Mice in Equipment

[NewYankeeSawmill]

I've got a little Kubota tractor I keep in a 3-sided barn down in the pasture. Critters are grateful I built the barn, and one thing I've noticed lately is I have a mouse that likes to hang out inside the engine compartment. I've found evidence of nest-building in there during the winter (and other parts of the barn as well).
What kinds of things are people doing to keep critters from causing trouble inside their machines out in the field? Do moth balls and mint candies work like they do in vehicles?

[doc henderson]

I have had mice and birds trying to nest in the sawmill.  I had a pack rat in a riding lawn mower.  I had one mouse living in the tongue of my log conveyor.  found him after doing some welding.  the machines and rodents do not go together.  mouse traps.

[NewYankeeSawmill]

I have had mice and birds trying to nest in the sawmill.... mouse traps.

! Funny you mention, found a birds nest last week! Had an egg in it, felt bad... Park it in a different spot now!
I'm about ready to put up some traps, at least around the tractor, but... I get this guy, there's 1000 ready to take its place. Wife suggested a barn-cat, but they're coyote food around here.

[doc henderson]

After two tries, I got the birds to find new spots.  It is an ongoing battle.  I get some mice in the shop in the fall and I get religious about traps for a month and they are gone.  other mice made better choices.  the parent birds were able to move on.  I take the cover off and find a bunch of nest material.  We have had two years of nesting in our umbrella sunshade by a pair.

[GRANITEstateMP]

I moved wood and logs for 7hrs on Sat, on and off my tractor 20ish times.  Sunday I came out to process wood and there was a new birds nest above one of my rear facing work lights.  They aren't bright about where they build them, but there are efficient!

[YellowHammer]

Mice are intolerable and will eventually cause significant damage as well as health issues if you have a cab.  I get the mouse poison, the little green blocks in the black plastic "safety" boxes, and put a couple in the engine compartment or on the frame, a couple in the cab, or anywhere they will not fall off like in the seat when I get off. About three or four blocks per machine, placed in strategic locations, seems to be about right.  It is amazing how often I have to replace them.   

I have had mice build nests right on my cab air filters, (yeah, nasty), nests in the blower vents (have you ever been sprayed with mouse stuff first thing in the morning when you turn a machine on?  I have), destroy wiring, insulation, stuff like that.  My buddy's tractor caught on fire from a bird nest in the engine compartment.

I do not see how any creature can literally poop on its on food or in its own nest and survive, but mice can, and thrive.  But not in my machines. 

[doc henderson]

I had squirrels chew the corner off my fuel tank on the mill.  birds are smarter and will leave an area alone if they are vacated soon and often.  mice are not that smart or very stubborn.  

[beenthere]

I use bromethalin bait for mice. Protect it from other animals. 

https://www.amazon.com/Tomcat-Bait-Chunx-Pail-LB/dp/B005BV0DD2?th=1

[doc henderson]

If a child eats it, you will see their teeth stained green or blue depending on the product, and know they ate it.

[SawyerTed]

I use the green balls in Gatorade bottles laid on their sides.  That way I can look to see if the balls are disappearing and can see the traces that they visited without disturbing the bait "station."  

More inaccessible areas get the balls in a plastic jar lid.   Again, an easy to inspect bait station.   

[Machinebuilder]

Unfortunately, at this time I am at a lose for rodent protection.

a few weeks ago I notice Gabby (my dog) wasn't acting normal, straining to pee and then I saw a bloody pool of pee.
I called my Vet and on the way, they called back and said I should probably just go to emergency.
I stopped at my vet and they did some blood work, The Vet confirmed my suspicion that she had found some rat poison.
She then called The UT Vet school small animal hospital and sent me there. they did some more tests and Gabby basically had no clotting.
they did a plasma transfusion and kept her 2 nights. She has been on Vitamin K since then and will go back to my Vet for a followup test when they finish.

the story I think what happened.

I keep a bait box in the barn I use one of the bromethalin poisons.
I had a piece of roofing tin stored on top of a rack, near the roof of the barn. When I pulled it down about 6-8 of the poison blocks fell from it.
I picked up all I could find, put them in a box that i put out of reach. Several days later I found the box had gotten blown over and most of the blocks were MIA.

