We all have those pesky creatures in our lives, the ones that annoy us to no end, right? Well, at the Ranch, we have many different versions of them. Some cause lots of problems on top of just being a pain in the rear to deal with.
We are going to break down:
- What the nuisance creature is
- What harm or damage they cause the Ranch
- What we do (or try to do) to deter them
Mice
Mice get into everything! We have animal feed in automatic feeders in 5 locations and stored feed in bags in 4 locations. We have mice in the hangar to eat the dog food, in the garage getting into our vehicles and everything else, in our garden shed looking for anything interesting, and in the barn living in and among the straw and hay bales. We tried traditional mouse traps, green mouse poison, peanut butter on a spinning beer can over the center of a 5-gallon bucket of water, and powered shock traps. Nothing was successful until we wired ‘Just One Bite’ inside and to the back of small or large covered buckets. We carved a big enough hole for the mice and rats to walk into, and then they eat the poison but can’t take it with them. This method is also dog safe (unless the dogs eat the mice with poison in their system). We haven’t had an issue in a couple of years. This was so successful at eradicating mice that we installed these systems in the house, hangar, gear room, garage, barn, garden shed, chicken coop, duck coop, and animal shelter. Like most things, we buy it from Amazon. It’s more expensive than the worthless green poison, but it’s totally worth it and starts working immediately.
Put wire through bait stick center hole and attach to bucket or container
(if you don’t animal will take the bait from container)
Put lid on bucket or container.
Rats
Rats get treated exactly like mice. Their bate buckets are just larger. We have tried live traps in the barn, but the bait seems to work best.
Moles, Voles, and Gophers
I group these animals together because they are all handled in somewhat the same way. The moles, voles and gophers attack out root vegetables in the garden and wreak havoc on our lawn. Amber, our dog, has dedicated her life to digging after all of them. This perhaps is the most negative impact, so perhaps Amber should get her own category as a nuisance creature. In the garden, we installed ultrasonic repellents. They are solar steaks in the ground that put off an ultrasonic noise that is supposed to keep pests away. Well we have had them in the garden since we planted it, and when we went out this week to pick veggies for dinner, the potato/beet bed had been destroyed. We will have to go back to the drawing board. Ideally, we would have raised beds with wire fabric on the bottom, but this option is cost prohibitive.
Rabbits
Rabbits have eaten the young sweet bark off our orchard trees and could create havoc in the garden. To protect the orchard, we simply had to put wire fabric around the base of each tree. In the garden, we have created a perimeter that they are unable to get under and in. The doors are still not rabbit proof, but so far, we have been lucky not to have any issues. Greg also hunts the rabbits to control their population.
Crows
These guys are huge egg eaters and are so smart. If the ducks are left with an open door at their run, they will typically go out in the pasture and lay eggs in the morning. So, by the time we get home from work to collect them, the crows have eaten many. We find cracked shells all over the property, but the crows typically swoop down quickly, put the egg in their beak and fly off into the horizon. What we have done to solve the problem as best we can is replace their solar door that opened and closed according to sunlight to a door that opens and closes from a timer. This way, we can keep then in their run until after they lay eggs (4:00 AM to 10:00 PM). The ducks are kept in their run from 10:00 PM to 10:00 AM. This also makes collecting a lot easier. It is a real pain to walk around an acre of pasture searching for eggs. Yes, we do run the risk of a crow going through the 12 x 12 door, but that is very unlikely. Most of the ducks will be inside their run by 10:00 PM when the door closes. This protects them at night from predators and protects the eggs during the day from the crows.
Raccoons, Weasels, Skunks, Coyotes
The big guys are hard to deal with and they kill the most of our animals, particularly poultry. We have several different kinds of traps set up for them, and that is about it. The fence is pretty robust and has always kept our dogs out and animals in. To date, we haven’t had a coyote break in. Our most dreaded predator is the raccoon. They have killed a lot of birds. On top of the field fence, we have installed a hot wire. This has kept many of them from climbing up and over, but it’s not perfect. These annoying animals have a lot of time on their hands to figure out how to break in. The smaller animals can also crawl under our fence, so we have worked to eliminated gaps. We have a game camera set up sometimes when we have a recurring issue. It allows us to see what kind of animal we are dealing with and if there are any options to help deter them from killing our animals. Most of these predators kill at night, so we have an automatic chicken door to keep the girls safe. We had to install a domed chicken-wire cover over the duck run and cover the sides with the same material. It is relatively protected, but a skunk did figure out how to break in to get access to the eggs. After Greg found it early one morning, it didn’t take long for that threat to be eliminated. A Ruger 10-22 with a scope is a great tool to have on the farm. A couple of weeks ago, Amber treed a raccoon. This one is believed to have killed often, so it was very satisfying end this problem. Just over a year ago, a weasel broke into the barn stall and killed about 40 young chickens and turkeys over a period of a week. They rip the heads off the birds just for sport, and they can get into almost anywhere they want. We never were able to catch it or kill it. One thing that we have used for years in the poultry field that seems to help a little are solar-powered Predator Eyes. We mount them on fence posts, and they have a red light that blinks through the night. The animals see the red light and think it is the eye of another animal and generally stay away.
I hope you have enjoyed hearing out some of our animal pests around the ranch and ways we have tried, succeeded, and failed at controlling them.
*This post contains affiliate links
Recent Comments