Rodent control

I need some help with mouse control. We have 4 hens out back and their food has started attracting mice. A lot of mice. Nearby, we have a concrete block room that houses our mower, garden supplies, etc. It is only accessible from the outside. Mice have taken up residence there, and feast on chicken feed all night. I've set up old school rat traps, a live trap and a rat poison trap. Nothing has been very successful. I've only caught 2 so far - 1 with the spring trap and another with the live trap. Amazingly, the bastards can eat food right off the trigger of the spring trap without setting it off. And I've got them on a damn hair trigger.

Any suggestions on new approaches? Is there such a thing as fogging for rodents, like one would for bugs? I'm desperate for ideas, as they are starting to multiply.

Purry & Furry mouser.

I can't help you with the mice themselves, but I use a steel trashcan to store our chicken food, and a smaller 5 gallon bucket to actually dispense it. It's worked for years and keeps the mice out of the food.

You need to get some snakes

Bucket trap.

WonkoTheSane wrote: I can't help you with the mice themselves, but I use a steel trashcan to store our chicken food, and a smaller 5 gallon bucket to actually dispense it. It's worked for years and keeps the mice out of the food.

Link to the bucket dispenser? They can't access where I store the food. But they're definitely eating out of where the chickens do currently, which is a 4" open PVC gravity feeder.

OHSCrifle wrote: You need to get some snakes

We have those! In fact, I was handling a garter snake just last night. They're just not working hard enough!

Dr. Hess wrote: Bucket trap.

Never heard of it, but I game to try.

dyintorace wrote:

OHSCrifle wrote: You need to get some snakes

We have those! In fact, I was handling a garter snake just last night. They're just not working hard enough!

Not garter snakes. What you need is a couple 3' black snakes. No mouse problem with them around.

Corn snakes are good too.

There's lots of designs. I use the flapper door type myself, but the can type seems to be popular these days. Google Fu.

Oh, sorry, I meant I use a 5 gallon bucket to get the food from the trash can to the poultry feeder.. chickens will eat mice, I've never seen one in the coop.

When my Dad was the in the military, midwestern farmers were having a prairie dog infestation. They would call in the servicemen with their service rifles and use the prairie dogs for target practice.

It's worth a shot!

Yeah a diy bucket trap will take care of this. 5 gal bucket with water in the bottom. I drill two holes at the top of the bucket and run a coat hanger rod across. Then use a small round plastic container, punch two holes in that and run the coat hanger thru so it spins. Coat the plastic with some jiff and duct tape a yard stick against the top of the bucket.

The plastic container becomes a spinning peanut butter wheel of death.

If the peanut butter disappears but nothing's dead you have a large rat problem and need a trash can trap instead.

5 gallon mouse trap(aka wheel of death)

[ECOCANOEIC Paddlation] said:

In reply to dyintorace :

I'm sure it's easy to keep mice out of a canoe

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

FYI.  I tweaked your post to remove the paddler's screenname SEO freeloading