Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Vermin Rant





Actually I do have a rant that is certain to upset someone out there I can ramble off about tonight. It's about vermin and no it is not directed towards Carolyn or TB recent posts although some of the comments from their blogs did have something to do with it.

Ya know back when I started blogging about this dirty, labor intensive adventure in attempting to get a real working small farm going and geared towards sustainability there seemed to be a huge pool of rough and tumble "tell it like it is" bloggers out there (Male and Female) doing the same thing or near enough who understood the real world because they lived in it. Seems these days those types are becoming more and more rare and many of my old favorites have went silent. That's really too bad and I have noticed a real increase in Pagan sentiments and ideas to go along with that decline.

Back then the occasional sweet hippy type save all the animals bloggers were kinda quaint and rare enough to be cute.... Looks at Kymber. Then the wussification and Facebook dumb down connection somehow made it's way into the world of blogger and now I see comments about how people use live traps for rodents and discuss where they should release em and crap.

That has to be the most idiotic thing I have ever heard.

Ya know what? You people who want to call yourselves preppers or survivalist or whatever listen up. One rat can kill you in a grid down situation. We are not preparing for a cute disney video of Bambi in the woods here while you paint yourself blue and dance around fires, we are talking about life and death. Obviously you have never grown the feed you need for you own animals and stored an entire Winters of it in a bin only to discover a rodent has been raiding and ruining that grain. Where there is one there is more than likely several and they can easily eat or ruin all the feed you have available in short order. While it may comfort your delicate wussified feelings to not kill it, not put out poison for it to take back to the nest and eradicate it's disease infected offspring or release it into the wild knowing you can always go buy more grain right now. Maybe you ought to look at every situation like you would have to if the stores were all closed and the trucks didn't run.

Is that miserable flea infested, disease carrying, dropping factory rodent worth 2, 4, 6 bushels of grain you need to feed your cow when you ain't growing any more for several months? Is it better to feed your goat grain full of rat turds that has been peed on because some other small critter might happen on the poison you put out?

Which incidentally as I have said before rat poison has regurgitates in it and rodents can't vomit. Neither can my Mother come to think on it but her's is because of a surgery procedure she had to have a few years back. So yes I wouldn't feed my Mother rat poison nor anyone else who has had whatever surgery she had.

Let's face it if you have ever opened a grain silo in January and saw it crawling with 100's or 1000's of vermin rats you will understand how dangerous treating these things like sentient beings really is. They are vermin no different than a plague of  locusts. If keeping small animals out of the poison is a problem then put it in a container that nothing can get into but a rodent. They make em actually or you can easily make one yourself. Personally killing a few thousand rats at the risk of a cat or two is justifiable collateral damage in my view but I have been poisoning rats for years now and never seen it harm one of the dogs or cats at all. One rat can easily become 100's in short time and pussyfooting around trying to trap the things isn't going to work. Right now you are banking on the rat colony finding better forage elsewhere because you have freezers, tubberware and plastic pails. When you need to store all your grain in a corn crib the circumstances change and it would be best to just make sure you never have to worry about a rat plague developing.

I can assure you if all you are doing is setting out some type of "Luv your Vermin" live trap the only reason you are not seeing more rats is because your neighbor is calling an exterminator. It isn't your piddly little attempts at vermin relocation making a difference.

Rats are not innocent little wild animals. They are dangerous and can get out of hand easily and very expensive to have around in a world with limited resources. Not dealing with them immediately in the most efficient manner could well cost you the lives of your stock animals, family members and your own as things decline.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!




51 comments:

  1. Nothing wrong with live traps. I use a live trap for mice. It will catch a bunch of them at a time. When I don't get around to checking it they reduce the number inside for me. Ok. I feel a little bad about that part. I empty the trap outside & my dog has great fun giving each a final chomp & I fling them by the tail into a blackberry thicket for the other animals to enjoy. I catch a lot more that way than with the snap traps which they often carefully unbait.

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    1. MV - Oh if you have the right kind of live trap to take care of them I doubt they are any less effective than snap traps. Not really bashing the method so much as the "Let's release em to the wild" mindset. Still if you have large bins of grain around poison is much more effective at not only getting the raiders but cleaning out the entire colony. My real point was to KILL THEM. Something you obviously don't have an issue with which is a good thing :)

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  2. Half way decent post but I believe it is TUPPERWARE, not tubber or flubber or blubber ware.

