It’s official, we have mice in our outbuildings. When we moved in, there where plenty of trays of rat poison standing in the various outbuildings of the farm, which we promptly removed as we didn’t want the dog to eat it. We never found much evidence of an actual infestation when we first started work on the farm, except for a mouse skeleton and one dead rat.
Lately sneaky things have started to happen! First we noticed little holes in the dog food bag but we suspected that the dog may have been nibbling on it. Then there was the pitter patter of feet we seemed to hear every once in a blue moon in the mud room – hmmm, could be mice, or maybe something on the roof. The signs increased, so we bought some traps.
Apparently they like bacon a lot, and these little buggers are smart too. Bacon gone, trap not set off – very sneaky. The first real evidence of a four legged squatter! There was absolutely no way the dog could have sneaked a tasty bite of bacon, not only did we make sure she didn’t follow us into the mud room, but her goofy 100lbs petite figure is not coordinated enough to slurp up a bacon bit without setting off the traps. This morning another sign of proof, we spotted some mouse droppings. Ah ha! Gotcha…time to call back up.
Hubby and I have been talking about adding to the zoo for a few weeks now. There is just too much space to patrol by ourselves, poison is not an option and apparently these little pests just laugh at traps we set out. We already have two cats, but these little girls are afraid of their own shadows and are pure inside cats – we need the meaner version of them. We will need to add one or two more cats – no, not cats but rather the meanest most vicious mousers out there. Ok in reality they will likely just sun themselves in the courtyard all day, but we hope their pure presence is enough to have rodents stick to the working farms around us.
A co-worker of hubby told us about a guy which apparently has a few issues and constantly finds himself with litter upon litter of kittens. Apparently there are more than 50 adult cats living a swinger lifestyle on his farm and he is happy for anyone who comes and adopts a kitten. From a work standpoint it really doesn’t matter if there are two cats, or four of them and since these new additions will be mostly outdoor cats anyways, patrolling the courtyard and outbuildings, they wouldn’t need to be in the house much. I guess after Easter it will be time to go adopt some kittens, ie. the enforcers.
Yeah Mice are sneaky that way. They have evolved to be able to steal the bait from the traps, What I have found I have to do is use a piece of pecan or nut and wedge it nice and tight into the piece that trips the trap. then cover that with peanut butter. They are lulled into a sense of security while licking off the peanut butter and then they start chewing on the nut and SNAP!!!. that is such a horrible sound at 2 in the morning
Hmm, now that IS sneaky! I don’t think even ours around here would have seen that little trick before…and we have both peanut butter and nuts here so we will have to give this a try tonight…After all, we’re not planning on getting the mousers until after Easter and we don’t want the colony to start growing in the meantime! Thanks!!