"mike. buckley" wrote
Phil L writes
JennyC wrote:
:: Hi
:: :: We have a regular tiny mouse come to visit and to nibble on
:: several fat balls, in nets which hang on a small (rhus) tree
:: outside on the patio.
:: :: He is not problem and it's fun to watch him/her feeding at night.
:: :: However we seem to have his/her big brother coming round as well
:: :~(

Rats predate on mice so don't be surprised if the mouse isn't seen again :-(

:: Caught a quick glimpse of a small rat (young?) the other day in
:: the flower bed. And the fat balls seem to disappear whole.
:: yesterday was proof when I went out to find the nylon net still on
:: its branch but it had been bitten open and the ball was gone !
::
:: Any ideas on what to do. I don't want ratty getting ideas about
:: coming indoors!

Rats will make the most of any situation and the only way to deter them will
deter the mouse too, unless you use a wire feeder which the birds can peck
at and maybe the mouse could get a small nibble, but the rat won't be able
to gnaw through it as quickly, not to say he won't try and you can expect to
replace it once he does....once they have discovered a food source they
never forget it.


Rats, given enough time, will chew through anything, wire included. So
make sure it's pretty tough.

We have a few birds in our garden (blue/great tits, the usual). But
stocking the bird table with nuts and bread etc just got us 4 squirrels
robbing the nuts and magpies and pigeons robbing the bread. Never saw
the tits on the nuts at all, even when the squirrels were nowhere to be
seen. Given up in the end, the squirrels were just destroying the
feeders anyway.
Mike Buckley

Oh dear.
We are lucky. We get lots of sparrows, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks (know
here as the 'not sparrow' 'cos we didn't know what it was at first!), wrens,
blackbirds, thrushes, long tailed tit's (only when it's 10 degrees below zero),
robins, the odd magpie and jay.

All this in the centre of Rotterdam :~))

Jenny

Dave Liquorice wrote:
:: On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:29:41 GMT, Phil L wrote:
::
::: mice do not multiply as quickly as rats and have lots of natural
::: predators (including rats) therefore your theory is incorrect,
::: unless of course you meant rats? :-p
::
:: They still do it fairly rapidly, two mice (M & F of course...) will
:: still become 2 mice in just over 20 days and the offspring breed
:: in 50 days or less...
::
:: Looking at:
::
:: http://www.lvma.org/rat.html
:: http://www.lvma.org/mouse.html
::
I know all about the breeding cycle of rodents,(try a google group search on
me!) I said they don't *multiply* as fast as rats...rats have very few
natural predators in this country and will multiply much faster than mice
given *any* food source and the same conditions...they hunt and kill entire
colonies of mice too.

--

http://www.blueyonder256k.myby.co.uk/

"JennyC" wrote in message
...


Oh dear.
We are lucky. We get lots of sparrows, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks
(know
here as the 'not sparrow' 'cos we didn't know what it was at first!),
wrens,
blackbirds, thrushes, long tailed tit's (only when it's 10 degrees below
zero),
robins, the odd magpie and jay.

All this in the centre of Rotterdam :~))

Jenny



Our doggie Trixie:-

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/174/2...room%20002.jpg

Just loves to catch and eat mices and in the case of ratties she dispatches
them speedily but leaves the bodies for me to sort.
Our glasshouse is thus cleared of rodents f.o.c.

Pete
www.thecanalshop.com

"Peter Stockdale" wrote
"JennyC" wrote
Oh dear.
We are lucky. We get lots of sparrows, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks
(know here as the 'not sparrow' 'cos we didn't know what it was at first!),
wrens, blackbirds, thrushes, long tailed tit's (only when it's 10 degrees
below
zero), robins, the odd magpie and jay.
All this in the centre of Rotterdam :~))
Jenny


Our doggie Trixie:-
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/174/2...room%20002.jpg

Just loves to catch and eat mices and in the case of ratties she dispatches
them speedily but leaves the bodies for me to sort.
Our glasshouse is thus cleared of rodents f.o.c.
Pete

Wanna pop round for a day ??
Jenny :~))

"JennyC" wrote in message
...


