Getting rid of mice/rats in barn - please help.

I've 'caught' a few rats in the turkey's 5gal water bucket. I have no doubt that a little more water in the bucket will do the job for trapping rats too. Think I need to set a trap like this.

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" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

In the Midwest, most of the barn mice are voles, or field mice; not the mouse mouse type that sometimes plague people in towns. You are never going to get rid of them because they are living all over your and everyone else's property. The best you can do is keep the place clean, keep you feed in mouse-proof containers, and keep the hiding places in you outbuildings to a minimum. They come into barns for food, and in the winter for the relative warmth. Cats and chickens can help keep the numbers down.

Rats, are a whole 'nother thing. They usually don't survive well out in most fields or pastures, so if you don't have them around in the first place, the best thing to do is try to keep them from bring brought in in a load of grain, etc. Once you have them they are very hard to eliminate, and they cause major damage. Drowning buckets may kill a few, but with their reproductive rates, unless you get them all it is an effort in futility. They can pretty much eat though anything but steel. I have heard of various things one can do, but don't know if they work.

I would do everything I could to eliminate them. You are not going to eliminate the mice. So you should always use the best storage and sanitation practices you can.

I live in dread of ever getting rats. They are a major problem for anyone I have ever known to be plagued by them. If you have a neighbor with them I am not surprised they got to your place.

So what? That's their place in nature.

An outside cat does not have to turn into a feral cat problem. Have them fixed and get them their shots. If you have predators, get a black cat. Light colored cats will soon become lunch for something else on some dark night where as black cats are hidden. Our black cat is a real blessing - she has an appetite for any small critter that moves and she stays near the house and out buildings.

Nothing catches mice and rats like cats. Many rats seem to learn to avoid traps, an exterminator told me; he said they're smarter than we think.

Feral cats will learn to hang around where the food is. Don't overfeed, but you do have to feed them to keep them around (have several food bowls, or a couple of aggressive cats will 'guard' a single bowl). Fed cats make better hunters because the starving cat tends to 'jump the gun' too quickly in desperation for a meal; a fed cat can afford to wait the extra few seconds for a good catch. A good hunter cat can catch more vermin than he can eat, it's sport to him: if it moves, it's prey.

To keep the raccoons out, make an entrance hole for the cats high in a wall that is just large enough for a cat to get through (most ferals aren't fat), and place a small shelf (maybe 4x10") about 6" below it for them to jump to, to get to the hole, and another one on the inside, which can be larger. Raccoons can easily jump at least 3 feet high, a cat can jump 4 or 5 feet.

Get a terrier. Your problem will be solved fast enough.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett