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Ron Citerone
11-26-2018, 8:16 PM
My Father in Law's 4 car garage/barn has a serious mouse problem. I was reading reviews of the next generation of mouse poison and many said they don't work. Is there any brands people have had good luck with? I know the building is not sealed in many places, but I need to knock them back a little. Droppings all over the place...............even in my lumber pile!!!:mad:

Thanks, Ron

Doug Garson
11-26-2018, 8:23 PM
If I were you I'd look into some of the ultrasonic pest repellent systems to keep them out of the garage. If the building is not sealed you may be trying to kill every mouse in the neighbourhood. I've had them in my garage for years and often work with the door open and haven't had any sign of mice for years.

Ted Calver
11-26-2018, 8:24 PM
I don't like poison because it can affect other animals/birds in the food chain. Better to try one of the bucket traps or some other mechanical device. I've been experimenting with an electric one but haven't had any takers yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIlYiiCGLI

Myk Rian
11-26-2018, 8:37 PM
Regular spring type mouse traps, with no bait. Seriously. You don't need peanut butter or any other treat they like.
Set the trap, and put the paddle end up against a wall. Since mice are wall runners, they just go right over it. Snap.
Also works for rat traps.

Jerry Bruette
11-26-2018, 8:49 PM
I tried the ultrasonic repellents and they worked for a while then the mice came back. The bucket traps, baited with peanut butter, worked very well but you have to stay on top of them and keep them emptied or they get nasty real fast. I'm currently using Tomcat bar bait in a PVC bait station. You can Google PVC bait station to see how to build one for a couple dollars. If you choose bar bait use it responsibly. Only use it in a station that your neighbors or your pets can't get into, and they should be child resistant also.

Oh yeah, I tried using D-con bait pellets and found that the mice just carried it away to stash it somewhere else and found green colored droppings. Quit using it and went to bar bait. They can't carry it away and haven't found any droppings anywhere.

Another tip. Place the bait stations outside of the building, no sense inviting them in. Keep it outside and the mice stay outside with the bait.

Tom M King
11-26-2018, 8:53 PM
The best mouse trap I've found is a tall, kitchen plastic trash can. Put a small variety of good smelling food in the bottom, and leave it beside something they can climb on. They go in, but can't climb out. It needs to be cleaned out good before the next use.

Ed Labadie
11-26-2018, 9:26 PM
I use the poison blocks that have a hole thru them, screw it to the wall....no take-out orders here...

Ed

Aaron Rosenthal
11-27-2018, 12:52 AM
I have them in my basement.
Victor electrical traps with 4 batteries, and a black cat.

John K Jordan
11-27-2018, 2:18 AM
Can you borrow some cats for a while? Mice like to move inside when the weather gets cold. Eliminating food supplies inside can help too, things such as birdseed.

We have two in-and-out house cats that often catch rabbits and chipmunks - mice in the garage don't have much of a chance. I put a cat access door in the wall between the laundry room and the garage, the type often used to the outside.

Three barn cats outside are pretty good at keeping the general mouse population down around the house and barn.

JKJ

Peter Kelly
11-27-2018, 4:21 PM
They'll kill all the songbirds around you while they're at it.

Spend a day sealing up all of the potential points of entry to the building and trap the ones remaining inside afterwards. I'd had a serious mouse problem at the house Upstate for some time prior to doing this. Mouse-free for almost 2 months now.

Jim Becker
11-27-2018, 6:39 PM
There are some things that professionals have available that do the job with less risk to the immediate food chain, but they shouldn't really be employed unless it is a last resort. (We unfortunately had to do that recently when for the first time in over 20 years, we discovered not just mice, but some rats that came out of nowhere and we couldn't risk the danger to our parrots...the rodents will attack them) There is a product available at the 'borg that you can try first called Mouse-X/Rat-X which is a corn gluten meal based, non-chemical product. It swells in their intestinal tract and subsequently interferes with them continuing to live. We also have good success with the electric traps.

John K Jordan
11-27-2018, 6:45 PM
They'll kill all the songbirds around you while they're at it.

Spend a day sealing up all of the potential points of entry to the building and trap the ones remaining inside afterwards. I'd had a serious mouse problem at the house Upstate for some time prior to doing this. Mouse-free for almost 2 months now.

Maybe, maybe not. My best hunter can catches mice, moles, small rabbits, chipmunks, and an occasional squirrel. He tries, but is rare for him to catch a bird, one I remember in the last several years and it was a carolina wren.

Some cats are different. When I was a teenager our cat brought in full sized rabbits, crows, and once a large ring-necked pheasant. That cat caught a lot of birds. About 20 years ago I had a cat that was a champion squirrel catcher - I found eight partially decomposed squirrels in a window well where he dropped them through a grate. I never saw him with a bird or other catch.

For traps, I like the little plastic live traps (baited with peanut butter) instead of the snappers, just one reason is there were sometimes small children around. I euthanize the mice with a shot of nitrogen in a container. I have far more problems here with raccoons, skunks, and groundhogs.

Speaking of peanut butter, that and a single electric fence wire will solve the deer-in-the-garden problem too.

JKJ

Jim Koepke
11-27-2018, 6:46 PM
I don't like poison because it can affect other animals/birds in the food chain. Better to try one of the bucket traps or some other mechanical device. I've been experimenting with an electric one but haven't had any takers yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIlYiiCGLI

If you have cats that hunt mice, then the poison should be avoided.

The bucket roller looks good, but it seems some of the mice might be wise to it.

jtk

Lee Schierer
11-27-2018, 6:54 PM
I've had good success with the Tomcat bait and their traps. I also use regular old spring traps baited with peanut butter in the house. To make the traps more effective tie a bit of cloth to the trigger and mash the peanut butter into the cloth. Once they lick off the soft part, they tug on the cloth and that is all they do ever. I don't recommend the bait if you have cats that are free range.

Cats only work to a point. The farmer up the road has no fewer than 6-12 cats and you can walk through the barn during milking time and see mice running along the old round timber beams in the ceiling. It has been that way for years, yet you always see cats with mice and dead , partially eaten mice.

Peter Kelly
11-27-2018, 7:18 PM
Maybe, maybe not. My best hunter can catches mice, moles, small rabbits, chipmunks, and an occasional squirrel. He tries, but is rare for him to catch a bird, one I remember in the last several years and it was a carolina wren.Domestic cats, considered a global invasive species, kill anywhere from 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds in the lower 48 states each year.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

Tom M King
11-27-2018, 7:34 PM
Peter, I take it you don't have a barn? We will always have barn cats, and always feed the birds. It's rare that the birds feed the cats, as much as the cats try.

edited to add: Our barn cats have always just showed up. They were not a result of our own irresponsibility because we always have them spayed, or neutered. I do agree that feral cats are a problem, but we don't contribute to that.

Ron Citerone
11-27-2018, 9:35 PM
Thanks for the help. I live 45 minutes from there so anything that requires cats or constant disposal is not an option. I only get there every second week or two. I guess I will buy a bunch of traps and see what happens.

Thanks all!
Ron

John K Jordan
11-27-2018, 9:42 PM
I do agree that feral cats are a problem, but we don't contribute to that.

Maybe they do this everywhere: there are organizations here that catch feral cats, or accept feral cats anyone catches, and spay and neuter then release them back where found. The idea is to reduce the breeding population.

Some years ago I caught a big, mean feral cat that was terrorizing my cats and tried to eat the live trap for lunch and my hand as an appetizer. I had him modified and paid for a checkup and all his shots. (The vet clips the tip of the ear to mark a feral cat in case it is caught and brought in again.) When I got home instead of releasing it I decided to domesticate it as an experiment. I kept it for four months in the shop, first in a cage, then shut up in my welding room, then gave it free range in the shop, all with lots of attention. Today it is a big fat happy friendly barn cat who dreams of being a lap cat. With the clipped ear I named him Vincent.

As for the bird deaths, from the Nature article abstract: " Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality." I suspect the feral cats have to kill if they want to eat so the survivors are good at catching birds. I've watched one of my cats stalking birds but the birds are too fast and the cat is too slow. It soon tires of that game and is ready to come inside and put in another shift towards his 16 hour sleep quota.

JKJ

Tom M King
11-28-2018, 9:13 AM
They don't do that even close to everywhere. Probably, just in, or close to big cities. There's not enough tax base to cover such things here, out in the country.

Peter Kelly
11-28-2018, 10:25 AM
Peter, I take it you don't have a barn? We will always have barn cats, and always feed the birds. It's rare that the birds feed the cats, as much as the cats try.My shop located at my parent's property in Chester County PA is in the lower level of a 1700's bank barn. I'm vigilant about keeping it clean.

No cats, very few mice.

Jim Becker
11-28-2018, 5:42 PM
My shop located at my parent's property in Chester County PA is in the lower level of a 1700's bank barn. I'm vigilant about keeping it clean.

No cats, very few mice.
I bet that's a very kewel building, Peter!

