Workshop visitors

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I think any audio device that can deter pests will need a reasonably powerful output, a lot of creepies feel vibration rather than hear sound. I can only repeat that I have not found them useful. Neil may know more about this. PS Corry drives me away.

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 10/02/2015 20:52:00:

> If rats are getting in to your property from an adjacent one, like a neighbours/farms who have animals, and arent too careful about how they feed them, have a word, as this quicly can become an Enviromental health issue, although in most areas councils only deal with rats if you pay them, enviromental health rules can be used to get someone to clean up their act if you can show that the rats are coming from there

Our rats were coming over from the Council's bird feeding area! To be fair the Env Health put poison down for free.

Since getting cats we see very few, and they are all dead ones…

Neil

I should think they did Bl**dy well put it down for free, not the first timeI have heard that one either! Must admit a couple of cats or a loose terrier round the place tends to keep them away, but my cousin has a kennels full of rough collies, and they have to be constantly vigilant towards the end of winter when the rats are desperate. I used to go "ratting" on a local farm with a .22 rifle ( not an air rifle!!) We used to get the ancient Yale loading shovel, put the bucket up in the air, put a pile of grain in the middle of the shed floor, climb into the bucket, and wait. after about 5 minutes we could shoot rats one after the otner as long as we had enough shells! the would walk out of cover, calmly climb over the bodies of their"comrades" who they had just seen shot and start to feed, they aint clever, they're just feeding breeding machines! They like bird food and they will chew through almost anything to get to dog biscuits! the farmers round me used to block up the holes in brickwork with broken bottles in the mortar so they couldnt get it out again!

Phil

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Phil, I think your farmer friend might find that the glass wont stop the rats.

I reckon that the electronic devices are a complete fraud.

Ian S C

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I once watched a rat dig thru' concrete. It was fresh concrete, the rat was a female with a nest, she got the young out as well. Took about 1/2 hour and I was quite impressed. Broken glass if fine ground does not stop them but they will die after. They cannot get thru' solid glass, unless they have carbide teeth.

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

What you have to do Ian, is break the bottle in half so it has a nice jagged edge, then jam the halves into the hole with the sharps facing out and fill with mortar, then put a steel sheet at either side till the mortat is completely hard. If the mortat is at all soft they will have it, and the glass out again. Doesn't always work, and they will try to make holes alongside it if it is on a route to food, but you have to make everything as hard as you can for them. Remove all the cover, and all the available food and they will stop breeding so fast, then poison em! I know they are animals and all, and have a right to live, but they can wreck buildings in a short time, and they are dangerous!

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

In the building trade we used to remove rats from beneath mess sheds by finding their holes and gassing them with a hose off a diesel dumper engine exhaust.Those not killed would abandon ship in a hurry.As for not being clever, I have seen a rat find a full crisp packet and after some thought picked it up in it,s front feet and hopped off with it like a kangaroo.A good trap I saw in a skin yard was a box with a wire top,open both ends with two heavy doors hinged from the top at both ends,with rods attached to the bait hook which was baited with fish heads.Several rats at a time were caught in this trap.The rat trap was then submerged in the adjacent canal,job done.

[Bodgit Fixit and RunParticipant @bodgitfixitandrun]

OK here's what you do.

Take two pieces of wood to make an inverted T so as to form a wall.

Find the entry route for the mice / rats.

Put the wall accross the entrance

Put cheese on the inside of the wall.

Mouse visits and looks over the wall, sees the cheese, takes it and runs off.

Do this for about two weeks.

On the third week don't put cheese out. instead fasten a razor blade to the upright of the wall.

Mouse / rat visits. Looks over wall and sees no cheese.

In frustration the animal rapidly turns head from left to right saying to itself.

"Where's the bloody Chee…"

Problem solved.

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

Well, this year I kept getting mice in the greenhouse & the BEST & most reliable way is the simple ''little nipper'' but the important thing is to smear peanut butter onto not only the platform BUT onto the trip rod & the eye mechanism, it NEVER fails,I've caught about 2 dozen this yr.& as for releasing them from a ''humane'' trap well you might as well invite them back, A few yrs ago I kept getting rats in the workshop [it's an old cow byre] my father in law a farmer kept hens in stables behind our house & when I started using ''fenn traps'' I fixed a lump of chocolate to the platform with insulation tape wrapped round tightly & I caught 30 in 1 yr, Fenn traps[or spring traps] are the only legal spring trap if used either in a pipe or so no other animal can get to them, he gave me some poison once & it worked but what a stink!! till I could locate the dead rat. No hens any more so I'm rat free now.

[donkeyParticipant @donkey]

Update. I have been working in Scotland for the week so I now Have purchased two traps. One for mice one for rats. (Not sure if they can read.)

Baited them with sun pats finest peanut butter other products available. Placed them in two separate locations and shut the door for the next three days while I work away in Anglesey. Will hope to be checking Friday with a possible result then. Will hope for the smaller relative as the rat idea stops me going out there in the dark. They scare me more than the misses.

Brian.