    YKW
    MM

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    1. MM - I believe you are correct I was entirely too focused on ranting to notice that I had spelled it like that :)

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  3. listen you (i didn't even say wiener did i?) - i have never said "save all of the animals or flea-infested vermin". i have said that when you don't have to kill something - then don't kill it! if you can save it, then save it. i have the same philosophy towards humans. i also don't let flea-infested vermin live in the house - that's why we have 3 cats, don't have a big mouse problem or rat problem!!! we also don't have a grain silo. i have said time and again that if we had a problem with whatever kind of vermin we would take care of it - we just don't have that problem and don't need to kill anything unnecessarily. THAT is my big point. if you can save it and it isn't harming you - then save it and let it live. and i have always hated being called a hippy even if it comes with the word sweet in front of it. cute i can handle. and even tho yer a wiener, i still love you! so there!

    and i totally get your point in this post and agree with it! imagine my neighbour up the road was humanely trapping raccoons and then dumping them on our land???? these people who humanely trap and then dump them elsewhere are causing problems for other people. who are then going to have to kill the vermin. point gotten.

    much love, wiener! your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Oh you know you weren't a target of this rant Kymber my dear. I just used you as an example of one of the early no kill advocates back in the old days :)

      I just never thought I would see a time when comments on preparedness blogs resorted to live trapping rats and how to release em alive. RATS for Christ sake, RATS.... I mean I could kinda see Raccoons maybe or Rabbits but RATS?

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    2. i completely understand bro...i would never live trap and release rats! THAT would be insane!!!

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  4. I'm with you PP, kill them all! I was lucky , I purchased a 2 1/2 gallon pail of ropax bars right before the eco-nazis at the EPA made producers change the formula for rat and mouse bait. Ropax bars-- the best vermin poison ever! I have to keep a few bars under the seat of my truck or the mice would ruin it. Even so, today I got in the truck to find a pair of jersey gloves shredded and my seat blanket covered with mouse droppings. Yuck.
    Leslie

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    1. Leslie - OMG I had my exterminator friend bring me one of those square five gallon pails of that stuff several years ago and totally eliminated every rat in a few mile radius for years!!! I put them out in an old plastic butter container with a hole cut on the side so the rats and mice could stick their heads in and nothing else could. They were taking like half a dozen blocks away into their tunnels a night for about a week then suddenly not a rat or mouse to be seen for almost a year.

      Kill em all!!!

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  5. How are the "supervisors" at rodent control?

    My wife's family took in a nursing Siamese that was good for a half dozen severed rat tails(weird how some cats leave the tail) a night for a while in their chicken house.

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    1. Ody - We have one neutered male who refuses to go outside and he is like the ultimate indoor mouse control agent. I rarely see any mouse signs in the house at all. Outside and in the barn is a different story. One of the females is an avid hunter and I find at least one dead mouse a day she has left usually but lately her hunting has thinned the crop enough that she now has to hunt the hay field instead of the yard and around the house. We had a stray female that had kittens here after she was dumped off that was the best damned hunter I ever saw. When she showed up NOTHING survived in the barn. Pigeons, Rats, Mice, Sparrows I mean nothing lived other than Sheep and her and her kittens. I loved that cat but she refused to come inside and one day she disappeared. I still think the coyotes got her. Sot he barn needs a good mouser but so far none of the other lazy stray cats have moved to fill her place. I was hoping that one of her two offspring that we didn't find homes for would but they moved down to the loafing shed in the pasture and won't come up except at feeding time.

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  6. You think people can go off half-cocked when you mention killing rats, you should have seen the furor several years ago on a forum (that I no longer visit) when I mentioned that I shot feral cats. My poultry population was just over 600,a mix of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, exotic pheasants and peafowl, and the feral cats cost me about $3000 a year before I started shooting them. You'd have thought I said I was gunning for the Pope or something. The 'save Bambi' crowd was convinced the cats should all be live trapped, neutered and released,and I guess I should have just kept feeding them my chicks. I also shoot rabbits (because they girdle the fruit trees in the winter, and they're tasty) and I have NO problem killing rodents by any method available. A half full 55 gallon drum with a 2x4 leaned up the outside for a ramp and a handful of flour sprinkled on the water surface will trap and drown a huge number of rats. I had a good Jack Russel that would kill anything that even remotely resembled a rat. And even though I almost lost an adult Great Dane to rat poison I continue to use it when necessary. I emptied a 3 gallon pail of bait in the house and shop in MN before I left this fall.

