EEEK A MOUSE !

[SKR8PN]

You guys all act like....like ...GIRLS!!!

A couple of years back, the neighbor across the back field from us, had a horse for his daughter. She got married, moved out and took the horse with her, but left the rats in the barn. When neighbor man found the rats living in the grain bin, he took his tractor and tore the nest out. This was a LARGE nest. Rats went EVERYWHERE, including onto our property looking for fresh room and board.
At the time, we had a Husky that had a bladder the size of a pea, requiring that she be let out every 4 hours. The Wife let Gretchen the Husky out at 3:00 am one morning to do her business. When she let her back in, The Wife noticed this black greasy looking stuff on Gretchen's face. WTH? Upon closer inspection, The Wife discovered is WAS grease.....from the bottom of the Webber BBQ grill!! Wife wakes me up, to let me know SOMETHING not right, is going on with the Husky. (Gretchen would NEVER messed with ANYTHING food related) So I get up, get dressed and survey the situation. As I am heading to the potty, I suggest to The Wife that she simply let the dog back out, but THIS time, leave the deck light on so she can see what is going on. She does, and Gretchen IMMEDIATELY heads to the Webber and starts sniffing and pawing around, trying to get into the grill. The Wife tells me what is happening, and, being that I am still engaged in "other business" I tell The Wife to open up the grill and see what the heck is going on. When she tossed back the lid, there, in plain sight, was the largest rat ever born, staring straight at The Wife and the dog!! Gretchen took off after this viscous creature, but it made it under the fence just in the nick of time. The Wife was speechless. Literally. She was so scared that her mouth was open but nothing was coming out, and she was doing this silent scream 1 foot off the floor, in the kitchen, down the hallway and into the bathroom. I didn't know women could fly and NOT talk.
That turned out to be very interesting summer. Rats were EVERYWHERE for a few weeks. Shot a few, trapped a few and few got picked off on the road!
I managed to trap "THE RAT" later that week when he tried to eat scraps off our compost pile. I know it was him because he still has BBQ grease on him! The Wife was not convinced, and still swears up and down that the rat in the grill was fourple times bigger than the one I trapped.

 

[Javamama]

All I can say is - where there is one mouse, there are many mice. Keep an eye out.
And something came out of my mouth the other day that just made me giggle - "boy that hen sure is a good mouser!" Problem is that all the other hens are not and they get in her way when she's on the hunt. So we have to set traps under the coop or else the mice hang out in the nest boxes

 

[Ldychef2k]

As if being a "girl" is a bad thing. Harumph.

Okay, we have a situation. We must convene in The War Room. Why? This is not a mouse. It is......(drum roll)......Ratzilla. How do I know? The scat. And I dont' mean a vocal exercise either.

On my way to check the now laughable "trap" in the garage, I stopped in my office to turn on the computer, and there on the seat of my chair was a piece of poop twice to three times the size of what one would expect from a mere mouse. And....in the kitchen....the remains of my peanut butter sandwich were far distant from the plate on which it rested last night.

The "trap" in the garage? Undisturbed.

The Allied Forces (my SIL and I) will be holding a strategy session later today. The situation is Code Orange. Take no prisoners.

 

[big brown horse]

You mean Raid won't work?

So much for Plan B.

Okay....I have to be the first to say it....

You gals are such GIRLS!!!!!

Wanna hear a good one? When I first moved here, there were these big, brown rats in the cellar house. I know this because I moved something and two rats fell out of it......

So, I put out my One-Bite and checked the next day. Nothing. Then I forgot about it in all the moving and grooving. A couple of days later, I go out and find the rats lying near the door, apparently unable to get out to breathe their last breath. Oh, too bad! NOT!

So, being the practical woman that I am and not having a SIL to which to scream and having boys who feel a "you killed it, you clean it" attitude......

I picked up the rats by the tails and walked calmly to the fence and gave them a toss. They fell at my feet, tails missing the skin. Ew.

I gingerly pick them up by the naked, bony tails and give a toss....success!

Later that night I am showering and notice a worm-like thing circling the drain, but not going down. I bend over, wondering how an earth worm got in my tub without me noticing it. I picked it up~ being the tomboy that I am~and the worm has FUR!

Yep. You guessed it. When I tossed the rats and the fur skinned off the tails, one flew up into my hair and I had been wearing a dead rat's tail in my hair all day long without knowing it.....

.....guess I should have used a rat-tail comb to comb out my hair that evening!

OHA MYA GOD!!!!!

 

[big brown horse]

As if being a "girl" is a bad thing. Harumph.

Okay, we have a situation. We must convene in The War Room. Why? This is not a mouse. It is......(drum roll)......Ratzilla. How do I know? The scat. And I dont' mean a vocal exercise either.

On my way to check the now laughable "trap" in the garage, I stopped in my office to turn on the computer, and there on the seat of my chair was a piece of poop twice to three times the size of what one would expect from a mere mouse. And....in the kitchen....the remains of my peanut butter sandwich were far distant from the plate on which it rested last night.

The "trap" in the garage? Undisturbed.

The Allied Forces (my SIL and I) will be holding a strategy session later today. The situation is Code Orange. Take no prisoners.

Get the one bite bars and DO NOT PICK THEM UP BY THE TAIL!!!!!!

 

[patandchickens]

Oh my, you really don't want rats. And if there is one, there are others.

The sum total of my knowledge of rat extermination is as follows: 1) I have never had one taken in by a rat-sized snap trap, nor do I know anyone who's had luck that way; and 2) if you take plaster of paris powder and mix in enough peanutbutter to form a stiff dough, and put walnut-sized balls of that around for the rats to eat, the rats disappear real fast (although no guarantees about where the carcasses end up).

I will be the first to grant that dying by plaster of paris heating up and hardening in the stomach is not the nicest way to die, but on the other hand there is ZERO secondary toxicity (to anything that might then eat the poisoned rat or carcass thereof). Keep it away from any other animals, as with any other type of bait.

Good luck (and make sure you are putting EVERYTHING edible into glass or metal containers, in conjunction with trying to get rid of the rats themselves),

Pat

 

[big brown horse]

Pat that is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Henrietta23]

We had 4 rats living in tunnels under the big rocks near our chicken coop two or three summers ago. We caught one in a havahart trap immediately. The others were too smart to fall for it after that. It took two weeks of watching their patterns (broad daylight, coming out of a certain hole and following a very precise path into the coop for chicken pellets) but we did catch all three in snap traps.

 

[Ldychef2k]

That plaster of paris thing sounds great. I wish I had more than a handful of pennies. That's the frustrating part.

My son-in-law recommended sticky traps. No. Way.

Trying to think of anything else that might work other than plaster of paris, that I might have on hand. Spackle?

 

[big brown horse]

That plaster of paris thing sounds great. I wish I had more than a handful of pennies. That's the frustrating part.

My son-in-law recommended sticky traps. No. Way.

Trying to think of anything else that might work other than plaster of paris, that I might have on hand. Spackle?

Quick crete?

Don't do the sticky traps! Horrible! I speak from experience.