[Peter TuckerParticipant @petertucker86088]

My unwelcome visitors are cats, they spray here there and on the gear. One neighbour has them and allows them to breed in an uncontrolled manner, last year I trapped 26 and deliver them to the pound, most were regarded as feral and put down.
Peter.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Perhaps you should invest in 'door technology'

Neil

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Well this was not exactly in the workshop, but not too far away…

Bloody cats always want to present their prey!

Oh, and thanks for the tip about chocolate, worked perfectly!

Regards, HansR.

[Bob YouldonParticipant @bobyouldon45599]

Hi all,

I've got a pesky little blighter somewhere in the workshop, so a trap was set…………….. nothing, but the so-n-so has eaten the chocolate, now i'm looking for a fat mouse with bad teeth!

Regards,

Bob Youldon

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hans,

That's a wood mouse*, not a house mouse. A less usual workshop vistor and probably finding it hard to find food in the wild!

Neil

*Easy to tell the difference is you remember that Mickey Mouse is a wood mouse!

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

No problems here in blighty but in Australia we used to have trouble with them bounding over fences and wrecking cars on the highway as happened to us when one wrote off a Humber Super Snipe! This one decided to cross the road without any indication whatever. Oh wait those were Kangaroos.

Seriously though my dad bought an air rifle and baited the mice with freshly cooked bacon or a ball fat from the frying pan. The cat was over whelmed by them so needed help.

We had a big black cat when we lived here in the English countryside but he was only interested in hunting rabbits the remains of which I had to clear off the lawn. I kid you not.

Jesse

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 19/02/2015 10:56:35

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

To dispose of workshop mice make friends with a magpie, they love a treat.

But if you get one of these, just say g'day as they scare the snakes away. It's a blue tongue lizard about 15" long.

(I mean big 6' brown snakes that live near my place and kill dogs and cats)

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

Hi Danny you are bringing back lots of memories for me. I had a tame talking magpie back aways but over here they are a somewhat smaller species. Aussie ones get rather aggressive in spring raising their young and swooping on people I remember.

Do you have stumpy tails around yours and by the way the blue tongue is a Skink I think you'll find not that it matters. My mother had photos of dead Brown Grass snakes fully fourteen feet in length and capable of taking ten baby chickens in one sitting. Best defence/offence was a piece of fencing wire doubled to form a handle and chop the snake into pieces. Sounds barbarous but people felt it necessary back then.

Jesse

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

A cautionary tale- I've just been clearing a small patch of unused land, one boundary is my big w/shop wall. I found 3, maybe 4 , rat holes all going under the foundations. I have always had rats etc. but thought I'd dealt with them, just shows you have to keep places clear. Could be worse, could be in Australia.

[donkeyParticipant @donkey]

I placed two traps. The mouse trap was near the floor, it has disappeared gone without trace. I can only assume they used my tools to dismantle the trap to find out how it worked. The rat trap was placed at waist high level this I found with mouse caught by the head. ( I knew they could not read. ) just need to find a cheap supplier of traps because if they keep stealing them it could get expensive. A big thumbs up for the peanut butter. Have reset the rat trap and hope to find no more visitors.

Thanks Brian.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Initially, thought that it referred to uninvited human visitors!

My wife used to fund raise and help at a Cat Refuge. The toilet in the "pensioners pen" was a sand pit. The local rats dug a tunnel that emerged at the side of the pit. One of the cats pee'd down it. No more rat visitors! (Not surprising given how smelly cat pee is)

Our cats bring in field mice, but thankfully none of them, or rats, fancy a nice cosy wooden workshop, (YET).

Probably wouldn't like the glassfibre between the inner and outer walls.

The school gerbil used to escape, and chew the cables for the various electronic learning aids.

Funny how rodents like plastics.

We put some food in a plastic bucket, and covered it with a card circle with cuts radiating from the centre, and laying a convenient ramp upto the lip. Boy was he MAD when we found him! Stupid animal always fell (literally) for the same trick.

Farmers used to trap rats by taking out a few scoops from the corn bin each day, until one day ratty leapt in, but found that he couldn't jump high enough to get out. A fatal mistake!

The simplest ways are often the best, a good old fashioned mouse/rat trap. Simple, easily repaired, unlikely to malfunction, and needs no batteries.

Howard

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> The mouse trap was near the floor, it has disappeared gone without trace.

Probably attached to a rather miserable rat…

I once had to despatch a huge live rat with a rat trap on its nose, not a nice thing to deal with. IIRC it was two inches smaller than the British Record Holder.

Neil

[Grizzly bearParticipant @grizzlybear]

Hi Everyone,

Talking of traps, ensure all traps are anchored. Not only will it stop your traps disappearing, but will allow you to despatch any wounded prey.

Regards, Bear..

[Lionel TitchenerParticipant @lioneltitchener]

Last time I used rat poison the rats were gone within weeks. Problem was a couple of weeks later everywhere had a terrible smell. In the end we had to take up the floorboards to remove the dead rats. Found three under the floor.

Another two were in the workshop which took three holes in the roof insulation to find them. now use spring traps and an electric trap that so far has caught nothing.

Having a cafe next door keeps them coming back.

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