not good at catching mice unless they have been trained by a
parent. Our cat was from farm cat stock. She was a good mouser and when
she was alive used to catch both rats and mice. Curiously presumably
because she was colour blind and long sighted she could only spot mice if
they moved.
Tom and Jerry cartoons are a reasonable summary of the capabilities of the
average untrained cat.
Regards
David T
Can you make the shed more secure?Patch up holes etc.They will be doing
most of the damage at night so are finding it easy to enter.Mice damaged
loads of stuff in my shed,i cleared it out and screwed a piece of wood
where they were entering.I havent had a problem since.If there is no way
of making the shed hole free ,then i think you will be fighting a long
losing battle.You can put as much poisen down as you like but they will
always come back.I have a plug in electric rodent repellar called pestfree
by Viatek which works a treat.
Cheers Keith
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