The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[hennible]

Hey LM, We have always had great success with the bucket/peanutbutter/can trap. Some people don't even use the can. They just throw some feed or pet food in the bucket with enough water for the mice to drown. I know it's probably starting to get cold out your way so the water in the bucket might be a concern. It's getting cold here too so I'm thinking maybe I can leave the bucket empty and just shoot whatever is in it.

What about really salty water or perhaps a little anti-freeze...

 

[Leahs Mom]

I guess folks do put anti-freeze in them so they stay thawed. Dangerous, however, for folks that have pets or little children that may get into it by mistake. And you'd have to keep it somewhere the chickens couldn't access it also.

 

[hennible]

Very true if anyone were to use anti-freeze in their mouse trap they should do so with great care and caution

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
Hmmm.....salt...... I wonder how cold it can get out without that freezing? It would be a little safer than the antifreeze for sure.

 

[hennible]

I found this
Saltwater has a much lower freezing point (the freezing point is the temperature where something freezes) than freshwater does. And the more salt there is in it, the lower the freezing point gets. So in order to know the exact temperature that it’s going to freeze, you have to know just how salty it is. For saltwater that’s as saturated as it can possibly get (i.e. there’s no way to dissolve any more salt in it no matter how hard you tried), the freezing point is -21.1 degrees Celsius. This is when the saltwater is 23.3% salt (by weight).

 

[Leahs Mom]

Oboy....I have to convert metric?

 

[ChickChickChicky]

The Rat Zapper is very effective at getting rid of mice and rats.... I had a red light blinking this morning when I went out (in the dark) to feed... saw about one inch of rat tail hanging out of the Zapper... it was a big fat one too. I also keep poison bait ("Just One Bite" is what it's called, best there is by far) available at all times inside a commercially-made (Tomcat) rat bait station. Don't EVER put out any kind of bait that isn't fastened down, or they'll just carry it off and hide it in their burrows. Also, rats seem to be great burrowers, I have seen them dig under a ten foot stretch of concrete to get at food. Rats are true athletes, they can climb, jump, dig and swim into places you can't even imagine.

 

[Lacy Blues]

LM, if you just type in your question... say..."convert 21.1 degrees celcius to fahrenheit" it will give you the answer. Or, you can go the route of weight. Take a gallon of water which weighs 8 pounds (I think) and multiply it by .233 to find out how many pounds of salt you need.

I hope I did that right.

 

[Turk Raphael]

Very true if anyone were to use anti-freeze in their mouse trap they should do so with great care and caution

One can use a bit of propylene glycol in the water. It is totally harmless to stock, pets or humans and is actually sweet to the taste.

 

[Leahs Mom]

LM, if you just type in your question... say..."convert 21.1 degrees celcius to fahrenheit" it will give you the answer. Or, you can go the route of weight. Take a gallon of water which weighs 8 pounds (I think) and multiply it by .233 to find out how many pounds of salt you need.

I hope I did that right.

Yep...that's what I've done in the past. Relied on good old search engines to tell me.