We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?

"d ryan" wrote in message
...
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day
time to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this
morning found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?


Easy to climb for a mouse.

To stop it, you need an "inverted funnel" on the cane. Cut one out from a
plastic drinks bottle.

The birds chuck a lot of food on the ground so mice will still be around.

On Thu, 5 Jun 2014 07:16:39 +0100, d ryan wrote:

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter?

Easy peasy.

Or might these be Robin droppings?

Mouse poo is approx 1.5 mm dia 5 mm long pretty dry and black.

Robin poo I suspect is like other bird poo, a splodge of wet slimy
stuff (when fresh).

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?

The inverted funnel of some sort ought to work, for mice I suspect it
would have to be at least 8" in dia. Though that would depend on the
material a bit, something hard and smooth (as in mirror smooth) you
could probably get away with 4" dia. I can't decide if the texture on
a plastic milk bottle would give enough purchase. A 2 l fizzy drinks
bottle with just the base cut off and any labels removed threaded on
open base end down should work.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 05/06/2014 07:16, d ryan wrote:

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?

You need a downwards facing cone or a circular collar around it.

Enough that the mouse cannot reach the edge or jump around it. This will
also catch some of the overspill before it hits the ground - birds are
messy eaters.

Mice struggle to climb 15mm copper pipe which is what I use to support
my bird feeder. A band of grease part way up stops squirrels too. The
latter will rip a spot welded one apart if they can get to it.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

--
Tony Sayer

If you add chilli powder they will give up coming. Birds can't taste it but mammals can. I gave up trying to stop squirrels climbing my feeders but have had no problem since adding chilli.

Interestingly, I had some fat balls out all winter that were hardly touched: some of the grain in them even germinated. I swapped them for new ones recently and all the newly fledged tits are mad keen on them. It seems that the adults are reluctant to try anything new. Similarly the niger seed I put out front when I noticed some finches nesting in our eaves: not touched for weeks but abruptly emptied when the little ones came out of the nest.

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day
time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this
morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

oh yes, rodents can climb bricks with ease, their nails are pin sharp and
very strong, so they can get a grip on the tiniest cracks that are naturally
in bricks,

i had a fancy rat that could shoot up a brick wall as if it was horizontal,
he could stop at any point just hanging on by his nails,

Climbing pipes, ropes, string etc is easy for rodents too due to their
tails, they are covered with very short stiff backwards pointing hairs, so
act as a sort of one way clutch, again they dig into any tiny gaps in what
ever they are climbing and assist them climbing,

So for mice, a larger metal pole would be harder for them to climb than a
thinner one, add the cone type thing halfway up and any mouse that makes it
to the top deserves the free meal.

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
On 05/06/2014 07:16, d ryan wrote:

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?

You need a downwards facing cone or a circular collar around it.

Enough that the mouse cannot reach the edge or jump around it. This will
also catch some of the overspill before it hits the ground - birds are
messy eaters.

Mice struggle to climb 15mm copper pipe which is what I use to support
my bird feeder. A band of grease part way up stops squirrels too. The
latter will rip a spot welded one apart if they can get to it.

Used to have a conventional bird table, which would sometimes blow
over in the wind, and was low enough that a cat would occasionally
jump up and catch a bird on it, so it got modified to sit on top of
a 32mm diameter aerial pole which is 8' high (out of cat reach), and
fits into a rotary drier socket buried in the lawn so it can't be
blown over but can be temporarily removed.

Squirrels have climbed the pole, but I only rarely see squirrels,
around so I don't mind. There was an amusing confrontation between
a squirrel and large pigeon at the top on one occasion (squirrel
won).

Keeping a bag of birdseed in the shed took a few goes before I
managed to stop rodents eating through it. It now lives on top of
an empty incinerator dustbin with the lid upturned on the top to
form a dished table. Nothing has worked out how to climb the
dustbin sides for years, even though they are rusty. I found a
hole eaten in the side of the bag a few weeks ago, which was due
to the rake handle falling against the side of the dustbin to
provide a path to the top. One day, they might work out how to
climb to the roof and let go so they fall into the bird seed,
but they haven't done that yet.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 05/06/2014 16:48, Gazz wrote:

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed
off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in
day time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk
carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this
morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

oh yes, rodents can climb bricks with ease, their nails are pin sharp
and very strong, so they can get a grip on the tiniest cracks that are
naturally in bricks,

i had a fancy rat that could shoot up a brick wall as if it was
horizontal, he could stop at any point just hanging on by his nails,

IME mice don't even need as much traction as a brick would give: I once
chased a mouse across the living room and it disappeared behind the
curtain. When I drew it away, said rodent was spreadeagled vertically
on the 'smooth' painted wall about 2ft from the floor. It didn't have
much time to contemplate its successful climb before it departed this
world however...

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice writes

Mouse poo is approx 1.5 mm dia 5 mm long pretty dry and black.

Robin poo I suspect is like other bird poo, a splodge of wet slimy
stuff (when fresh).

That is correct, yes. If you must feed semi-tame robins, don't let them
perch on your clothing!
--
Sue ]

"GMM" GlMiMa-AT-yahoo.co.uk wrote in message

i had a fancy rat that could shoot up a brick wall as if it was
horizontal, he could stop at any point just hanging on by his nails,

IME mice don't even need as much traction as a brick would give: I once
chased a mouse across the living room and it disappeared behind the
curtain. When I drew it away, said rodent was spreadeagled vertically on
the 'smooth' painted wall about 2ft from the floor. It didn't have much
time to contemplate its successful climb before it departed this world
however...


Yup, mice are a lot lighter, so any surface they can dig their nails into a
little will hold them,
my rat that liked to climb walls was around 900 grams, so the gravitational
effect was much stronger on him

On 05/06/2014 12:40, tony sayer wrote:
In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

OK, so explain how a frog managed to get into my toilet bowl at 1st
floor level.
It happened many years ago, and I never did suss it out.
:-)

--
Gordon H

Remove Invalid to reply

In message , Gordon H
writes
On 05/06/2014 12:40, tony sayer wrote:
In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

OK, so explain how a frog managed to get into my toilet bowl at 1st
floor level.
It happened many years ago, and I never did suss it out.

65 years ago a Frog got into a farm workers wellington boot and I'm
still not admitting how.

--
Tim Lamb

"d ryan" wrote in message
...
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day
time to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this
morning found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?

Get a cat!

"Gordon H" wrote in message
...
On 05/06/2014 12:40, tony sayer wrote:
In article , d ryan
scribeth thus
We have been feeding Robins with finely chopped peanuts (salt washed
off)
and porridge oats. The mice have found it and brazenly come out in day
time
to eat it.

To deter the mice we cut out the sides of a one pint plastic milk
carton,
and fixed it to a bamboo garden cane about one metre high, but this
morning
found what look like mice droppings in the new arrangement.

Can mice climb a single vertical garden bamboo cane only about four
millimeters in diameter? Or might these be Robin droppings?

I bet they can..


Would there be a simple way to stop mice climbing up a bamboo stick?



I found one suitably cremated in our boiler with a balanced flue. Only
way mousey could have got in there was straight up a brick wall and thru
the flue all some ten feet above ground level!...

OK, so explain how a frog managed to get into my toilet bowl at 1st floor
level.
It happened many years ago, and I never did suss it out.
:-)

You didn't chew it properly on the way down ?