Critter nests

Herb,
I don't doubt that you had pack rats it just that I know what I see and catch in traps are just field mice. Mice are great hoaders too, I've seen them work all day going back and forth from a feed bowl making stashes inside things that makes you wonder how they even fit in much less carrying a chunk of dog food.
 
A field mouse will fit through a hole no larger than a dime if he is small, a nickel if he is larger. A Norway rat will fit through a hole the size of your big toe. It is totally amazing how small they can squeeze into. I am currently building an electronic Rat zapper very similar to the commercial ones currently available. Cant have any poisons around with three precious girls. It is pretty simple to build and electrocutes them by stopping their heart before they can even react. Kind of a speed of light thing. The charging circuit is simple, a transformer, a resistor and an NPN transistor. Three pieces of wire and a good size capacitor to deliver the jolt. I am building them into a 3 or 4 inch diameter scrap PVC pipe and a small box to hold the electronics and the battery. The commercial ones are 50 bucks, mine are less than 5 and do the exact same thing... Yeah, I am definitely a bargain hunter from way back when I can.

Bob
 
Herb,
I don't doubt that you had pack rats it just that I know what I see and catch in traps are just field mice. Mice are great hoaders too, I've seen them work all day going back and forth from a feed bowl making stashes inside things that makes you wonder how they even fit in much less carrying a chunk of dog food.

Well, seeing how you actually saw them then ya that does make things a bit easier to know for sure doesn't it. When I had the pack rats I don't ever recall seeing a pack rat in it's entirety. All I think I ever saw of one was just a wee bit of their tail end and a big long tail. Very freakish to be sure. I never caught a pack rat in a trap either though so I never even saw one dead!

A mess at any rate right.
 
WHOH no wayy!! I would have never thought of opening it all up!! I am totally surprised!!


Bernie
 
Maybe it's just me, but there are many more mice around my place this year than usual. I mean a bunch more.
 
You guys should adopt a more "Nature Friendly" way of getting rid of critters which are a nuisance, Invest in a "Ball bearing mouse trap" AKA- a Tom Cat!
 
A field mouse will fit through a hole no larger than a dime if he is small, a nickel if he is larger. A Norway rat will fit through a hole the size of your big toe. It is totally amazing how small they can squeeze into. I am currently building an electronic Rat zapper very similar to the commercial ones currently available. Cant have any poisons around with three precious girls. It is pretty simple to build and electrocutes them by stopping their heart before they can even react. Kind of a speed of light thing. The charging circuit is simple, a transformer, a resistor and an NPN transistor. Three pieces of wire and a good size capacitor to deliver the jolt. I am building them into a 3 or 4 inch diameter scrap PVC pipe and a small box to hold the electronics and the battery. The commercial ones are 50 bucks, mine are less than 5 and do the exact same thing... Yeah, I am definitely a bargain hunter from way back when I can.

Bob


I like to see a picture of that. . . .. and a diagram.
 
I like to see a picture of that. . . .. and a diagram.

What he said is true. A year or so back I saw a TV show about mice and rats and they even showed them going through incredibly small gaps and holes. It was something to see!
 
Many years ago I bought an old hot rod that had been stored in a barn. The exhaust system had been removed except for the headers. When I removed the headers I found nests in several of the exhaust ports. What a mess! As everyone on this post has said mice and/or rats will nest almost anywhere.
 
Many years ago I bought an old hot rod that had been stored in a barn. The exhaust system had been removed except for the headers. When I removed the headers I found nests in several of the exhaust ports. What a mess! As everyone on this post has said mice and/or rats will nest almost anywhere.

The farm place I was speaking of was horrible. I heated the old drafty 2 car garage with a torpedo heater every evening when I would go to work. When I first moved there and had no clue about the pack rats or what they would do I filled a dog dish with food and had a bowl of water there as well for my dog that would be there while I worked. The first night I filled the bowl I noticed that the dog ate none of the food when I shut down for the night. The next night when I returned to work in the shop I noticed there was not one piece of dog food left in the bowl. As soon as I truned on my torpedo heater a 3 foot flame belched from the end of the heater! When I put the heater on my bench and opened it up to find the problem I found the entire burner chamber of the heater was jambed full of dog food.

That was my introduction into how pack rats operate and what they do. Needless to say no more dog food came to the shop! :roflmao:
 
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