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    1. NS - I think you pretty well sum up the real problem. They are destructive. It's a matter of scale I think as you point out too. Potential industrial sized infestations require larger more efficient solutions. As prepping went mainstream and picked up so many dabblers somehow the real scope of the problem has been lost. I am guilty of it myself to an extent since I allow many more strays to hang around and spend time and resources finding them homes now than I could even think about in a grid down situation. Much food for thought there. Good comment.


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    2. Nightsky -Poultry were what changed my mind as well. A rat attacked my daughter's quail - from what I can tell, he was underneath the cage biting up (all his breast feathers were gone.). Cannot have that.

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  7. I use live traps just so I don't kill any friendlys and then I give the varmint a shot and release it back into the food chain. This sounds so sweet until they realize what the shot is and what a food chain is.

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    1. Sf - At any given time I may not have poison out and sometimes not even a trap but as the ebb and flow of the population happens sometimes just the traps don't quite cut it and it becomes time to escalate the war. I don't shoot rabbits every day either. In fact I haven't shot one in about 3 years or so now but not all that long ago I had to set up a chair and stake out the garden because the local rabbits got out of control. As you know ya have to do what ya have to do.

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    2. You might find this book entertaining.
      http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17243/17243-h/17243-h.htm

      Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher

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  8. Rats and mice:Kill. Raccoons: Kill. Maybe skin. I don't really like the taste, though. Rabbits: Kill and eat. Up here, bears, skunks and porcupines can get into grain bins and put a big dent in your feed supplies, too. Killing skunks is a bit problematic, though! That smell can ruin your feed as the livestock won't eat it! Fortunately, the bears are all sleeping this time of year.

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    1. Lamb - That sums it up in a nutshell. I have had to deal with skunks a few times and I typically will do a stake out and shoot em when they get away a little bit. Soemtimes you can shoot em where they don't spray but you always need to count on it happening.

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  9. I have to admit....I've trapped and released an opossum. When I went to shoot it, I saw it had a bunch of babies clinging to her, so I took them to the state park and let 'em go. Now, rats/mice/coons/possums get the business end of the .22. Although since Charlie's been around, we haven't had much of a problem. Mice, imo, are the worst. They can destroy ANYthing. Vehicle wiring, insulation, boots, sheets, stored clothing. I hate the bastards. We had a mouse (mice) get in our storage room a few years back and got into one of the heavy-duty plastic bins and chewed a small hole in EVERY one of the 20 or so mylar bags of wheat & lentils. Had to toss the contents of the entire bins to the chickens. Now I occasionally open the storage room door and let the cats wander around there (it was always closed and the cat's couldn't get in there). Haven't had mice problems since, not even in the goat / chicken shed....assuming thanks goes to the fat manboob outside (and inside) cat.

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    1. Carolyn - Well opossum are not as destructive as rats really, or at least I have never seen them come in a plague horde. I have had to kill a few cause they moved into places they shouldn't have a couple of times myself though.

      Rats and Mice though can literally eat and destroy until you die even without the disease carrier part.

      Good call sending the cats in, I think cats sometimes are very under rated on some farms :)

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  10. There isn't anything better than a day in the barn with a nice .22 rifle and a pile of dead rats. Well, maybe a day with the farmer's daughter and a pile of hay....still.

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    1. Stephen - I can remember being handed a .22 and told to plink at Rats when I was a kid. It was real fun. To this day I have a special place in my heart for young ladies and hay too :)

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  11. I have killed a large number in my time. In my book the only reason to live trap them, and there is reason, is to train terriers to kill them. A ring of bales is set up then the dogs and rats are set loose. Once those dogs have got a taste they're really useful dogs.
    I do hate them, chopped up a nest the other day woth my spade and keep poison topped up around here.
    I sure hope I fall into your "tell it like it is bloggers!"

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    1. Kev - Of course you do :) And I would even be willing to give you a handicap since you are from across the pond but you rate even without it.

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  12. Rats, mice, voles, squirrels, rock chucks.... they are all on the 'list'. What they can't get to they will try to chew through to get it. Holes too small, well, they'll make it bigger. Plastic bin, no problem. That's what those big teeth are for. And the diseases they can leave behind. My dad got really sick when he contracted typhus from sweeping rat droppings.

