Are there more mice this year?

Wagtail

Wagtail

Horse servant
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We have been overrun by mice this year more than ever before. Normally we get a problem after the harvest and they all seek shelter for the winter, but I soon manage to get the problem under control. However this year has been awful, especially in our house which is an old converted barn. It is in dire need of pointing as there are so many holes in the old stone walls. I have poison up in the attic and it has been going down very quickly but still the mice are there and keeping me awake every night. I'm exhausted. Normally it only takes one lot of poison and they are gone, but it's been 2 months now and they are still there. I have also seen lots of rats and mice when driving at night, which I have never seen in previous years. Is it just us, or have others seen more mice this year.
 
We haven't had any since we got our two cats, but I did have a conversation with our hay supplier about it. He thinks that the lack of cold weather last winter and the warm autumn have led to more rats and mice.
 
ElleSkywalker said:
Have lots stampeding about in new house and last house. First year I'd really heard them in last house and were there 7 years!

This is despite having 6 cats!
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Honey08 said:
We haven't had any since we got our two cats, but I did have a conversation with our hay supplier about it. He thinks that the lack of cold weather last winter and the warm autumn have led to more rats and mice.
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Our terriers are having a field day and killing loads, but they keep on coming.
 
My two cats are bringing in about 6 mice a day between them, some dead some still alive, cue hunting round the house for them. the mice do stink when they expire under sofas and other furniture!

They have also caught the occasional rat, I do wish they'd left them outside!
 
We have had a big rat problem around the chicken for the first time. Started last winter. Tried traps that they ignore so have been putting down poison (which I hate to do). Some of them seem immune to it though.
 
Def think the problem is worse this year, it's forced me to buy a rodent proof storage bin for my spare feed as they were having a field day on it in the storage shed..
 
Yup. Three cats delivering an average of six a day indoors, and the yard is littered with carcasses every time we move a vehicle. It does feel like more than other years.

I also wondered why one horse wasn't eating his food a few days ago, and found a mouse that must have drowned in his supplement and oil soup before I mixed in the chaff!
 
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We were discussing this very subject a few weeks ago at a village gathering and the concencus is that it is far worse this year than it has been for a while. We are generally inundated with mice as we live at the edge of the village with fields bordering us but there have been more rats as well.

I have poison in my roof all the time and the only downside is the mice stink when they die.

I also have poison in my chicken runs but it's buried deep underground in the old rat tunnels so the rats have to eat their way out only to find large slabs over the exit holes. The ratman uses 2 types and they never become immune to it and although I get the odd one they never seem to establish themselves.

Next door causes more of a problem by putting bird feeders up in their front garden. Out 2 hunting cats are forever bringing baby rats up the drive and dumping them by the front door.
 
Glad we're not the only ones. I am sure there is at least one very noisy mouse that is immune to the poison. I think it is actually LIVING on the poison in the attic. I was forced to put ear plugs in again last night to sleep. I hate having to do that as it plays havoc with my ears and I feel very worried when I can't hear anything as I'm the only one who would wake up in an emergency in our house as I'm such a light sleeper. Woke up twice in one house when we had burglars. But being such a light sleeper is a curse when there is even the quietest of sounds. Having said that, these mice are super noisy. I thought they must be rats but there are only mouse droppings up there thankfully.
 
Yes I have had to buy plastic boxes for all my food. Though I have turned my elec de mouser things up to max and I think they may be leaving.
 
Strangely, no! Fewer rats too. But I take that to be because I have done away with self feed hoppers for the hens and now only hand feed what they can clear up in 20 minutes.

I noticed a dead rat in the yard so maybe the dogs are making a difference. But I've only caught three mice in the house so far and it would usually be a lot more at this time of the year.
 
The cats are leaving loads of young rats lying round the yard & I have a mouse in the kitchen. Looks like I'll be pulling the fridge & cooker away from the walls today.
 
We've had mice in the kitchen for the first time in six years and by a stroke of genius, we were also adopted by a stray cat this summer! Talk about great timing! Should just add that we live in the middle of our employers' 125 acres and we just don't get cats here (they are dog people) so it is quite an unusual situation. We haven't installed a cat flap yet, for which I am quite thankful as one morning my OH found SEVEN dead mice distributed around the area outside!!! At least she's not able to bring them IN....
 
