Those little rodents

[Harry]

A friend of mine who is just starting to get interested in Case GT’s needed some guidance. He purchased last year a 444 to cut grass and till his garden. He said it always starts up and runs terrific. He now has a no crank problem. I told him the usual check the battery first. The next day he sent me the pic. He put dryer sheets under the hood to keep the mice out. They didn’t work very well. I told him I’ve had good luck with moth balls. Harry

[JSinMO]

They did a number on him. They are nasty little critters. For some reason they seem to build nests in the front cowl on my tractors. My preferred control method is Tomcat poison and real cats to hunt them!

[DavidBarkey]

Bounce brand sheets sometimes work , no name sheets never work . Moth balls sometimes work . Electronic noise makers sometimes work . What all ways works is to leave the hood propped Open and the shed doors open , they are looking for safe shelter . Remove the Safe and they will not build the nest there . A bag of cat pee , lump from a little box under the tractor will keep them away . If you can smell it so can they . Or in a sealed metal shipping container , but still need to put traps in there because the little buggers can sneak in when you have the door open and cause damage before they die off . Having a cat , your pr the nieghbours wandering your property helps a lot . But the cat needs to be able to get in where the tractors are to remove the Safe from the place .

[propane1]

Bounce brand sheets sometimes work , no name sheets never work . Moth balls sometimes work . Electronic noise makers sometimes work . What all ways works is to leave the hood propped Open and the shed doors open , they are looking for safe shelter . Remove the Safe and they will not build the nest there . A bag of cat pee , lump from a little box under the tractor will keep them away . If you can smell it so can they . Or in a sealed metal shipping container , but still need to put traps in there because the little buggers can sneak in when you have the door open and cause damage before they die off . Having a cat , your pr the nieghbours wandering your property helps a lot . But the cat needs to be able to get in where the tractors are to remove the Safe from the place .

You’re right Dave. They want to hide. And not be seen getting to the hiding place.

Noel

[Harry]

I use mothballs but also traps with peanut butter for bait. I have no problem taking the little critters out of the traps and discarding them. Harry

[Toolslinger]

They have torn up my 444 twice now. They have also done a number on the MF 202, my '65 F750, and attempted to go after the '48 Diamond T. They also got in the blower housing of the JD140. (that was just a mess, not damage)

We've tried mothballs, and dryer sheets, and I can't say I've seen any positive results. I did get some cinnamon oil product to try. No evidence one way or the other on that yet.

The biggest thing that has worked was keeping everything open as much as possible. Everything except the F750 lives in a barn, or garage. The garage is pretty tight, and after trapping anything that snuck in over the summer when the door is open a lot, I don't seem to have an issue. The barn is of course wide open as far as a mouse is concerned. All the hoods are open, I believe I've screened off any opening in the cab of the Diamond T, plus that got the cinnamon... I try to make sure I frequently take a tour of everything, so if they're around, they're getting scared, and hopefully find someplace else to be. There are plenty of areas in the barn they could nest without bothering anything, or being bothered in return. Since I know I can't keep them out, I try to just manage where they are.

Control is managed by snakes, and the significant number of hawks, owls, and a few fox. The neighbors used to have cats, but that has dropped off somewhat unfortunately. Traps get the peanut butter treatment in the garage. Probably 40 traps in there when my uncle heads south for the winter. Usually only clear out 4 or 5 early on. I don't do the poison as I don't want it working it's way up the food chain.

[RoamingGnome]

I saw a couple of YouTube reviews of these mice / rat traps -

https://goodnature.ca/
they are available both from the manufacturer and Amazon, pricey, but for something that is auto resetting, and releases the dead rodent from the trap so native scavengers can take away the carcass is appealing to me - will probably be buying one of these for the property up north when we build something proper to sleep in. Fortunately for the squirrels in my city backyard they haven't been in my attic this winter - or I would be buying a squirrel/rat sized one to reduce their numbers.

[Toolslinger]

That's a pretty neat idea. As an outdoor item, I get the compressed gas choice. I imagine it could be re-engineered to use a solenoid for indoor use to reduce the ongoing expense.

[RoamingGnome]

That's a pretty neat idea. As an outdoor item, I get the compressed gas choice. I imagine it could be re-engineered to use a solenoid for indoor use to reduce the ongoing expense.

Looking through their website the lure pump is good to dispense fresh lure over a six month period. Their threaded 16g CO2 canister is good for 24 kills, a 10 pack of similar canisters on Amazon.ca is $30.00 Cdn...

[THEOTHERHALF]

Hi group, I was replacing a engine, in a high ranger bucket truck, had anti freeze in 5 gallon pail I looked in this pail and there was a lot of dead mice in the antifreeze.so I usually put a little in a pail just for them, they seem to like the wood heated shed and the anti freeze.