    I'd read somewhere that there are about 30-some odd diseases that can be spread from rodents to humans and livestock. Including poultry. Fowl cholera and salmonella are a couple that I can think of off the top of my head that can be contracted from mouse droppings. Raccoon feces can make you loose your sight if you accidentally touch your eyes after coming in contact with it.

    There you've done it.... now you got me going. And so early in the morning.

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    1. Hobo - Ya Squirrels can be little vermin too. Luckily we don't get any near the house as we are too far from the wood line.

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  13. Day two update: No luck with the upgraded traps. Managed to completely mess up my garage door seal trying to fix it, although I think I can find a work around for now. This is not something I have really had to deal with before. Trying to adapt...

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    1. TB - I can't say I have any experience with garage doors either :(

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  14. I say Kill Em all! My Anti-Vermin response team brought me in a dead one, the next night he brought in a live one in his mouth then let it out under the bed. We had to use my fish tank net to get him, then senior stomped on him. Next day, we baited the portch with glue traps, and put the snap ones outside of the screened in porch. I did not want to use poison because if my "Anti-Vermin response team" accidently ate one, then he would have eaten the poison as well.

    Since baiting the porch, we got one stuck on the glue trap, it was cool cause he was trying to chew off his leg. Then another one in the snap trap...

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    1. JuGM - That's the spirit!!! :)

      I certainly wouldn't put poison out in the open that's for sure but when you have a large infestation sometimes it is the only way.

      What I like is when you trap a mouse and then find it half eaten. That's when ya know there are rats about.

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  15. Because of the fairly warm weather I turned the compost piles over with the bucket on the tractor yesterday. This always disturbs loads of rats. My sons stood by with .410 shotguns. Body count 27 zero survivors. We constantly trap mice around the chicken house and our Jack Russell keeps the barns clear. Having a crackdown on wood pigeons this morning. We cut the breast meat off to feed the dogs. This afternoon is the rat funeral pyre while we burn up a load of brash and keep ourselves warm in the process!

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    1. Wow Ro that's some serious vermin removal right there!!! You are my hero :)

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    2. Those rats they breed like errr rats!

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  16. I just read your post and I see 34 replies, this alone will make for good reading. I'm with you rats are dangerous. We have 3 tom cats I have only seen one mouse indoors. I believe it is gone.

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    1. Rob - I am sure it beat feet out of there fast :)

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  17. Update: Came home last night and found one rat securely in a trap. Well see how things progress from here.

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  18. Amen PP! Mice and rats carry disease, spread disease and are a PEST!

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    1. LW - I know and yet some people are all about not killing them. I just don't get it.

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  19. The deer are about as bad for the fact they spread ticks around every bit as bad as the mice and rats. I have chronic Lyme now thanks to the stupid deer and the people like my mom who don't like hunting their acreage.

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    1. Anon - That's interesting. I guess I always supposed the ticks would still be there in the same numbers even if the deer were gone. The ticks would just switch to coyotes, fox etc.

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    2. The coyotes foxes dogs and such are susceptible to the Lyme bacteria. That vector doesn't work very well.

      The deer can carry the bacteria and not suffer, thus continually spread it dropping the ticks everywhere.

      That's a very loose general explanation, but good enough for a quick back and forth....

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    3. I see. That makes sense I guess. I suppose I must have heard or read something similar before because I seem to remember the disease being associated with deer somehow, it kinda clicks. I have heard of a few around here getting Lymes disease though.

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    4. I'm sure it could happen, but it would be the exception and not the rule.

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  20. The problem with rodent infestation in livestock/grain storage is that with plentiful feed they dont take the poison.
    Rats are incredibly suspicious of new things.
    I had a huge rat infestation in/ under my chicken house and poison was refused because...chicken feed.
    I tried pellets, chunks, finally got the tomcat ball sized ones and they started reducing #'s. What finally eradicated them was after a heavy snow we had a visit by a pair of hawks. I think the remainder vacated.

    Tracking powder is supposed to work pretty well. If you can find it.
    Place it in a pvc pipe in their runways.

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  21. Oh. And I have a similar problem with feral cats crapping in my feed trough and all over hay bales
    They are likely infected with distemper and feline AIDS.

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    1. Fjord - What we did was use the feed we had and then started feeding out of the truck for a few days. Didn't take long until the rats switched to the poison but of course timing was everything and it was a hassle for a few days having the feed in the truck.

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  22. dear wiener [a la kymber],
    grape soda pop. rats are said to love it and explode because they cannot burp.

    to the tender-hearted i say 'bubonic plague'.

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