I am assuming that squirrels carried the poison from the bait box to the tin, I don't have any other explanation.

The Vet and Emergency care totaled about $3000.

I kept the poison out because I have had issues on things stored in the barn.
One time I was using my Bobcat and a rat ran down the arm. 
Another time I had left my 1997 F150 parked near the barn and the starter stopped engaging. I found there is a hole above the starter and a nest had been built there.
I regularly see nests built in m stickerd piles.

Now I would like to find a reliable pet safe rodent control.

[doc henderson]

my first dog Tippy (a brit. spaniel) died after getting into it.

[tule peak timber]

Poisons are a really bad idea. You end up killing so many more animals that you need on your side for rodent control. We live in basically an oasis here in the high desert and the rat, mice and gopher, ground squirrel trapping is an ongoing event 24/7/365. Rats have destroyed wiring in our vehicles to the tune of $7000, $9000 and a total loss of an F250 Ford. We use bright lights at night, peppermint oil inside the vehicles and pet proof rat traps everywhere around the vehicle area, turkey coop, garden etc. The animals that we catch get thrown on the roof 2x day and it's a regular feeding frenzy for the local ravens and vultures. We also put up multiple owl houses and roosts and have dozens of barn owls living on the property. In the springtime, I catch as many as 50 or more gophers per month, so that's more than 150 per spring that get fed to the birds. We've had dogs eat poison and I'll never use the stuff again. Been a good 20 years since I've become a most excellent trapper of varmints and they just keep on coming. You just have to stay on top of it. 

[YellowHammer]

What kind of traps do you prefer?  Do these traps catch multiples?  Did they kill them?

What do you do about the engine compartments and inside of small spaces?  I don't see how a dog can get to a pet proof box with poison in it, inside my excavator cab or engine compartment...but I know the mice can.   

Barn Owl nests seem pretty good, I guess they don't kill cats?  Certainly the local hawks have killed every barn cat we have ever had, sometimes while we watched.

I'm always looking at alternatives.  I put up bird spikes just this morning, they are trying to nest own my EXIT signs in the buildings, and are pooping all over my equipment, and also I have a brand new, $55 dollar Daisy BB gun in the barn if they don't get the hint.

I've tried gallons of peppermint oil, it didn't seem to work.  I'm trying mothballs now, boxes and boxes of them.  I've even sprayed diesel oil where they like to live and it doesn't seem to both them.    

I'm tired of working in bird and mouse poop.          

[CCCLLC]

Y-H, what kind  of upgrades are planned for that BB gun?

[NewYankeeSawmill]

Y-H, what kind  of upgrades are planned for that BB gun?

Nightforce makes a Red Ryder edition I heard?
I jest, but I've seen some video's on youtube through-the-scope of some of these airsoft guys? Pretty impressive. Birds and Squirrels don't stand a chance, and its just a tiny plastic pellet!

[YellowHammer]

I bought this varmint whacker for $50 bucks or so off the Amazon, and I call it the "Mighty Daisy", which kind of makes it lose it's intimidation factor...  The wooded stock is made from a popsicle stick and I dialed in the sights it at 20 yards with a pair of pliers bending the front sight.  I can just barely hit a coke can at 20 yards, and the first bird I tried to shoot with it, heard the BB coming and I swear it ducked out of the way.  I can see the BB in flight, so I'm sure the bird could too.  it's rated for 450 fps, which is about the speed of a good spitball.  It's hard to describe the trigger pull, it's changes from 4 lbs to 8 lbs though it entire 2 feet of creepy travel.  All in all, a classic, "You get what you pay for" but I wanted a gun slow enough to not drill BB holes in my building or sheet metal roofs.  Right now, my biggest fear is the BB will bounce off a bird, and ricochet back into my eye!

Not really the kind of grade weapon that I am used to but I think it will kill a mouse, especially if I use it like a baseball bat.

When I was a kid, all the neighborhood boys had these or Red Ryder's, and I got popped in the legs more than once and it never drew blood, but it would make you jump.               

[Bert]

I picked up an official Red Ryder, carbine, lever action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle at TSC around Christmas time for about the same price. Its actually surprisingly accurate out of the box. Not so much deadly. Had some American Geese try to take over my pond and watched the BB bounce off ones beak and I dont think it could care less.

[SawyerTed]

Um, Opie killed a mama bird with his slingshot.  

I'm not sure if that's a comment on his prowess, the dumbness of the bird or something about you guys with toys we enjoyed as kids (full disclosure- I've recently looked at the Red Ryder too).  

My son used prism tape strips about 18" long to scare the birds off.   Wind makes the strips flutter and seems to scare them off.   

To keep the pets out of the rodent balls, I wire the Gatorade bottles to something so the dogs can't get to the contents of the bottle.  

[YellowHammer]

I didn't think about the slingshot!  I used to a real Dennis the Menace with a Wrist Rocket.  That would be fun.  I'd probably put my eye out.....

There is always a lot of kid in all of us, just have to let it out, and nothing does that better than an old school BB gun. 

 

[Ljohnsaw]

I've had good luck with just a 5 gallon paint bucket half full of water. I used to do the trapdoor/walk the plank thing but really don't need it. We don't get rain from about April till October or November. Critters get thirsty. If they are around, I get squirrels, chipmunks and mice. Rats are too smart. They hang by their back feet to get a drink and slip. The water is too deep for them to get a good jump so they get tired and drown.

Too high of water and you don't get big squirrels, just the little ones. I have little brown ground ones, little Douglas ones and big gray tree ones.

I get mice and chipmunks in my closed truck box storage shed. Squirrels and chipmunks outside.

I place them on boulders for the Ravens.

I had one of those white square 5 gallon jugs. The pour spout lid was off and it was sitting on its side in the back of the shed. I was milling wood and when my shadow passed by the shed, I would hear a weird noise like a tree branch scraping the truck box. Took a while but I found a mouse in the jug, he couldn't get out.

In my old "American Boys" book, they showed burying an old crock jug with a pipe going down to the hole. Curious mice venture in but don't come out

[Stephen1]

I have 3 options  for my rodent control,  Garlic cloves, dryer sheets and Kiosk Stew buckets.  When I store my boats and close up the cottages for the winter, I spread garlic cloves thorough out the boat, cottage , all the drawers. My machines have dry sheets stuffed in them at all the funny spots, snowmobiles have dryer sheets in them now and it works, also the  Bobcat and sawmill.
Kisok Stew is what John said, buckets of water, but we use antifreeze, cuts down on the smell., 4-6" of antifreeze, a good dab of peanut butter spread 4" down from the rim, I put a wooden ramp up to the edge, they fall in when trying for the peanut butter, drown and are preserved. I put those dead ones down the toilet, good for the septic.   This is only for the inside of the cottages in the winter, as you don't want your dogs and cats to drink the antifreeze. 

[YellowHammer]

Didn't get a picture of it, but my drill press belt slipped off yesterday, I opened the cover and the belt had been chewed all but in half and there was a great big mouse nest under the cover, in the tensioner pulley!  I was not a happy camper.  I need to order two new belts, and there is a poison block under the cover of the drill press in the belt drive system.  The only animals that can get to it are mice... 

I have been trying mothballs for my brown recluse problem, it seems to really work, the odor is quite strong.  so I threw a bag in the excavator, and I hope it does well with mice. 

[doc henderson]

My "Grampi" on my dad's side, had polio and was raising a family during the depression.  Jobs were scarce and no one thought of hiring a disabled person to work back then.  He had trouble walking and farmers would have to drive him out to a tractor in the field.  It made him a little weird and a little mean.  anyway, as he got older, he would set in the living area at a table by a window that looked out at the main road going through Benington Ks.  All his food (bread and peanut butter and jelly) sat on this table.  For entertainment as we visited, if he saw a mouse in the rarely used kitchen, he would hand me the bb gun, and say, "see if you can hit that mouse".  Some on here will understand that generation with a smile.

as an aside, my dad grew up helping deliver milk before school and a paper route after school.  He gave all the money to his mom.  She dies in her 40s from cancer.  this is where I got my work ethic and inability to throw stuff away.  So, I am still a poor kid with a good job.

[Peter Drouin]

Funny, I put out sunflower seeds around my house, like 50 feet away. I do the same at the sawmill too. 4 different places every day, well most days. 
Never had any trouble with anything.
I think they have too much fun digging in the old seed pile.
With free food, they care less about my equipment.  
40 lb last 2 weeks.