I'm sure evryone has this problem, but is it safe to use poison? I've heard that chickens can eat mice--what if they eat a mouse that has previously consumed poison?
I'm sure evryone has this problem, but is it safe to use poison? I've heard that chickens can eat mice--what if they eat a mouse that has previously consumed poison?
Just my own philosophy (fetish maybe), don't use poison. If nothing else, get a cat or two from the local animal shelter, have them spayed or neutered, and give them a few treats once in a while to keep them around. You don't have to let them in your house. They work wonders on rodents. In my case, I keep the snakes (and our cat). If I see snakes along the road, I'll often bring them home and cut them loose in the barn. That's just me though
The old fashioned Victor traps, baited with a small piece of raw bacon tied on with thread, will take care of a rat or mouse problem fast than anything I've ever found.
No creature should have to die by the method of rat/mouse poison.
I like the idea Bird gave by attaching the bait to the trap. The mice at our place are attracted by the peanut butter we use on our traps. They lick them clean most nights! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Not funny is the $100 bill from the car dealership to remove the deceased rodent from our auto's heater box.
Thanks guys! We have two barn cats, while they are very active and good at their job-- we still had our rat problemin the barn. We tried the victor traps--both the mouse traps and rat traps. All that did was feed them more than what they were stealing from the horses, and chickens.--chicken and horse feed, and eggs. We even tried a live trap--no go...so we did poison. Not my first choice--obviously--and not my dh's choice either. But we decided to get one of those tomcat traps where you put the bait in, and we only had to put it out once.
Rodent problem is now taken care of.
Even when we lived in the city, we had mice in the house and dealt with mice with just victor traps, and we had the problem for the whole four years we lived there. then when we moved out here, we had the mice rat problem in the barn, and we had mice in the house. At that point, I was not willing to share my home with mice for another 4+ years, so we opted for the poison. Definitely not our first choice, but at least it worked. And now, although I still don't like poison, I will use it again.
thankfully, all the animals I want to keep here are fine
I used to think peanut butter was best, and it's very good, but I've actually had them lick it off without tripping the trap. But with small pieces of bacon tied on with thread, I've never lost the bait without catching the culprit.
Incidentally, on the 11th of this month, my wife said she thought we had a mouse in the garage, that she thought she'd seen mouse droppings in the detergent tray of her washing machine. Now how could a mouse get into that front loading Maytag and up to the detergent tray at the upper left corner? So I sure had my doubts, but I went to Home Depot and bought a package of 4 Victor mouse traps. These Easy Set traps have a big wide yellow plastic imitation cheese bait gadget instead of the old fashioned metal one. It was the only kind Home Depot had and it "looked" like a good idea. After considerabl time and effort, I finally got 2 of them to set; never could get the other two to set and finally threw them in the trash.
Well, 4 hours later (about 2 p.m.) I had a dead mouse in one of those two. Then I could never get it to reset again, and finally threw it in the trash. Apparently we only had one mouse because the other trap is still set and hasn't been disturbed.
Then I went to Victor's website and sent them a message with my opinion of their "new and improved" traps. They promptly offered a refund or replacement, but the 4 traps only cost $2.13, including sales tax, so I just thanked them and declined. But in the process, I learned that they do still make the old fashioned kind (our local Walmart has them, but Home Depot did not) and they say they intend to continue the old fashioned ones.
That is so funny that you mentioned mice rice in the washing machine!! I too have a frontloader and ALWAYS found droppings in the soap dispenser. But like I said, we set traps for 4 years--often had to replace the bait but also caught alot of mice, - but always had more. Even though I don't like poison--at least the problem is done with now
are you feeding the cats? If so, I bet they would rather chase kitty vittles than mice/rats.
Of course, I have seen some rats that looked like they could give a cat a fair fight. You don't reckon it could be something a little larger like a 'coon or 'possum getting into the feed?
The cats get a bit of food--we try not to give them too much wo that they will hunt. We did find a dead rat in the barn--obvious it was killed by poison, and have not seen sign of rats since. We considered it might be something larger--smelled skunk a few times around the barn area--would they eat eggs? Haven't seen any coons or possum around, which doesn't mean there aren't any, but not even our garbage is disturbed--so I'm thinking it's not racoons. Whatever it was was diggin tunnels all over the place (we have dirt floor in our barn) Since we found the dead rat--there have been no more tunnels dug. Like I said--I'm not a fan of poison, but we used it as a last resort. And now we have no more problems.
As far as the cats go, we fill up their food bowl about once a week. Seems they like the taste of fresh kill--it takes a week for them to empty the bowl. And they certainly are not starving--they're getting quite large.
Funny thing happened today with one of the cats--it cought a bird, and our rottie was trying to get the bird away from the cat. Picture a little cat with a bird in its mouth chasing a big rottweiler away. the rottie eventually backed off. quite funny to watch.
I feed all 12 of my barn cats, and feed them well, with Iams dry cat food daily. Most cats hunt for the sport of it, and not just for food. In addition, most rodents carry worms and other parasites, so it's really better for the cats if they don't eat them.
My cats have several places where they leave me their "presents", and some of the cats love giving my wife and me their "presents" in person. We greatly praise them whenever they do that, and they seem to really enjoy being praised. Being a livestock farm, we have lots of feed around to feed rodents, and we had quite a rodent problem until we had all of the barn cats. Now it's under control.
All of our cats have names, and are pets as well. They're all neutered, and really very affectionate. And without them, our farm would be overrun by rodents.
Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."
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