"Ted Edwards" wrote in message
news:klFYe.301665$on1.161052@clgrps13...
| Waynemak wrote:
| Its going to get cold out and that means the mice come in. Any tips on
how
| to keep them out of my welders in the garage? I will set traps but
anything
| else to prevent the little PITAs out of my stuff.
|
| A cat. When we first moved to the Okanagan from North Vancouver, our
| cat stayed behind with my son who was living in the house. That year I
| trapped 23 mice in the cabin. (We have a cabin on the property where we
| were/are building our new home.) When the house sold we brought the cat
| up here. Never saw anything more of mice except a very occasional tail
| out on the porch. BTW, females are generally better hunters than males.
|
| Ted

I second that. When we were kids we always had cats, so I didn't
realize there was an ulterior motive. As we got older, my mother managed to
keep a couple stray, mostly feral cats around the place (my brother hated
them, so when the last one died on the road, my mother was convinced he had
something to do with it. Being that I was the one with the shovel, I kinda
doubted that he could catch that damn thing whether he wanted to or not!)
and there was always zero rats. The only thing that was ever annoying was
that the best rat catcher would always go to one spot in the store room to
enjoy its kill, so when I cleaned out the store room a few years ago, the
pile of dried carcasses and half skeletons made for a lovely smell in the
Texas heat!
Go to the pound and find the wildest two or three you can find. Feed
them well with cat food and some reasonably fresh meat and keep 'em in big
cages or locked in a room for a few days. Then let them go, but make sure
that they always have a bowl of food that's safe from raccoons and whatever
but never full enough to satisfy them. Water should be plentiful, though.
They will be afraid of you and steer clear, so as long as you see them
around every now and then you'll be fine.
Then again, Boeing put up some cats in their aircraft assembly plants to
keep the rodents down. The cats grew so happy and enjoyed the place so much
they multiplied like crazy. Then cats became more of a problem than the
rodents! Like mentioned before, keeping them all female helps, providing
you can keep other cats from making it in for a late night dip with the
pussy (pun intended) population.