More rats at ours!!! Owner cant put loads of poisen down due to the amount of dogs up here as well!! Loads of traps down though... but they are too clever to go in traps!! I have a bedlington which are bred for ratting... hes scared stiff of them! No joke they are like the size of a small cat!!! They are massive and brave one scuttled accross my feet other night! erghh made me scream and cringe!!
 
Yes, loads of mice here too!! I have a rescue cat that is catching a good few fat mice everyday, but are over run. We have a very old house and the mice are in the walls. The noise drives me crazy when I want to sleep. The cat sits listening to them, but can't catch anything as they are in the walls and floors. Can't put poison down as we have dogs. Also don't like the stench of dead mice for weeks on end, when they die some where you can't access! Did think I might pull up a floor board and put the cat down underneath. Think he would be in cat heaven!
 
Completely overrun at the yard. Why eat poison when you can drill holes in the bottom of the feed bins? Hmm.

My lab girly caught two in the kitchen (old thatched farmhouse) and was so chuffed with herself. She had a tail hanging out of each side of her mouth for hours - filthy girl.
 
sare_bear said:
Yes, loads of mice here too!! I have a rescue cat that is catching a good few fat mice everyday, but are over run. We have a very old house and the mice are in the walls. The noise drives me crazy when I want to sleep. The cat sits listening to them, but can't catch anything as they are in the walls and floors. Can't put poison down as we have dogs. Also don't like the stench of dead mice for weeks on end, when they die some where you can't access! Did think I might pull up a floor board and put the cat down underneath. Think he would be in cat heaven!
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Yes, they are in our walls, floors and attic :( I have to use poison as it's the only thing I can get into small spaces. I lift up the carpet around the radiator pipes where they go into the floor and pour poison down there. I throw it into the attic too. It's a very small space up there and you can't go in. But yes, the smell is awful when you get a dead one sometimes. We have dogs in the house too but I just make sure I put poison down in small crevices where dogs can't get to it.
 
We have more rats this year and they're bigger too. Our yard cat is a fabulous hunter but even shes struggling to keep on top of them this year. We took on a second cat to help but hes bloody useless :(
 
Do you have chickens? The antidote to mouse/rat poison is Vitamin K which is found in chicken feed. So if they are munching on chicken feed and poison then its not killing them just supplying them with more food! Traps might be the way to go.
 
BentleyBelly said:
Do you have chickens? The antidote to mouse/rat poison is Vitamin K which is found in chicken feed. So if they are munching on chicken feed and poison then its not killing them just supplying them with more food! Traps might be the way to go.
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We have had an explosion of the mouse population, I put fixed blocks of poison down, the mice ate it then went to the chicken pens to eat and drink (I don't know whether they knew there was a problem...) I went in to the shed the next day to find my chicken's water bright green with poison! luckily I didn't lose my chickens but now I remove the food and water overnight so the mice have no access to anything apart from the poison - that seems to be doing the trick
 
I've not noticed an increase, however we have gone up from 4 cats to 6 as we had two kittens this year and they seem to be always carrying a mouse about.
 
BentleyBelly said:
Do you have chickens? The antidote to mouse/rat poison is Vitamin K which is found in chicken feed. So if they are munching on chicken feed and poison then its not killing them just supplying them with more food! Traps might be the way to go.
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Interesting. I don't have chickens but I do feed the wild birds. I wonder if it has vitamin K in the feed I use. However, the mouse that seems to be immune to the poison lives in the attic (sure it's the same mouse because I hear it doing exactly the same thing every night at the same time).
 
Agree, I think more rabbits too. For rats (and mice) I really like the electrical traps with the trapdoor. They have no opportunity to learn that the food makes them ill which can discourage uptake of poison. They are expensive but decanting the dead rat is easy and you know there's no poisonous dead rats decaying or being eaten by dogs etc.

Research shows a cat is a birder or a mouser. So they're probably catching something, just not what you want.

Best thing I ever had for rats was a deerhound. It looked ridiculous hiding and pouncing but if it saw a rat on the ground that rat was dead. Then it would do a little piaffe victory dance.
 
The size of the rat poo on my feed room floor the other day has made me not want to meet the rat that left it there. If we get in a fight it might win!

I think there are more about this year, we've been putting down poison already, not that I like doing it, but the feral cats can't keep up with the job. I thought the floods earlier might have done away with loads of them but they must have been breeding really quickly to make up for it. I'm a constant customer at the feed store because I daren't buy more than will fit in the bins at any one time.
 
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