Tails of Woe: Pest Control

One challenge encountered when living on a farm is pest control. Normally I don't view nature as a pest, even when it presents coyotes or skunks near the henhouse. My view is that if humans really are smarter, they can outwit most critters with good defense. In my opinion, only humans less smart than their adversaries resort immediately to lethal methods or what the army calls extreme prejudice.

I prefer deterrents.

But living in the middle of the country means you are surrounded by rodentia of various sizes and capabilities. When it is cold or wet, said rodentia love to come inside, just like you or I might. It can sometimes be a challenge to keep the little critters out.

The henhouse is especially vulnerable, since the food silo for chickens must be at chicken-height or just a few inches off the floor. Mice can climb up or down anything and seemingly reach any food that is available. One spring evening when I first moved here,  I left a 4 gallon steep sided pail  in the coop next to the galvanized trash cans I use for food storage and found about 50 to 100 mice in the pail the next morning. It was grotesque. The mice had begun to eat the mice on the bottom (they can't seem to survive long, not even a day without water), and the bottom few inches were a mash of half-eaten mice, with the survivors milling about on top, one of the more disgusting sights I have ever seen in my life.

I did catch a half-pail of mice that way in a highly infested area, but I prefer not to do that again.

Recently I found an amazing product that does an excellent job of mouse deterring.

No, it's not Missy the cat, she exercises only extreme prejudice. The middle artefact also. I have included it since it is my favorite and most reliable manmade mousetrap, infinitely superior to the fingermashing wire Victory traps of yore. It's like a hair clip, and when it catches a mouse (peanut butter makes excellent bait) you just have to take the trap to a disposal site and pinch the clip open. Your fingers never need touch the body.

But the best deterrent I have found so far for household use is the soap Irish Spring, Original fragrance.

I put two bars in my kitchen near their entrances by the pipes (they chewed through the metal flanges to get in) and a hole in the pantry last summer, and have not had a single mouse in the house all winter, when before there would have been one every two days!!

Highly recommended for wherever you can tolerate a fresh minty smell (obviously not the henhouse since it will taint everything, and you don't want your chickens to be blowing bubbles).

For the henhouse I am using a sonic alarm, which was very effective at first. The numbers of infiltrators are increasing slightly from the initial one or two, but they are far below previous levels. You can buy little devices now that are about the size of a nightlight, and they are more effective than the large sonic boxes sold for 20 times the cost.

The Irish Spring solution would be perfect for tractor cabins too -- a neighbor was dismayed to find that mice had made a nest in his combine tractor seat while it was parked in the field (where else would you park it) over the spring and summer. It cost him $800 to replace it, and was a heavy and awkward job to boot. I told him a bar of soap (just open one end of the box and set where desired) might help him out in the future.

Manly yes, but I like it too!! Mice don't.