Wanna pop round for a day ??
Jenny :~))


Perhaps - depends on you location.
Pete (~_~)

"Peter Stockdale" wrote in message
...

"JennyC" wrote in message
...


Wanna pop round for a day ??
Jenny :~))


Perhaps - depends on you location.
Pete (~_~)

Rotterdam, the Netherlands.....
Jenny

"JennyC" wrote in message
...


Rotterdam, the Netherlands.....
Jenny


Sorry - Trixie no passport !

Pete

Hi Jenny, sorry I didn't realise you lived in Holland.

Might I suggest just a normal squirrel proof feeder then? The have a cage
around the feeder itself to stop larger birds and squirrels gaining access.

Mousey is small enough to get in though! I know this, as a colleague from
work shown me a photo of a mouse sat in his squirrel proof feeder happily
munching away at the nuts!

Such feeder should be available in Holland..........unless you don't have
squirrels over there of course!

--
(remove the troll to reply)

Always look on the bright side of life (De do, de do, de doody doody do)


"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"JeffC" wrote
"JennyC" wrote
We have a regular tiny mouse come to visit and to nibble on several
fat
balls, in nets which hang on a small (rhus) tree outside on the patio.

He is not problem and it's fun to watch him/her feeding at night.
However we seem to have his/her big brother coming round as well
:~(
Caught a quick glimpse of a small rat (young?) the other day in the
flower
bed. And the fat balls seem to disappear whole. yesterday was proof
when I
went
out to find the nylon net still on its branch but it had been bitten
open
and
the ball was gone !

Any ideas on what to do. I don't want ratty getting ideas about coming
indoors!
Jenny


Hi Jenny, I don't know if it will help, but a few weeks ago I noticed a
rather clever bird feeder in B&Q ( cough! spit! ) priced at under £10.
It
is basically a peanut feeder with a rather ingenious "sprung" stainless
steel shield that came down over the feed basket when any larger animal,
chiefly squirrels tried to gain access from above. This may allow your
mouse
to continue feeding, but the weight of a rat would bring down the
shield..
It might be messy trying to fill it with fat balls though! Still at the
price, it might be worth ago.
Jeff.

Great idea Jeff, but we don't have B&Q's here in Holland :~(
Jenny

This year I have been making my own bird food, a mixture of breadcrumbs,
porridge oats, mixed with melted lard and suet (1/2 part lard to 1 of suet,
fine in the cold weather) This mix is heated in the microwave to help mix
properly..
Then when mixed I add wild birdfood, the final mix is put into cut off
plastic pop bottles and pressed in firmly.
When set the bottle is cut off and the food block is placed into one of the
plastic nets you get fruit in from the supermarket.
This is then hung up for the birds. I did have problems with a magpie going
for the food, so I now use 2 empty 12 inch hanging baskets put onto one set
of chains with two chains hung about 8 inches apart and the 3rd used to hang
the food from.
This is self closing and very popular with the birds, I have had up to 8
birds inside at the same time.
A good use for empty hanging baskets.

--
David Hill

www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"Michelle C" wrote in message
...
"JennyC" wrote in message
...
Hi

We have a regular tiny mouse come to visit and to nibble on several
fat
balls,
in nets which hang on a small (rhus) tree outside on the patio.
He is not problem and it's fun to watch him/her feeding at night.

However we seem to have his/her big brother coming round as well :~(

Caught a quick glimpse of a small rat (young?) the other day in the
flower
bed.
And the fat balls seem to disappear whole. yesterday was proof when I
went
out
to find the nylon net still on its branch but it had been bitten open
and
the
ball was gone !

Any ideas on what to do. I don't want ratty getting ideas about coming
indoors!
Jenny

My suggestion is not to lure them with food.

