How Do You Handle Pest Control?

[WorthItFarms]

I know there is lots of talk about PREDATOR control but so little about PEST control. Our handful of rabbits share a barn with our ducks & geese. Since food is always out, for all three species, we have the WORST field mouse problem. EVERY DAY we have to dump the rabbits' feeders out because of the feces dropped by the mice. We only offer food in the evening when the rabbits are cool enough to be hungry (way too hot to do anything but pant during the day). We have humane traps set up (10 total) and we get roughly 6-8 mice per day. But, I know that we likely have thousands just breeding, eating, and breeding again in their little holes throughout our barn. We've considered all kinds of ideas, with no luck.

Glue boards = Ducks will get stuck
Snap traps = Disgusting mouse to clean up and the ducks will probably climb into it too.
Electronic/Shock traps = expensive and dead mice to clean up (remember the heat index is over 100 F daily. So death starts to fester pretty quickly)
Scented "Stay Away" bags = aroma could irritate rabbits' noses and ducks would try to eat them
Kill Bait = mice go into the ponds and drown- so super gross, super frequent clean up.

If anyone has any tips, please don't hesitate to speak up.

 

[Legacy]

Cats?

 

[doubled]

Sounds like it got out of hand before you started
To fix problem, either poison or your traps, your going
To have to saturate the barn with either or both until
You kill enough of them to collapse the colony and then
Keep the traps/poison available to prevent reinfestation.
Spring and fall are the worst.

 

[ChickenPotPie]

There is one in our home office right now. I can hear it. I've just set three "cheese pedal" snap traps (no bait). He's not getting out alive. :/

Mice are very, very bad. Rabbits that are exposed to mouse droppings can die a very sad, and fairly fast death. My friend, a vet tech, just put down her best rabbit (and long time showmanship partner/friend) to spare him more suffering and to save the rest of her rabbit herd. She was having problems with mice defecating in her rabbits' feed dishes and he got infected. Two of his symptoms were "wry neck" and paralysis of back legs. I wish I knew more.

Besides the possibility of your rabbits dying, mice infestation is a serious danger for humans, too. People die from hauntavirus.

Here is what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has to say about it. Please read!

http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/hps/index.html

http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/hps/transmission.html

I say forget the humane traps (what do you do with the live mice, anyway?) and wage all out war on the vermin. After all, you have your family to protect. Take it seriously.


Here is a little bit of advice I can give.....
- Store all feed (or anything remotely edible) in metal trash cans because they're rodent proof. Even the heaviest duty plastic trash cans are not rodent proof (they'll chew right through it!) so don't get those.
- Place traps inside an extra rabbit cage with bait in it. This will keep any animals larger than the 1x2 grid cage wire out of harms way. Also, if you have ANY items along the walls that will keep out your own animals, place lots of snap traps along the walls behind or under those items. Mice use floor along the walls as a highway and you'll be more likely to trap them there. You won't even need bait.
- I do not recommend poison unless there are NO animals around that might eat the dead mice (dog, cat, vulture...). However, if you do decide to use it, put it in an animal (duck, rabbit, cat, etc) proof plastic box that only a mouse can fit into and clean up any dead mice you find immediately.
- Do not release live mice anywhere!!! Not onto your neighbor's property, not into the "wild", not 50 miles away. Kill them or you're really magnifying the problem.
- Adopt a cat or two. Get one from your shelter. Ask for one with a very high prey drive or that is a little on the wild side. Some areas have feral cat rescues that adopt cats out as "barn cats". These are not cuddly pets per say but a "working cat" that is pretty to look at and and invaluable to keep around. Since they may be afraid of people, keep them confined in your barn and feed them well at first then slowly taper off to a lighter diet so they'll stick around to eat your mice. We feed our cats (cuddly, outdoor pets we adopted from the shelter) in our barn at night. I've yet to find mice feces in our barn.


Good luck and best wishes to you. Go get 'em!

 

[dewey]

With an infestation that bad maybe also check into Quintox...usually recommended for (tamper proof) use around birds, and there's no secondary poisoning. It kills mice by leaching calcium out of their bones and dumping it into the bloodstream...causing heart failure. Just one feeding kills them. Even though it's not an anticoagulant, like with any poison, a secure bait station is needed...this article shows a simple bait station set up...

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/824/rodent-control-in-livestock-and-poultry-facilities

With that many mice, cats and traps won't make a dent in the problem...I'm not one for poison use, but with thousands of mice there that sounds like the only real option to get them under control initially, then other control methods might be able to keep up with them.

 

[ChickenPotPie]

GREAT article, Dewey!

 

[WorthItFarms]

With an infestation that bad maybe also check into Quintox...usually recommended for (tamper proof) use around birds, and there's no secondary poisoning. It kills mice by leaching calcium out of their bones and dumping it into the bloodstream...causing heart failure. Just one feeding kills them. Even though it's not an anticoagulant, like with any poison, a secure bait station is needed...this article shows a simple bait station set up...

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/824/rodent-control-in-livestock-and-poultry-facilities

With that many mice, cats and traps won't make a dent in the problem...I'm not one for poison use, but with thousands of mice there that sounds like the only real option to get them under control initially, then other control methods might be able to keep up with them.

Excellent! We have a family member in the pest control business, but we couldn't think of any products that don't drive the mice to water (ie. our duck ponds less than 10 feet from the rabbit barn!) We DO have barn cats, they each stake out a certain territory and work all day, but it still didn't make a dent. We have woodlands nearby, including a national wildlife refuge, where we were dumping the mice. Our snake population is slowly climbing to compensate, which we don't mind but I dread the fall out after the food source is gone. We only used live traps because they were cleaner and easier to reuse. We will keep you updated with the Quintox success, thanks again!

 

[rockdoveranch]

All I can say is YIKES!

I guess we have a pretty decent balance of natural predators. We are on 32 heavily wooded acres and have lots of wildlife. Our main problem is fire ants, scorpions and wasps.

I recently saw one of our chickens kill a field mouse and then all the chickens fight over it to see who got to eat it.

If I were you I would remove all of your animals from the barn and as far as possible away from the barn. Then treat with poison. Bury the dead mice and clean up well. When you no longer see signs of mice bring your animals back in. Store your feed in metal cans and keep things as clean as you possible can.

Best of luck!

 

[WorthItFarms]

Success! We settled on buying bait stations and Contract bait and Voila! mice problem fixed. Haven't seen one in a week! Found many dead ones, but no live ones. We just collect the dead ones and put them in the compost. Saw about four snakes last week, (including two yearlings) so it looks like they are helping out too. I'm sure they will help themselves to duck eggs when the mice are gone, but that's the least of my worries.