Dang pesky critters

Now, I like the little animals as much as the next guy, but they cause me a lot of grief. Last week I decided to start up the NH TC33D tractor for the first time in a while and... almost nothing, no starter, no front lights, no glow plugs. After checking everything I decided that some mice must have gotten up inside, so after tearing off the hood, cowling, and instrument panels, I found this huge mouse nest:
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They had chewed off 9 wires, most of them 14ga (how do do it with them little teeth?) and damaged a few more:
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and they chewed a lot of the foam backing off the circuit board on the instrument panel and just made a huge mess.
Strangely enough, they never bother my old Ford tractors I guess because they are more open, but then for that reason the birds like them:

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I don't like putting poison out because my neighbor's cat likes to get in my shed (she's not catching the mice, though) and I'm afraid the mice would just crawl up inside, die, then stink up the tractor. So, my question is has anyone found any of those ultrasonic pest chasers that actually work? Or another idea to keep the mice out? -Will
 
I have heard mothballs will keep mice away. Darn
mice tried to steal my mower a few years ago. I
wasn't home but my mower started turning over in
the garage one night. My wife and kids watched it
until the battery died.
 
they did the same thing to my D-14 AC one year.
another year to my tiller, wood splitter and lawn mower engines.

I just have to keep packs of mice bait out in the shop for them to eat and hopefully go off somewhere else and die.

one year they built a nest in the area of our car, you could see the nest down through the vent between hood and windshield.

also a few good cats will do the trick.

at least you found it before you started using
the tractor and started a fire
 
The coating on the wires are made with corn oil. It attracts rodents. Most auto engine wires are coated with the same coating.
Don"t bait with poison at the tractor as it attracts mice. They can do alot of damage before they die.
You can make a bait box and keep it away from the tractors with holes small enough that the cat can"t get to it..
As they die they will move slower, like a drunken sailor, and the cat may go after them too. Not a good idea as the mice are full of poison then.
Have heard that hot sauce (low or no salt) will keep them away. But that would make it fun to work on the tractor and not rub your eyes..
 
Peanut butter on the can. (picture borrowed from the internet)
Won't help with the birds though.

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I use bounce fabric softener sheets wherever mice might build a nest. I stuff them in open spots on motor on my snowblower for summer storage and in my covered boat for winter storage. No mice since I started using them.
 
I had one crawl into the manifold were he was hidding corn from my chicken feed. Didn't know it was there and started up the old 9n. Was running a few minutes when it started to smell like popcorn. What a mess bits and pieces of corn everywhere. After taking the manifold off and cleaning the carb twice it wasn't bad and ran better. A friend of mine said I heard they added cotn to the gas but this is ridiculous.
What's funny is I don't name my tractors but that tractor got it's name that day and will alway be called popcorn.

Kirk
 
I put my poison under a old dog dish turned upside down with mouse holes cut in the sides.you could use a old bucket also.I weight it with a rock or chunk of steel,brick or whatever so dogs and cats can't get to it,
 
Once they burn you tractor & shed, you won't worry about using poison. You may be storing feed/hay/etc. in same shed. That is a no no. Cats are useless if fed.
 
I set out a new box of mouse poison in my garage this past fall and started
working on a tractor. It wasn't long before I heard a mouse scratching in it.
I turned around and watched as that one mouse climbed in the box, got a
mouthful and scurried around behind a cupboard and hid the bait in its home.
Then it came back, got another mouthful and did the same thing.
In ten or fifteen minutes, that mouse emptied the box. Never ate a bite.
Once they stopped showing up in my bucket, I cleaned out their home.
Poison pellets everywhere. Stored for winter I guess. :roll:
 
Anything that smells strong! Like Bounce sheets for your clothes dryer or Moth balls.But how they get their legs apart to clip those little things off, I"ll never know!(wink)
 
We have trouble with white footed or deer mice, but they don't seem to chew wires, I've had a few incidences where a small wire was chewed in a truck that sat a long time and where they disturbed a telephone line in my house, took the insulation off and pee'd on the line, was an odd situation.

Peppermint extract, oil or some sort of mixture of that, would help, they hate that smell. Dryer sheets seem to work. I have 2 trucks in my yard to finish and one I could not keep the mice out of, until I took the dash down to the firewall, cleaned everything and eliminated the pee odor. I found a bonus nest in the cab corner, keep dryer sheets in there and even when they get stale, mice will absolutely not go in there.

The key is to eliminate that odor once they have gotten into something. I find that eliminating any habitat near ones place helps quite a bit.

If you have a population established, a bucket trap with 1/3 full of water will work, just like the one in the photo, just use water and make it deep enough they have to swim, can't touch bottom.

The live catch traps, metal ones, load those with Kashi pumpkin spice and flax granola bars, mice seem to love that stuff and it has a strong scent, that will draw them in, I like a multi catch trap, in case I am not around or can't check for a day, you can't leave them too long or they die and it reeks. Multi catch traps keep working, the plastic Victor live traps at TSC are ok, but the plastic tabs that keep them in, mice can chew those down and escape, you have to glue thin sheet metal to them, then they work fine.

That is a huge nest, I had one get into the fresh air intake on my car late last spring, just started getting hot, really bad, dead odor out of my vents, I had to remove the cover on the exterior, the deer or white foot mouse, apparently died of old age in the nest, I removed same, cleaned thoroughly, changed the cabin air filter, checked for any other signs, thankfully he stayed where he did, no further dis-assembly needed, I installed a small piece of hardware cloth where he got in, can't do that anymore, still hard to figure out where he got in that area, most times they go for the air breather.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm not sure what kind of mice these were, most likely just field mice that I often see when mowing around the shed. I've gotten a lot of good ideas here that I can try. Nobody said anything about the ultrasonic chasers so I guess they don't work. One other thing I have to do is clean up the shed - no more shop towels or hay/straw laying around. The corn field is on the other side of the creek so I don't have to worry about them bringing that in, at least. Thanks! -Will
 
I think once you eliminate habit, make changes, it will disturb them. They get nice and cozy when its quiet. They rely on smell, and have a keen sense of it, noise they get used to eventually, I know they hate certain odors and peppermint is one. Find where they are using a trail or way in, they always use the same one, and disrupt that as well.

My place can get overun with the darned things, so once gone inside, I start trapping outside, they're just a pain to deal with but you can get ahead of them in no time. I had too many places of habitat nearby, happens when you work a lot and get behind on housekeeping, but have since removed most of it, the rest will go shortly, then I will use traps outside.

Ironically the place is loaded with every predator of mice, cats, owls, hawks, coyote, weasel, yet they thrive here. There has to be half a dozen stray cats that roam, probably more.

I caught one live in a trap in my kitchen, I painted part of him with chevy orange, let him go a few hundred yards away, he was back the next day, dry outside, had not rained, easily scented his way back, they are relentless, just have to stay ahead of them, those bucket traps put a dent in mice, and chipmunks which also got out of control with too much clutter around, one of them chewed through the garage door gasket and thats where most of the mice got in.
 

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