Alan Rutherford
11-28-2018, 6:15 PM
...As for the bird deaths, from the Nature article abstract: " Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality." ... Same publication a few months later: "Free-ranging domestic cats in the United States kill many more birds and mammals than previously thought, making them possibly the top anthropogenic killer of US wildlife." https://www.nature.com/articles/494009a

It's well-established that cats are in effect an invasive species and extremely detrimental to all manner of wildlife. No one thinks that applies to their cat and maybe it doesn't but there's no question about cats in general. Other research shows that on average, cats kill something for every 16 hours they are outdoors. That's whether it's a house cat that's usually indoors or feral. Again, maybe not YOUR cat but we're talking averages. My last cat probably brought the average up and it's not because he wasn't well fed or didn't have a home to come back to.

Spay and neuter programs are an expensive non-solution.

Tom M King
11-28-2018, 6:30 PM
I think our cats must do a pretty good job of getting rid of mice in the barn. Sometimes we have to let the chickens in to clean up the grain that the horses drop.

If cats could only catch Ospreys, we'd be better off here. We're about overrun with Ospreys. They've taken every available tree, and have started building nests on peoples' chimneys. Before the power companies put bird deterrents on any power pole crossbar, anywhere close to the water, there was a nest on every pole.

I have no doubt that Sharp-shinned Hawks take more songbirds here, than cats do. They even steal babies out of nests.

Peter Kelly
11-29-2018, 11:54 AM
Except that Sharp Shinned hawks aren't a non-native invasive species in North America.

Bigger picture; suburban bird feeders tend to create unnatural concentrations of small birds as they're reliable sources of food. Often where you'll find free-roaming domestic cats, feral cats as well as raptors waiting around for their next meal. Not exactly great for birds.

Peter Kelly
11-29-2018, 12:08 PM
I bet that's a very kewel building, Peter!All timber framed out of American Chestnut too. Shop is where the windows and double doors are.

https://i.imgur.com/cn0UaP5.jpg

Not a great photo, I should tidy up inside and do a tour sometime.

https://i.imgur.com/O8umwwJ.jpg

The house itself is from mid-1600s, originally a Penn's Grant property.

Jim Becker
11-29-2018, 12:40 PM
The house itself is from mid-1600s, originally a Penn's Grant property.

Very nice! The 250 year old portion of our home here in Bucks County was originally part of a very large bit of land that William Penn provided to a family by the name of Paxton...many of the stone structures in this immediate area were part of that and were all apparently built by the same mason. The main property is currently listed for $10 Million about 3 miles as the crow flies from here.

We now return you to your regularly schedule thread on "fun with rodents". :D :D :D

Mel Fulks
11-29-2018, 1:18 PM
What a beautiful place ! Calendar material second only to girls !

Peter Kelly
11-29-2018, 1:19 PM
The original Penn's Grant owner of our place was a man named Goodwin Walter who signed the deed to the property in Wiltshire England sight unseen. Within three months, he'd sailed to Philadelphia, walked out to where the property is now and somehow found a cave to live in while he built the original bit of the house. It must have been a wild hinterland in those days. One of the Amish guys re-doing the roof pointed out to me that you can just see the top of the Comcast tower now.

Bill Dufour
11-29-2018, 9:53 PM
My sister had good luck with the victor electric trap in her shed. They make fancy ones with bluetooth etc that send a text when they go off or the battery is low..
I wonder if spam works well as bait in a wifi trap? maybe they like Phish instead. I wonder if there are experts in debugging mouse traps?
Bil lD.

Kris Cook
11-29-2018, 10:14 PM
My wife read about using cotton balls soaked with peppermint oil. I put them in the travel trailer last year when it was stored for the winter. No mice issues. We live in an old house (relatively - 115 yrs :)). We have been in the house for a year and used the cotton balls last winter. No mice issues. Might be worth a try.

Mike Cutler
11-29-2018, 11:54 PM
Regular spring type mouse traps, with no bait. Seriously. You don't need peanut butter or any other treat they like.
Set the trap, and put the paddle end up against a wall. Since mice are wall runners, they just go right over it. Snap.
Also works for rat traps.

I gotta try this.
We just use regular spring traps, they work fine.
As for the use of cats, they work. We have three in the house and the new neighbors have two or three that roam free. Squirrels, chipmunks and mice are pretty much non-existent around our place now. The songbird population is pretty steady.
We don't have bird feeders any longer, not just because of the cats, but it lures other predators, and the mice population exploded when we put out feeders.
Gotta agree with Peter, Cats are not exactly the most environmentally sensitive creatures. They can be pretty detrimental if left unchecked.

Matt Mattingley
11-30-2018, 12:08 AM
Get them before they come in... and/or get them if they’re in there. A 5 gallon bucket with 1 gallon of washer fluid. We use this at our cottage. There’s many kinds of DIY mouse trap dunk tags. In one evening you can kill 30 mice and not have to reload the trap. A little bit a peanut butter and your usually good for a month.... for the whole winter in my case with the cottage. It is also beneficial to close up any entrances. My shop I just have three regular traps.