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#21 ·
Went to start my Simplicity tractor (Kohler TH18 engine) and it ran for 2 seconds then quit. Did some investigating and found a mouse had a nest in the motor. The mouse got caught in the timing belt and made it jump off the pulley.
So $250.00 later the motor is running again and I have several mouse traps placed strategically around the shed. Guess I was lucky that there wasn't any valve damage or I would be looking for a new motor. If your equipment hasn't run in a while its worth a look before cranking it up.
 
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#22 ·
#23 ·
I had the same problem a couple years ago. I couldn't get the mice to stop building nests in the tractor. I tried several differant traps but never got the problem fixed until I moved perminately to our home in the woods and started using the tractor regularly. However, my grandson suggested I get a tractor with a "CAT" engine. This I did not try.
 
#24 ·
I don't like cats, they kill the things I want to hunt.

My dog does attack mice and such. But doesn't actively hunt them.

I've had good luck with the bucket of water trap.

5 gallon bucket, with a ramp. you put a rod across to a circular drum, I used an empty tomato juice can. You set it up so mice have a way up the bucket, a ramp or what not, and you put a few inches of fluid in the bottom. I just use water but i've heard of antifreeze or what not.

Coat your can in peanut butter, and mice attempt to get the peanut butter and fall down into the water and drown. Easy enough to dump from time to time.
 
#25 ·
Works great I bet...till winter sets in, and the water freezes!..:rolleyes:
..right when you need the trap most!..maybe you could make it electric,like a bug zapper,hook a car coil up to a wire mesh mat,under the can with the bait..--mickey falls on it,and ZOT !!..:eek:.. :D

And oh NO--dont tell me they are using TIMING BELTS on small engines now too???..:disgus:...probably making them "interference engines" too I suppose,that self destruct when the belt fails or jumps..just what we need..:(...that should be outlawed,making engines that automatically get destroyed when a "rubber band" breaks..
 
#26 ·
P B G said:
I don't like cats, they kill the things I want to hunt.

My dog does attack mice and such. But doesn't actively hunt them.

I've had good luck with the bucket of water trap.

5 gallon bucket, with a ramp. you put a rod across to a circular drum, I used an empty tomato juice can. You set it up so mice have a way up the bucket, a ramp or what not, and you put a few inches of fluid in the bottom. I just use water but i've heard of antifreeze or what not.

Coat your can in peanut butter, and mice attempt to get the peanut butter and fall down into the water and drown. Easy enough to dump from time to time.
Click to expand...
:ditto: :ditto: have had good luck with the bucket trap also
 
#28 ·
It was one of my duties every morning, as a kid at camp, to throw out the dirty wash water from the night before, complete with drowned mouse.

Bob :rauch10:
 
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#30 ·
If you have cats and therefore cannot use antifreeze, you can use the bucket empty. You could also use pink RV antifreeze, I don't think things are tempted to drink that, and its not toxic, you can run it in your waterlines in RV's.

You could also get one of these, I've used them before.

Image


The trap works by having a pedal in the middle and a paddle with 4 arms, the mice walk through the pedal and the paddle spins 1/4 turn putting the mouse into the back of the unit. It works off a coil spring, so if you wind it fully the trap will just keep catching mice. In that form it doesn't kill them, so you have a bunch of live mice trapped in there. And you'd have to check it from time to time, and do something to deal with all the trapped mice.

I always thought it'd be nice to take a 5 gallon bucket with antifreeze, and a lit, and take one of these repeating traps, cut the bottom out of the trap portion, and cut a hole into the bucket so that mice would be thrown into the antifreeze by the trap portion, and then you'd not need to check it very frequently.
 
#32 ·
On my PWC, I put part of an old sock stuffed with steel wool into the intake & exaust. The sock is only there to keep the steel wool from working its way into the engine. I do the same on the air intake in the hull. Wouldn't do much to keep them off of wiring on a tractor, but it would be helpful for keeping them out of the engine. And yes, I have had them inside the engine itself. I shook about a gallon bucket full of debris out of an exaust pipe once, it was packed completely full. There was also debris inside the combustion cylinder, it was a two cycle and the piston was at BDC.
 
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#33 ·
I have heard of putting bounce dryer sheets in things you don't want mice in,apparently they don't like the smell.
 
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#34 ·
I think mice breed faster than a cat's appetite so I use liberal amounts of Dcon in all my sheds. I've noticed that when you first put it out it disappears pretty fast but after a couple weeks it stops disappearing.
 
#36 ·
Some thing animals do bewilder me.
I wonder why mice would chew wires?
There can't be much nutritional value in wires.

I guess they just chew for fun?
 
#37 ·
The insulation tastes salty I guess..??..

Why mice love nesting in a smelly ,oily grunjy blower housing beats me too...I have found mice inside engines at the junkyard too,some we thought were seized up due to rust,were "stuck" because dead mice were smashed between the head and pistons..:eek:
their urine really eats away pistons in a hurry too!..it litterally dissolves them..

D-con can kill other animals,and when mice eat it and drink water,they crwal off somwhere to die,usually inside a wall or other inaccessablespot--and will REEK of death for months!..
 
#38 ·
Bart said:
I think mice breed faster than a cat's appetite so I use liberal amounts of Dcon in all my sheds. I've noticed that when you first put it out it disappears pretty fast but after a couple weeks it stops disappearing.
Click to expand...
I have a buddy who worked as a PMP for awhile (they like being known as pest management professionals go figure).

He was under the opinion that multi-feed baits like d-con don't work too well, that the populations of mice figure out that its bad to eat before it kills significant numbers of them. And that the single feed baits are more effective because if you scatter them around the various rodents eat enough to die, instead of only enough to figure out that the D-Con is poisonous.

I've come to agree, the bucket trap consistantly performs even while there is fresh D-con hidden around.
 
#39 ·
P B G said:
He was under the opinion that multi-feed baits like d-con don't work too well, that the populations of mice figure out that its bad to eat before it kills significant numbers of them. And that the single feed baits are more effective because if you scatter them around the various rodents eat enough to die, instead of only enough to figure out that the D-Con is poisonous.
Click to expand...
I've never heard of multi-feed vs. single feed baits--what's the difference? I want to make sure that I'm providing my mice with the very best.:ROF
 
#40 ·
Single feed is toxic enough to kill mice on the first feeding.

Multi-feed ala D-Con they have to eat the bait a few times for it to be lethal.

If you have pets multi-feed is safer. Single feed is more called for if you are dealing with an infestation and need to kill them off fast.

But if you want a mouse free barn its best to contain your pets, and provide single-feed for a while, then clean shop of dead pests.

If you only have a few mice around, and have dogs and cats around you'd do best to use mechanical traps baited with peanut butter, than have poison around all the time.
 
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imperialman67
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