How to get rid of mice?

[Glenn]

What is a good way to get rid of mice in the smithy?

The weather has turned wet, and cold will follow. Then the mice will start looking for a home for winter. I just want to be prepared for them this year.

[Alan DuBoff]

Glenn,

Don't have enough experience with the smithy, but I like cats!

Traps may work ok also. Cats are renewable, with mice! ;)

[Ten Hammers]

I just use those poisin packets some years. Sometimes I forget. Don't usually have an issue. The local farm store sells poisin in bars, packets and wax pieces that can be nailed to a piece of wood.

[Ferrous Beuler]

Ten Hammers has good advice- all of those products by D-con are effective. You can run a trap line even though the price on pelts is down lately. If you have a mouse problem and opt for the trap remedy you will notice quick results and put a big dent in the population right away, then it tapers off. If it doesn't and your trap line regularly produces lots of victims then take a look around and asess the situation- you are probably inadvertently providing ideal conditions for them, i.e. food/shelter etc. There is a lot to be said for keeping a clean shop. If you have a bigger problem such as rats, then I suggest from experience you avoid the poison option and stick to traps because traps work immediately and poison doesn't. This can leave you with the body of a sizeable critter mouldering away inside a wall or cieling somewhere, whew! A friend of mine who keeps his motorcycle stored on a trailer in the back room of his shop keeps a bunch of mothballs scattered around the bike on the trailer. Before he did this he had trouble with wiring being chewed on by rodents- no more since the mothballs are on gaurd duty. Happy hunting. Dan:)

[irnsrgn]

hungry cats or a friendly black snake are solutions for a mouse free workplace.

Food and water are the two main reasons mice congragate, farmers come up with some ingenious methods of rodent control, due to the large amount of food around the farm.

A 5 gallon bucket with a few inches of water in the bottom and a pop or beer can suspended at the top on a wire so it can revolve and with some peanut butter smeared on it and a piece of wood laid against the side for easy access works quite well, as the mice jump on the can it revolves and drops the mice into the water and they drown. Another version is a bucket about 3/4 full of water with popcorn floating on top, and a ramp for access. Mouse smells popcorn, jumps in to what looks like a solid area of food, mouse drowns. These are simple methods and easy to make, but buy a cat litter scoop to remove the victims daily or the smell is overpowering.

[BT]

Since my shop is located in a heavily wooded area, I keep the D-con bait packets out year around. The bait packets pretty well keep the mouse population under control for me.

[Jymm Hoffman]

Try spreading moth balls around. It really works, my dad uses them every winter in his camper and antique cars. I use them in storage areas where I don't have to put up with the smell.

[the_sandy_creek_forge]

My shop's in the barnyard at my parent's farm, so I rarely have mice problems (good old blacksnakes and bullsnakes) but I did have a spider problem, specifically those big "tunnel" spiders (not sure of the scientifical name) that build a little tunnel in the corners and spring out when you reach for something. They were a problem until I discovered that a couple of toads will either eat the spiders or eat the flies, thereby starving the spiders. I just have to be careful that I don't step on the little greenish brown buggers when I am working. (That and my daughter thinks it really cool that there are toads living under my storage shelfs )

[Mr Smith]

Here's a story... just in time for Halloween!

I was hardening a drawknife in our oil tub one day. Whilst I was doing so, something bobbed up to the surface. "Hello" I thought "Someone dropped a rag into the oil tub!"

Not so.

When I checked the 'rag' a bit closer, it turned out that a rat had gnawed through the chipboard lid of our tub, driven on by the smell of waste cooking oil, fell in and drowned.

To this day, my favourite tongs are known as "the rat tongs."

[Woody]

A one word answer is "CAT". A longer answer is what people have mentioned above, remove what is attracting them in the first place, food and water. Also the sticky traps are less of a hazard than the poison baits such as D-Con etc. Last, deny the little buggers acces to your shop, seal door and other openings so they cant get in. Any small hole such as around pipes etc that is open to the outside can be stuffed with steel wool. They will try to chew their way through that and it will lacerate their innards which will cause them to bleed to death before they can ever get inside. Snakes only work in the warm months, remember they are cold blooded and hybernate in the winter.

Woody

[aametalmaster]

I have 3 inside cats and 2 mini weiner dogs that sniff out everything. When i do get a stray mouse the cats will round it up and play with it until i take it away. Now my neighbor lady has lots of mice and uses that sticky paper trap for them...Bob

[Ten Hammers]

Woody, when you stuff their little holes with steel wool, how do you hold their little feets ? I don't keep food sources in the shop but DO have mice from time to time. Caught a ground hog in the back of the shop that had dug under the slab.

[chanterman]

If you decide to go with spring traps, and have trouble with the mice stealing the bait and not setting the trap off, try the following trick.

Wrap some thread around the bait lever several layers thick. Wrap tight enough so it won't come off easily. Then smear the thread with peanut butter so the peanut butter kinda mashed into the thread. When the mouse licks the peanut butter off the top of the thread, it will then go after the peanut butter in the thread and tug on it, there by setting off the trap.

I had a rather crafty mouse once time who had eluded all attempts at extermination. After hearing my plight, an older co-worker had given me this advice, and it worked so well I have used it ever since.

Best of Luck,
Mark

[BT]

I don't keep food sources in my shop either. The mice bring their food with them :-). If I don't keep the bait packets out, I find caches of acorns, seeds, etc. stashed in all sorts of inconvenient places - belt guards, blower housings, engine air cleaner housings, etc.

[Ferrous Beuler]

Thought I'D chime in with another common problem here in the northeast- red squirrels. Have had some headaches this way until a friends mom unknowingly gave me the remedy. She is an animal lover/hunter hater and just LOVES red squirrels, feeds them apples which they relish so she says. Well I tried it out by tossing some apple slices around for a few days and yup, they love 'em. Had a golfball size hole under the eaves by the chimeny and noticed one of these little buggers pop out of it one day, run the peak of the roof, jump into a pine and scoot. Checked out the space above the cieling (ranch house, no attic) and found a TRUCKLOAD of debris from wall to wall. Pine cones, apples, sticks, leaves, and the scary part- bare copper in a lot of places on the wiring where I shined the flashlight around. So here's what I did once I got them coming to the apple slice buffet; I put a plastic squirrel gaurd around one of the pine trees with a victor spring type rat trap nailed to the tree under it, with the bait end down. The gaurd Like you see under a post mounted bird feeder, keeps them from coming on the trap the wrong way. They can't resist the apple slice on the bait tab and whap! See ya! The .22 gun salute isn't always possible and those buggers are quick but Mr. Victor doesn't miss. Dan:)

[keykeeper]

Nice Ferrous, Very, Very Nice.......Sometimes, the bushy tails have got to go, also. Got any ideas for pigeons? They are worse than squirrels, in my book.

[6013]

Take up falconry. The sight of a pigeon being chased through the local air space is a direct deterrent to other pigeons, even more so if it is caught.

[Blacksmith Jim]

Get a pelican!! I hear they are starting to develop a taste for pigeons.



In regards to the mice, an in-law was just telling me about his success warding of rats with moth balls. Seems like a decent idea.

[Tyler Murch]

Mouse trap.

[Sam Salvati]

A mallet. That'll work

[irnsrgn]

people with store awning and signs and such as well as farmers and houseowners, get one of those fake owls and put it up, pigeons dissappear.

also the elevators and dog food plants get one of those little metal discs that they put under a light bulb when screwing it in, it blinks constantly, drives birds nuts, they find some place else to roost.

[Mr Smith]

On the subject of getting rid of pigeons...

I useta work at a large shopping centre (mall). One of the features of the place was a large central area, which had a roof made of white awning material. With its high ceilings, the place was sorta like a big circus tent. The thinking behind it was that there was no need to spend big dollars on lighting, as the inside was lit up by the sun, as good as daylight.

Unfortunately, the pigeons loved it too. Once a pigeon moved in, we either had to catch them with a butterfly net, or put up with complaints from people when pigeons are eating off of cafe tables, etc.

We solved the problem by getting a recording of a peregrine falcon (falco peregrinus) apparently, they eat pigeons like no-one's business. Anyway, we'd run that recording twice a day over the PA, and chuck up some wooden cutouts, painted up like falcons, and the pigeons were not to be seen again.

It was so effective, the pet shop guy was complaining within a couple days. Apparently, falcons eat pretty much *any* small bird. Oops! :)

[mcraigl]

Trap the pigeons and sell them to dog trainers or falconers. Or give them away. A frind in Reno gets paid $3/bird he traps from the roofs of several of the larger casinos. He then turns around and sells them to $3/bird to dog trainers. He's a falconer and started doing it to feed his birds. He gives live pigeons to other falconers too. Anyway, he makes enough money emptying his traps on his lunch hour to go hunting/fishing in Canada or Alaska every year.

[Glenn]

Progress report:

Tried the trap with peanut butter. One less mouse to worry about now. Thanks for the ideas.

[Marc]

My father-in-law is a retired exterminator, but the company is still in the family. He regularly gets us poison bait and bait boxes. The poison is basically the same stuff in D-Con, but in a waxy cube. The boxes hold the cube and allow the meeses to walk through to the bait, but keep other animals, like my dog, from taking it.

One thing he told me about bait and traps, keep them snug against a wall. Mice are mostly blind and tend to walk along walls instead of across open space.