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Rats may be cute and furry to your woman, BUT.........
- Thread starter Vetech63
- Start date
While I'm in here, I need to replace the ball joint at the boom control link. As you can see, it is being held onto the ball with a wire tie. That brown wire in the fuse panel is where I had to bypass the hydraulic enable relay so I could get the backhoe boom out of my way when removing panels from the back glass.
JL Sargent
Senior Member
I've got one of these battery powered rat zappers. It works too!
semi-wild farm/barn cats sure help with the mice. cheaper to feed the cats than repair mouse damage. no rats here in Alberta but the occasional pack-rat around here. they can do damage but they don't breed like the norway rats and they are small enough that a cat can handle them. red squirrels around here can also do a lot of damage but the cats seem to keep them in check
colson04
Senior Member
I second the motion for barn cats. Feed them just enough so they stay, but hungry enough to still hunt. Surprisingly, my kids pet cat is well fed, but is also an excellent mouser. She goes out daily and is always seen stalking pray in the garden, under the porch or deck, or in my barn. I have found many of her kills laid out where I can find them, but she never eats them, just lays them in front of our door.
As for the damage, rats are monsters that chew on everything electrical. I left a car in Midland Texas for 2 weeks while I went home. When I got back, it was 109degrees and I suddenly had no A.C., a check engine light and my electric cooling fan wouldn't turn off. That bugger chewed through a bunch of wires under the hood and was building a nest in the vee of the 3.0l v6 engine, under the intake manifold.
Birken Vogt
Charter Member
Yesterday I was working on a generator set that has sat long disused. Mostly doing engine work, and it runs fine, but once I got it started, liquid started to drip out of the electrical cabinet. Opened it up and rat nest everywhere along with all the acorns they left behind. Makes me ill just thinking about it, owner will clean it out later and then we'll probably hose it out with some chemical. Nasty.
stinky64
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2017
- Messages
- 894
- Location
- java center ny
- Occupation
- big truck wrench/fixer of things
Some mothballs strategically placed about the machine works, especially for long term storage, but you also have to put up with the stank that keeps the critters away..still better than a new harness...
92U 3406
Senior Member
I feel lucky to be an Albertan. We're (allegedly) rat-free here.
Tinkerer
Senior Member
I read a long time ago when critters started eating wire insulation that there is a soybean derivative used in making the insulation.
I like glue traps with a dab of peanut butter in the center, because the bast***s can't crawl off and die.
2 or 3 traps side by side will hold some pretty big critters.
I like glue traps with a dab of peanut butter in the center, because the bast***s can't crawl off and die.
2 or 3 traps side by side will hold some pretty big critters.
colson04
Senior Member
Glue traps are my wife's preferred method. I was out of town for work one fall and we had mice move move into our garage. She found their food source (bag of bird seed) and threw it away. Then she started setting traps, snap traps and glue traps. In 5 days, she caught 15 mice using a mix of both style traps. Then they got wise to the snap traps, but she kept catching them on the glue traps. In a month, she caught 30 total. Then she got a shock. Our garage started to stink, so she goes looking for the source and finds a forgotten glue trap with 4 mice on it. One long dead and eaten on by the 2nd, also dead. The third mouse was recently dead, and the 4th was alive, stuck to the trap, and eating on the 2nd mouse that it could reach. I'll give her credit, she eradicated our mouse infestation and drove them to starvation and canabalism. We still get them every fall, but are seeing less and less as we prepare for it and catch them before the breeding begins.
stinky64
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2017
- Messages
- 894
- Location
- java center ny
- Occupation
- big truck wrench/fixer of things
It's amazing that one little decomposing carcass can make that powerful a stink...
Tinkerer
Senior Member
How about a dead fox squirrel behind the drywall in a basement wall ?
Came down the furnace chimney, through firebox and then into the basement.
Birds n squirrels sit on masonry chimney flues to get warm in the winter, fall in, take any way they can to get out.
I put a spark arrester on the flues after that.
Out in the yard one summer evening..... many years back!..... as a group of 50 or more birds circled the neighbors house..... actually it was their chimney... and dropped one by one down the flue... wild to watch that one.
Now I was a student at the time, in a rental.... so I had no idea who lived there.... and I could not imagine where all those birds ended up?
Some kind of 'swift' I imagine....??
As for the hoe..... it sits outside ( under cover for winter).... feel lucky to not 'have' the wiring you guys have.... ( '85 vintage) .....plus my "rust prevention system" makes for an uncomfortable place for the furry kind to set up shop..... oil n grease you know..
Now I was a student at the time, in a rental.... so I had no idea who lived there.... and I could not imagine where all those birds ended up?
Some kind of 'swift' I imagine....??
As for the hoe..... it sits outside ( under cover for winter).... feel lucky to not 'have' the wiring you guys have.... ( '85 vintage) .....plus my "rust prevention system" makes for an uncomfortable place for the furry kind to set up shop..... oil n grease you know..
Tinkerer
Senior Member
They are Barn Swallows and Chimney Swifts , T-Town.
They look quite different from each other.
Years ago when there were a lot of furnaces burning coal in my area they were quite common.
Not so much anymore.
They look quite different from each other.
Years ago when there were a lot of furnaces burning coal in my area they were quite common.
Not so much anymore.
... have only ever seen that one occurrence... but what a sight!! moving pretty fast, in a tightening circle, one dropping one by into the flue.... wow!
Not sure about what was on the business end of that chimney.... but a coal fire would not have been out of place here...... in the heart of hard coal land.
Not sure about what was on the business end of that chimney.... but a coal fire would not have been out of place here...... in the heart of hard coal land.