Mice! Gnawed their way through everything!

[HelenB]

We had mice and rats in the house after the old cat left us. I used to hear them having parties in the walls, see them scurry across the floor at night, etc. I went on craigslist and typed the word "mouser". We adopted Max the cat who was available because he "ate the hamster" at his former dwelling. Now we have no mice in the house, and very little sign of them elsewhere. See if you can round up some barn cats to help you out! (My husband set slap traps in the basement and caught lots of rats...) Anyway, now Max helps keep the bunnies from eating the garden as well. Nothing like a domesticated predator to help with rodent control, IMHO.

 

[UrbanHenBilly]

I just found this, it looks pretty good (Cornell Internet Wildlife Damage Control site: http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/RodentExclusion.asp)

Fig. 15. Left: A curtain wall made of concrete will prevent rats from burrowing under foundations to gain entry to buildings. Curtain walls can be installed on existing buildings. A horizontal footing extension often deflects burrowing rodents away from structures.

Right: Feed sheds, corn cribs, and other existing wooden structures can be rodent-proofed by installing hardware cloth topped by a band of sheet metal. The hardware cloth can also serve as a curtain wall to prevent rodent burrowing.

 

[UrbanHenBilly]

I will definitely check out the mouser idea.

 

[ekemily]

One product is called Crib Stop, which is used for horses but should work on rodents. The other product is called Rataway.

 

[UrbanHenBilly]

Thanks ekemily, I'll give those a try as well. The rataway sounds pretty good.
I found this homebrew stopcrib recipe on yahoo answers http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070530160842AABo2UD :
Other than that, though, about the only thing you can do is paint the posts with something like Chew Stop, which is made by Farnam and sold at feed and farm stores, or use a homemade solution containing a mixture of cayenne pepper, tabasco sauce, black pepper, and a small amount of water. Horseradish mixed with water will also work- it's bitter, and can burn if the horse gets enough of it on their tongue.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

This method might be worse for you but it really worked well for us. Snakes are the best mousers around. We had a bad problem in our feed barn before and one day I saw just the tail of a snake going behind the feed sacks. I told my wife to keep an eye out for it and left it in there. Within a couple days there wasn't a mouse or a hole in a feed bag to be seen.

Steve