MICE....

I'm sure everyone here has their own stories about chewed wires and nests in carburators/air cleaners but here's my latest....
About a week ago I went to get a tool out of the top box on my roll away and discovered mouse nests in three of the drawers....one of em even had some little hairless babies in it.... Well I grabbed the shop vac and cleaned out the nests but they had made a pretty nasty mess of my tools so today I finally got around to cleaning em up.... The closest thing I have around here as far as disinfectant is bleach so I filled up a bucket with about 1/2 bleach and 1/2 hot water and proceeded to wash everything.....
What a nasty mess!!!!! Anybody that thinks Mice are harmless needs to see the Craftsman screwdriver that actually has a flat spot melted in the handle from laying in the piss for a week or so.....
And to add insult to injury....I had forgotten about those baby mice in my shop vac until I turned it on today....had to douse the tank on that baby with bleach too...the exhaust was quite fragrant LOL...

Life in the woods eh.....

Nasty for sure!

Good lesson on the shop-vac!

Had to get one of my long blower nozzles out the other day to blow out the tractor radiators, and... No workee.

Got to looking, and it was plugged up at the compressor end with a solid dirt dobber nest.

It blows air a bit better after cleaning it all out.

50:50 vinegar and water works pretty well on the urine smell.

~ 10% bleach solution should do a good job limiting chance of hanta virus.

To late....I already washed everything with approx 30% bleach/water.....
My tools have never been so clean but my hands smell like bleach.....

Yea....I had to chuckle once it dawned on me what the hell was going on....

get cats that you don't shoot

We adopted a feral kitten that showed up here a couple of years ago. Turned out to be a first-class mouser and ratter. Between her and the black snakes, we don't have much problem with those rodents.

You know how cats will sometimes bring something they have killed and leave it for you? Well, this one (we call her O.D., short for "Other Dog" cause she likes to hang out with the dogs. ) left a neatly skinned rat hind quarters on the front door threshold for me one morning.

Ed

Impossible....doesn't exist....


I can't abide an animal too dumb to learn it's name and a good Terrier'll catch more rodents than a box full of Cats anyways so I see no reason for the species what so ever....

I have a whole herd of cats. Most with very un-PC names.

Unfortunately Tarbaby became coyote poop. But ol' Puss is still around.

Two newest ones in the herd are Gomer and Goober. Think I'm up to 14 now. Saw one with a rodent just yesterday. I believe it was Speedy Gonzales that made the kill!!

Cats learn their names, they just don't care when you call them.

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

I started live trapping Chipmucks the other day got 14 in 4 days and a Blue Jay, letting them go in a woods 1/4 mile from my house!

That's the problem, they are too smart. You would never train a cat to jump into ice cold water to go get a duck that is going to get taken away from them. In all honesty you will need to cull a few till you get a good one

Nothing smells worse than dead rats/mice.

Especially in tight, closed area.

No kidding......I had a couple die under a bathroom cabinet one time....thought my septic was backing up....had to remove the cabinet which led to a bathroom remodel....
They had a pile of DeCon in there which I don't use due to the dogs....they must have been getting it from the neighbor and stock piling....

Frikin rodents....

The good news is....I have quite a few Owel's around the place and they seem to have a bumper crop this year....I have two young ones hanging around on a regular basis....hopefully they'll thin em out....

Course they crap all over the place but again...."that's life in the woods"...

well, now that you got 'em before they growed up inta rats,

ya' won't be needin' them fancy traps I linked to the other day

Mice are damn near as much a pain as the dang pack rats. Smaller, but better able to get into stuff, and usually more prolific.

Reminds me I need to get the traps out to knock down the population before I leave this fall.

Clean tools are a joy, eh?

Geno

One night in the old house I killed a B&C rat with an axe handle I kept by my bed!!! He got one leg caught in a sticky trap. Big damn bastid! Looked like a grinner!

did it hiss at you with blood stained teeth?

piss shiver

I had one to spend the winter and spring inside my combine cab, to be more specific, it nested inside the fan housing. This was in the days when there wasn't air conditioning in a cab, and the fan was the only cooling option. I was through with wheat and the smell was still there. I have a shooting house that I have to de-mouse every fall. I've tried everything to keep them out, and found nothing works all that well.

