tortoise
Wild Hare
'Tis the season! Cooler nights brings mice into farm houses. How is your rodent situation this year?
2022 Fall/Winter Rodent Season
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tortoise
Wild Hare
I had a mouse get into my kitchen cabinets by way of the dishwasher gaps. I stuffed the openings between cabinets - right under the counter, on the inside - with steel wool. That works! Now they're coming up from my basement under my stove. I've been catching 1 or 2 every night this week so I'm concerned that I might have started too late this year and we might have a mouse population established IN the house. I figure it's easier to trap them under the stove than in the basement, so I haven't tried to seal the gaps. I haven't caught any in the laundry room / dog food area this year.
FarmerJamie
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Fortunately, the only rodents here are tree rats
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
so far just a chipmunk running around here or there. likely won't trap it unless it starts digging new holes someplace i don't want it to.
mice are always around outside. they don't often get inside now with the house and garage being pretty well sealed up. it took me many years to get to this point.
just a few areas outside i have to keep an eye on (the AC unit and the entrance to the crawlspace).
once the S*N*O... starts flying i'll watch for tracks and set traps with peanut butter if there are signs of many running around the problem areas. better to get them trapped before they chew and cause further problems.
Mini Horses
Sustainability Master
So far, so good.....but, challenges start when they harvest corn next door. But they have a challenge with a dozen cats on patrol ... Somewhat feral, so real terminators!
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tortoise
Wild Hare
What did you use to seal? I hope to get to that point soon. IDK where they get into my house. We assume the basement.
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
went around the house and used the expanding foam sealer in any cracks i could get the hose into and then after that was cured i went around and cleaned any extra off so i could cover it with caulk. it has now been long enough that i have to go around and redo some of the caulk before we stain the house again.
refilling some of the cracks and gaps that are now there would also help keep the black ants from trying to build nests in the walls. i usually have to get after them too a few times a year.
in one spot the mice started chewing the caulk away so they could try to get back in but i heard them chewing so i went out there and glued some gravel in that space so they couldn't keep chewing without having to chew through the rocks. i also set some traps to catch the boogers. when i get the caulk gun back out i'll fill that in again and cover the gravel up.
Hinotori
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Not much issues yet. The rats are still out in the marsh eating seeds because it isn't wet yet. We have a native rat that I believe is the Townsend rat, not the common brown rats. Easy to tell it's not brown rats as they don't have huge balls.
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
oh, and i forgot to mention that the other reasons to use the expanding foam stuff was that it seals up any possible air flows that mice can detect and then they figure out there's a gap back there and will chew to get in. if there's no heat/air flow coming out then they'll think it's just a rock or whatever they can't get through too easy and perhaps just leave it alone.
one of the first things i did when working on this place to seal it up against mice intrusions was to go down in the crawl space and put hardware cloth/mesh over any gaps around pipes or vents. with the number of mice i was contending with outside in the walls there was no way i wanted to give them a chance to come in from below too. as it was we had mice crawling in interior walls that i eventually did also spray foam to keep them from having an easy way to get in the house from up there too as it would have been only an easy chew through the plastic vapor barrier they'd put up before they did the drywall.
not long after i got here some wiring stopped working and there's a good chance it was because of mice chewing. i had an electrician come in years later to do some work and run some new wires for a few areas, but we never pulled out any wiring to see what kind of shape it was in or scoped anything to look. i'm almost afraid to see what's in there. it was pretty bad until i got the mice trapped out of the walls. i'm a pretty light sleeper and it was mayhem at nights for a few months until winter got settled in and i'd trapped a lot of mice.
one of the first things i did when working on this place to seal it up against mice intrusions was to go down in the crawl space and put hardware cloth/mesh over any gaps around pipes or vents. with the number of mice i was contending with outside in the walls there was no way i wanted to give them a chance to come in from below too. as it was we had mice crawling in interior walls that i eventually did also spray foam to keep them from having an easy way to get in the house from up there too as it would have been only an easy chew through the plastic vapor barrier they'd put up before they did the drywall.
not long after i got here some wiring stopped working and there's a good chance it was because of mice chewing. i had an electrician come in years later to do some work and run some new wires for a few areas, but we never pulled out any wiring to see what kind of shape it was in or scoped anything to look. i'm almost afraid to see what's in there. it was pretty bad until i got the mice trapped out of the walls. i'm a pretty light sleeper and it was mayhem at nights for a few months until winter got settled in and i'd trapped a lot of mice.
Trying2keepitReal
Almost Self-Reliant
We haven't had any in the house that I know of yet, but DH has the bottle and bucket trap set up in the shop and has caught about 6 in the last month. I haven't seen any or droppings in the chicken area or the barn....yet
