Calling all farmers

[tar]

I have rats living in my Claas harvesters, I have put out bait, sticky traps, snap traps with peanut butter, ground up bait mixed with peanut butter,moth balls, electric shock traps, the bucket with the can and wire. I have some smart rats. They step around the sticky traps pack the poison away, pull the bait out of the traps.
I don't have any animals or feed around. I clean the machines good so not much for them to eat.

I have got three in the snap traps. One by the front leg and it tried to run off with the trap.
2 where dead in the traps.

I was thinking about covering the maching with plastic and duct tape to the floor and gas the little basturds. I really don't want them to die in the machine. They don't smell to good.
Rats can do thousands of dollars in damage to hoses and wiring.

No snow this year so the hunt is on, they drive me crazy.

So lets hear how you get rid of rats.

Tar

 

[polaris dude]

Invest in a couple cats?

 

[tar]

Invest in a couple cats?

I have 2 actric cats hehe.

 

[diamonddave]

Antifreeze in chili...works awesome!!!!

 

[Vern]

I dont know if you have alot but I'm sure they come out at some point at night, make it interesting with makeshift blind, spotlight and a pellet gun. There's an old empty pig farm just out side of town we used to hunt rats at. We'd park the trucks near the buildings climb in the bed wait a bit for things to calm down then flip the lights on and pop as many as we could til they scattered then shut the lights off and repeat until we got bored or they stopped comin out.

 

[kanedog]

Contact your local animal shelter and ask for 2 or 3 Feral(wild) cats. it's hard to find homes for feral cats and they usually come spade and all shots and usually free.
You have to keep them securely in your barn for 4-6 weeks and after that they can run free and your mouse and rat colonies will disappear.
As long as you keep feeding the cats, they will work for food. The work being rodents.
As a cool thing, a crazy cat lady will prolly bring them out to you.

 

[Dirty Steve]

I'd rather have rats than a bunch of cats hanging around... call an exterminator.

 

[inspector01]

I've always used dryer sheets when storing vehicles and haven't had much issues.

 

[crashnbash]

I use a product called Fresh Cab. Some say they never had luck with it, but I haven't had a mouse in my camper since I started putting it in there.

 

[Dirty Steve]

I put fresh cab in my plow truck. Two days later there were a few mouse turds on the packet...didn't impress me much.

 

[BikerPepe`]

I'm not a farmer... but I do live in a rural area on a 5 acre plot. When we first moved out here, we found a feral cat living under the trailer-house. I hate cats (except my Arctic Cat... haha) and this one had gotten up into the insulation and had a litter. Cleaning out that mess, getting rid of the cat and kittens and replacing the destroyed insulation was the first business of order. To my surprise... despite that cat living here for who knows how long (place had been HUD repo'd and abandoned for a few years) there were still a ton of mice living around here. Most living in the fields... but getting into everything in the "pole barn"/shop, the pump house, inside or under the house, etc. Fought them little bastards for 3 years. We even got to the point of pulling up tarps that wrapped up spare construction wood and playing "whack-a-mouse" every couple days. I won't even get started on the ground-squirrels and mole problems.

Anyway... 2 years ago, we fenced in 1/2 of our 5 acres, around the house, pole barn, etc. Then, we got our puppy... an American Staffordshire Terrior. The Am-Staff looks like a small pit-bull and the breed is often mistaken as such at only 45 lbs. (just over 1/2 the size of a standard pit). We got her just as winter was starting to settle in with just enough time to get her potty trained before the snow started piling up. At the beginning of spring... somehow she managed to hork down a Mole that was at least 1/2 her size at the time. She probably kept it down for a good 4 hours before she barfed the whole thing back up, Anaconda style, poor little thing. By the end of her first summer... she brought 7 dead mice and dropped them in the yard, just 5 feet from the front door. I didn't even notice them in the grass until she brought one inside. She was scolded, but not harshly. It was then that I found all the other dead mice and gave her much praise
Since then... I haven't caught a single mouse in any of the traps I have had, anywhere. The ground-squirrels and moles stay out of the fenced area, for the most part too.
Deer leave the garden alone and all is well around here... at least when it comes to critters.
We did put in a doggy-door, since we have the fence to keep her from wondering off into danger... but she won't even leave the fenced area unless I call her now and she has full run of the place, to keep her healthy and active and to keep the critters from sneaking back around.

A good terrier is hard to find but when you get a good one... all those little rodents will split the scene. Poor little girl can only chase (and occasionally catch) the birds that fly in and out of the property now.

I often joke that we put up a $9,000 dollar fence (no labor, just supplies) to keep in our $350 dollar dog... but besides the companionship and security of having a good dog on the property, seeing an end to those rotten little bastards was almost worth the cost alone. Everything else is icing on the cake!

 

[Cat401]

I have rats living in my Claas harvesters, I have put out bait, sticky traps, snap traps with peanut butter, ground up bait mixed with peanut butter,moth balls, electric shock traps, the bucket with the can and wire. I have some smart rats. They step around the sticky traps pack the poison away, pull the bait out of the traps.
I don't have any animals or feed around. I clean the machines good so not much for them to eat.

I have got three in the snap traps. One by the front leg and it tried to run off with the trap.
2 where dead in the traps.

I was thinking about covering the maching with plastic and duct tape to the floor and gas the little basturds. I really don't want them to die in the machine. They don't smell to good.
Rats can do thousands of dollars in damage to hoses and wiring.

No snow this year so the hunt is on, they drive me crazy.

So lets hear how you get rid of rats.

Tar

poor gasoline all over it.....light it.....watch it burn

Go buy a John Deere and live happily ever after....

 

[NDFARMER95]

Buy a Case IH already... Never had rats in the combines. We get them around the bins and what not. Always used bounce dryer sheets and never had an issue. That don't work, put some anhydrous in your cab and grab a shotgun. Hope you got a good interior guy..

 

[rmk8000]

poor gasoline all over it.....light it.....watch it burn

Go buy a John Deere and live happily ever after....

John Deere's do that on their own, no need for gasoline.

 

[av8er]

we used to poison skunks with

antifreeze, and powdered milk.

 

[coyoteman]

Golden malrin fly bait and coke, put it in a shallow pan as far away from harvester as you can and they likely won't make it back there before they die. coons won't even make it more that 50 feet. If you have someone with a license, phostoxin pellets will kill them all, as well as yourself if not careful.

 

[NDFARMER95]

^We've used this in our sweet corn. Works great. Otherwise Motomco Jaguar red bait is what we use. Works great. Havent had any mice or rat problems in the shed since.

 

[polaris dude]

Oh yeah I forgot mice can't burp/get rid of the carbonation and die

 

[SSWIM]

Get a live trap. For Squirrels. I went down this same road. All the poison and snap traps they just laughed at. Live trap got the beggars.

Sam

 

[tar]

Get a live trap. For Squirrels. I went down this same road. All the poison and snap traps they just laughed at. Live trap got the beggars.

Sam

Coulp years ago I put out poison almost every day till I used up a 9lb pale.
I could see big green turds. I got a live trap and a little cat food, caught 5 possums and one big pissed off tom cat.
Possums are one tuff little critter.

Thanks guys, Tar