No, but it made all kinds of other damn racket!!! However it couldn't stand on his hind legs in defiance as they were entrapped in sticky goo.

I once lived in a beat up trailer in the country and the mice were constantly dying in our trailer. One died in the kitchen and it smelled so bad we couldn't even sniff it out. My roommate went crazy and took the whole kitchen apart looking for it and finally picked up the toaster, turned it over, opened the crumb drawer and pulled out a dead mouse. Then he yelled "I'VE BEEN MAKING TOAST IN THERE ALL WEEK!".

I thought the bread was stale!

I had one stuff my air intake and interior air plenum in a Chevy Cruze full of turkey feathers from a Merriam I got. Kept smelling this odor all the time, took it to the dealer thinking it was some kind of mold. The service tech came and got me to show me what he found. I use those herbal packets now and they might work as they have not come back.

Count your blessings. The rats we had in Vietnam were on a whole different level.

While attending TAMU, I had a part time job working at our Lab Animal Research facility. Basically, the job consisted in the care and feeding of all the various animals.
Most of the other employees were very cute Aggie girls who were either Pre-Med or Vet Students, so it was a great College job.

We had more mice than any other animal as at that time, as they were doing research on Recombiant DNA, since they were super fast breeders.
Accordingly, we had to euthanize lots & lots of mice, the job none of the girls wanted to do. So of course, I became the head mouse executioner.

Friday night I was fast asleep and (as usual), my two canids were having the normal occasional yelling match with the Coyotes,... far in the backround,...the sorta' thing one subconsciously seems to turn the volume down on. Around 11 PM that changed, and alarm, anger and VOLUME were evident,...Golly,...Snake, stupid adolescent Coyote jumped the fence, Raccoon,...stray dogs ( or ferals) right on the fence line ? ....sigh, don sweatshirt, and mocs, grab flashlight,...sally forth to see.
None of the above, STRONGLY advised in the olfactory mode of same, directly I open the door,...the place has taken a direct hit from a Skunk, and it's evident that my little Cattle Dog Nip's been in the target area, she's madly rubbing her nose and face in the grass,...butt up in the air, rear legs driving, shoulders front legs and face driven and dragging. The old Queensland Heeler bitch, Grace is ROARING at some thick stuff over by the water well. I foolishly illuminate little Zorillo, and with a coughing snarl more like a lion than a dog, Gracey's got the skunk in her jaws, and runs off into the dark,....North, down the fenceline. Damn near choking in the stinking night air, I retreat into my humble abode, and return to bed......what's left of the night goes dead quiet, and the aftermath of this rank event can be dealt with in daylight.

Breath deeply,....Ah, fresh night air, and life in a rural setting.

You have my genuine sympathies

I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies.

Hope you have some hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, Greg!

BTDT.

I have a dead one in my camping trailer right now, that I have not found as of yet. I guess that I will have to start taking things apart, but don't have a clue where to start. I looked in all the easy places and did not find it. miles

Good girl Gracey....that Skunk had it coming.....

This actually panned out pretty good,...a brief morning service saw Zorillo in an unmarked posthole, no mourners attending. Both of the skunked were demonstrating that behavior from which the term, "Hangdog Look" springs.
Saturday was a good sunny day, and by evening I was able to pet both of em' without having to consider a hand amputation thereafter.
Pretty amazing what the Sun does to whatever that Skunk essence is,...it must be really volatile.

I'm using "Just One Bite" bars, wired into 18" lengths of 2" ABS pipe, and the packets of grain in the parked equipment / vehicles. Thus far only had to deal with one Corpus Rodentious Stinkomatus this year,...it kindly chose to go tits up in a place fairly easy to find (follow the flies) in the tool and parts crib.

Over the last coupla' years, real honest to God Norway Rats have been turning up out here,...`they have certainly taking a beating on my place, ...nowheres NEAR as bright as a Pack Rat.

Having quite a few skunks cruise through lately. Caught 7 so far and the dog has been skunked twice. Skunks are to dogs what doughnuts are to a fat guy. 'they just can't help it'. My problem is really a dog problem as the skunks aren't doing much. Pack rats on the other hand are pests.

Better skunks than porcupines.

Whew, dead mice in a vacuum, pungent!