Yes, but what about the birds?
I was hoping someone would have a solution to deter ratty
Poison for ratty, and hang the fat balls from your washing line using a
paper clip as a hook, or a bird table with cup hooks screwed into the edge
(this is what I do). You can also hang peanut nets from them too and make a
veritable feast for them without feeding vermin too.

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.com...
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:26:48 +0100, JennyC wrote:

My suggestion is not to lure them with food.

Yes, but what about the birds?

You didn't say anything about the birds in the OP just that you liked
to watch the mouse. Mind you if there is one mouse there will be two
shortly to be ten and not long after that...

I was hoping someone would have a solution to deter ratty

Rentokil Rodine, but you may find ratty will prefer the fat balls over
the blue grain.
Dave

Not keen on poison as we have a cat. I also don't want to kill of the
mouse or
any of the birds,

Your cat won't eat the poison. With most modern poisons, there is no
secondary poisoning. I have 12 cats and still use bait boxes with wax blocks
in them all year round as I breed poultry and spilled grain attracts rats.
You are being a little naive I'm afraid, there is no way to shoo the rat
away and still welcome the destructive disease spreading but cute mousie.
You need to find a way to feed the birds and not attract vermin and in the
meantime kill the vermin. You *did* know that mice **** as they walk didn't
you? You did know that mouse **** on the fat ball can kill the birds feeding
off it didn't you?

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from "ex WGS Hamm" contains these words:
|
| You did know that mouse **** on the fat ball can kill the birds feeding
| off it didn't you?
|
| No..but that's interesting, because if I ****ed on the fatballs, birds
| (or people) which ate the fat balls would not be killed. So, how/why
| does mouse urine kill birds?

Is that the result of an actual experiment?

Anyway, while urine on food CAN kill susceptible animals (including
birds, of course), it seems pretty unlikely to be a certain killer.
The two mechanisms I have heard of are the transmission of infection
and overloading the organism's ability to handle protein. I believe
that some of the early experiments using urea as a food supplement
(primarily for ruminants) did cause the animals to suffer kidney
failure, but that was including a far higher proportion in their
food than a bit of mouse urine would provide.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"David Hill" wrote in message
...
This year I have been making my own bird food, a mixture of breadcrumbs,
porridge oats, mixed with melted lard and suet (1/2 part lard to 1 of suet,
fine in the cold weather) This mix is heated in the microwave to help mix
properly..
Then when mixed I add wild birdfood, the final mix is put into cut off
plastic pop bottles and pressed in firmly.
When set the bottle is cut off and the food block is placed into one of the
plastic nets you get fruit in from the supermarket.
This is then hung up for the birds. I did have problems with a magpie going
for the food, so I now use 2 empty 12 inch hanging baskets put onto one set
of chains with two chains hung about 8 inches apart and the 3rd used to hang
the food from.
This is self closing and very popular with the birds, I have had up to 8
birds inside at the same time.
A good use for empty hanging baskets.
David Hill

While at the supermarket today I noticed some fat ball silo type thingies. Long
metal tube with large 'roof' to keep the rain of and a metal basket at the
bottom where the fat balls drop into (like those self refilling toilet roll
whatsits!)

Looks very robust and should deter mouse and rat alike :~))

Jenny

While at the supermarket today I noticed some fat ball silo type thingies.
Long
metal tube with large 'roof' to keep the rain of and a metal basket at the
bottom where the fat balls drop into (like those self refilling toilet
roll
whatsits!)

Looks very robust and should deter mouse and rat alike :~))

Jenny


Do Rats and Mice use toilet rolls?

I think not ;-))

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 17:34:06 +0100, JennyC wrote:

Looks very robust and should deter mouse and rat alike :~))

What gauage is the mesh? Rats can get through a surprisingly small
hole if they want to. A normal comfortable rat hole is about 1 1/4 to
1/12" dia but they can get through something not much more than 1/2"
dia given a reason, like food...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail