12 guage w/night vision....and lots of shells-but that is from the land of shootin stuff.....or a gato will help iffin it ain't too lazy

mice hate the smell of mint a very little bit goes a long way
couple of bucks in the store also dryer sheets or put some mint on the dryer sheet ..moth balls are very toxic in enclosed areas suppose to repel snakes however ??? any ideas on keeping copperheads out of the shed ??? yep do throw moth balls under the shed hate the smell however terry

The best thing for mice is cats.
One cat that doesn't bug you very much will be all it takes to keep mice away. They will be scared of the cat and won't even try to come in even when the cat is not present. Get a stray cat or a dumb cat that just comes around to get fed and halfway lives in the workshop but wanders around the property.

I use the rat poison that has a blood thinner in it, and occasionally I find mumified mouse and rat carcases under workbenches and behind things. A few times there has been a stink that takes a few days to go away, which is from them dying inside the walls. Also, flypaper put around the perimeter of the walls inside the shop- the little critters step a foot on it, can't pull it off, so they put another foot on it for leverage. You find them scuttering around the next day, with the flypaper attached to their feet. And of course cats work, but they need to be in the shop late at night after you've finished working, because generally the mice and rats come out at night when it's quiet.

A 12ga., belt feld, shotgun with a motion detector/targetting system works well, but is a tad hard on walls, cabinetry, tools, windows, etc.

:D

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

Keep yer mouse with yer computer :blink:

a mate of mine collected mousetraps ,he had thousands of the buggers ,rangeing from very simple to very complex,one of his traps from the early 1900'stook a 22 sized blackpowder short cartridge,it was baited up the mouse stuck his head inside and had his head blown off,wouldn't be so hot at 1 in the morning but you would know when to reset it

My buddy George.

A mallet. That'll work

lol my dad uses a big wooden spoon

Well I designed a few years back wicked strange mouse trap. You take an old garbage disposal place a pvc top on it with a motion detector to turn it on and off and a place for bait. Then run 2 inch pvc at a good angle to it like a slide. Once they enter they never leave except down the drain.
;)

A friend of mine built and ran the "Mega Zap Rat Trap" based off a neon sign transformer, some copper mesh and a piece of fiberglass rod. Unfortunately one rat bridged the contacts and when he returned home there was a scorched area in his room and a lot of whispy carbon floaters in the air. His landlord was not amused.

To xxxx with cats. Cats remind me of... cats.

Get a Terrier. They don't eat birds, they do kill rodents, and they're DOGS.

I let my slack tub freeze over, then take a 1'' drill and drill a hole in the center of the ice. Smear some peanut butter around the edge of the hole. When I see them eating the peanut butter I sneak up and kick them right in the ice hole.

Chuck

Mink are great for mice, rats and any small critters that are around. Other than that, cats are great.

I like the ball bearing mouse trap....................A tomcat!!!:lol:

of all of the places I found evidence of mice in my shop, before I moved I found a mouse nest in the tuyer of my solid fuel forge, right where the horizontal pipe connects just above the ash dump. My fan wasn't getting enough air into my fire so i thought maybe i had ashes blocking it, i took apart the pipes and found a mouse nest being built. since i moved to my new shop site i haven't seen anything. and i doubt i will. this building has been here for generations with no noticable rodent problems.

to fight mice... the cheapy traps work great. A scoped .22 rifle with the ratshot rounds work great too. Thats how i cleared my old house of rats when the exterminator with his poisons, traps and all of the advice he could give, failed...after 3 months of the exterminator's help doing nothing to eliminate the few rats I had. I started with 3-5 and it became 25-30. So I gave up, concelled my contract and then got the guns going. I shot the adults, about 15 of them, and then used mouse traps to contain the little ones...in about two weeks I was rat free. The gun and ammo combined with a set of toy night vision goggles from walmart(they actually work better that the gen 1 NVGs). These things were little more than a IR sensative black and white camera on the outside and a small video screen on the inside of a wierd looking helmet, but they worked great!! I was amazed at how well they worked.

traps poison and environment modification may work for some, but for me it failed miserably. Now the army's way of "throw enough lead at the problem and it will go away," worked very well. lol

I had a rat problem in my workshops and didn't want to use traps or poison because of my 3 dogs.I bought the electronic rodent deterents.It took about 2 weeks but they aren't in my shops anymore.The maker is Victor,they are cheap and plug in,no batteries.

Mice - cute little things! The ones in my shop climb onto my bench and eat the fat I keep in a tub for lubricating pritchels. When the've had enough they will collect odds and ends and place them on top of the fat, bits of chalk, nails , anything small.
I just trap them - my shop dog can't reach the bench! :rolleyes:

This is some sort of trick question, right?

I don't know if you have any cats Glenn, but if there are NO mice around this is one of the ways they are can take out their frustration :lol:

Tropical rats...big fat ugly rats...2-6lbs...no kidding! I was in the Coast Guard stationed on Iwo Jima Is. from 7-69 t0 7-70, on a Loran station that guided our B-52's to Vietnam. Isolated duty for a yr...really sucked, as in Playboy pages stuck together.

However,the nightly sport was who could kill the most rats in the cable trenches between the engine room and the electronics room, ie, engineers vs electronics.

The engineers won hands down. They would cut the center out of a #10 food can and solder a 220v to the cut off bottom of the can and another to the center of the cutout( not attached to the perimeter) and place a dollup of peanut butter on the center.

Wow...fried rats that made so much noise that there was no doubt as to who was winning. After awhile, the mgmt, as in all military operations, decided that the enlisted swabbies were having too much fun and nixed the festivities. Must have been a pre runner to PETA.

As an enlisted CG Seaman, it was one of my few memories of isolated duty on Iwo Jima Island. Sad, but true.

On Wed, I was in the machine room of the shop, and smelled something dead...I know that smell... a rat! The 3 rescue cats nailed another one.

I love those guys...and feed them well.

John

I let my slack tub freeze over, then take a 1'' drill and drill a hole in the center of the ice. Smear some peanut butter around the edge of the hole. When I see them eating the peanut butter I sneak up and kick them right in the ice hole.

Chuck

Good one!! :lol: :lol:

Why am I flashing on one of those 10 pound cast iron anvils with ACME painted on the side, an electomagnet and a microswitch mounted in a hole...

Rural Australia gets bad for mice some years. Watch - Mouse Plague invasion. on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTBPk1kunA youll see what i mean. Guiness world record stuff.
I have seen clever traps like http://www.swiftrap.com.au/about-swiftrap.html work pretty well. Sometimes filling a 44 gallon drum in a night or two.

My local green tractor dealer sells a product designed to repel rodents in small areas like tractor cabs. It is a little pouch with sawdust and the oil from balsam fir trees. Smells good, and definitely is a better option than mothballs (toxic). I still use traps and bait in and around the barn, but the repellant might be a good option for small rooms and equipment cabs.