Getting rid of mice in the shop

[Corby de la Flamme]

I found a solution this past Sunday when I went out to work on some gear.

[InsaneIrish]

edited due to my lack of patience for the page to load.

[Cap'n Atli]

Yep, that's what i use in the summer. Every time my mother used to call me to get a snake out of the garage, I'd promptly transport it to the forge.

In the winter I put moth balls in all of my cabinets, chests and drawers. I also had an owl house on the barn hard by the old forge; maybe i'll build another.

[Pitbull Armory]

Hi. Mice in the shop can be a real problem. Cinnamon oil on cotton balls keeps them away good, and you cant beat the original mouse trap.

Capn Ill give moth balls a try, and how do you build an Owl house? I got a few around here Id like to put a roof over. Do you have a pic?

Thanks

Andy @ Pitbull

[Ld Thomas Willoughby]

Plug any mouse holes with steel wool, they hate trying to chew through it.

[Otto von Teich]

Ive got radiant heat, copper pipes comming through the floors. Every gap between the hole and the pipe is pluged with steel wool. Now I know why! i learn something new everyday....and forget it the next.

[Cap'n Atli]

Owl Houses: Here are a few from the net. If you get a kestrel (sparrow hawk) instead of an owl, that's okay too. Kestrels will eat mice justy as readily. If you get both owls and falcons, they can work two shifts, day and night. Of course, some owls will eat snakes, and some snakes raid nests, and some falcons and hawks will eat other birds, so it ain't no Peaceable Kingdom out there; but they all should keep the d@mn mice populations down.

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/how/w ... -owl-house

http://www.birds1stchoice.com/site/1539738/page/628348

http://www.coveside.biz/barn-owl-house-plans.htm

http://www.coveside.biz/screech-owl-house-plans.htm

"Hooo!"

[Blaine de Navarre]

Hmmm, we don't get so many little mousies around here, it's mostly big ole rats. I've found keeping terriers to be the best rat solution, and you get a best friend out of the deal.

[bigfredb]

How about a Pied Piper . . .

[Jonathan Atkin]

Those rat snakes

[Pitbull Armory]

Thank you Capn. Those look alot like the squirrel houses I make. Just mounted higher. I cant wait to build a few and read through the info on them.

Take care

Andy

[Sasha_Khan]

My friend's suburban garage here in San Diego had an infestation of rodents (mice AND rats) and we used .22 shotshells in pistols. We turned the stereo up louder than usual, and used safety glasses and faceshields - but the neighbours didn't seem to notice...

[Helgulf]

i use these...



they are bengals and no mouse rat or even a snake can stand against them so far. killed a 6 ft long bullsnake a week or so ago.

[AlvarGuerrero]

Those are some damn cool looking cats.

[sha-ul]

Those are some damn cool looking cats.

No doubt!

[Hrolfr]

I use cats. Or hammers

I don't want owls (or kesterels or any other bird of prey) around, because they would not only do in the rodents, but my rabbits and chickens, too!

Nice cats, Helgulf!

[Tom B.]

I have a pair of rat snakes in my shop, one is well over 5' long.
Haven't seen signs of mice in the last year or so.

Almost scared the crap out of me the first time I saw them.
I was looking for our missing house cat in a section of the work shop that has some water damage due to now fixed roof leak. So there are some missing section of dry wall on the ceiling. There was a big bulging / wriggling sag in the fiberglass insulation hanging down from the 9' ceiling. I was afraid that the cat had been upstairs in the shop and had some how gotten into the joist space above this 1 story part of the shop. There was about 1 second there where I watched the squirming wriggling insulation during which I was trying to decide if I should catch the "cat" when it fell.
Luckily the fall happened before I made my decision. The two rat snakes fell about 3' from me.
One 4'+ and the other almost 6'. They promptly fled into the walls.

Tom

[Ironbadger]

a .22 bolt action rifle with shotshells is even quieter.

I cleaned out the old barn on my grandfather's place that way when I was a teenager.
The neighbor's house was right on the other side of the barbed wire fence, maybe 40 feet away and they never even heard me shooting for weeks.

I never got all the rats- but I claimed two opossums and a skunk in the process.

-Badger-

My friend's suburban garage here in San Diego had an infestation of rodents (mice AND rats) and we used .22 shotshells in pistols. We turned the stereo up louder than usual, and used safety glasses and faceshields - but the neighbours didn't seem to notice...

[Jonathan Atkin]

Well if I ever pass by a house with really loud music I'll know whats going on now

[Ironbadger]

Aww..what a cutey.

I love snakes of all kinds, but I have a special place in my heart for kingsnakes and gopher snakes.

Not familiar with this species though.

-Badger-

I found a solution this past Sunday when I went out to work on some gear.

[Jonathan Atkin]

Just remember if a snake has cat like eyes its poisonous if round eyed they are pretty much 99% harmless. Or so I'm told

[Tom B.]

My friend's suburban garage here in San Diego had an infestation of rodents (mice AND rats) and we used .22 shotshells in pistols. We turned the stereo up louder than usual, and used safety glasses and faceshields - but the neighbours didn't seem to notice...

I fondly remember the great rat hunts of my youth.
I used to shoot rats in our barn using CB Caps (subsonic .22 ammo)

Tom