Mice eating ear corn

My brother raises about an acre of ear corn to feed his chickens. It is stored in a crib built into his barn. The problem is with mice, they are having a field day with his corn. Cats are out of the question as he has five dogs. Cats and dogs typically only get along if raised together. Any ideas on how to get rid of the mice?
Thanks in advance,
Bill Draper

I grow ear corn and have had problems with rats over the years. I don't know of any way to stop them unless you can have a crib they can't get through. Maybe since its mice some peanut butter on a snap trap set where something else can't get it might attract them but corn is a great food for rodents and they seem to always prefer it to anything else. If someone has a solution I'd love to hear it also.

Number 1;; simple solution. Get rid of the useless dogs.

Number 2;; More complex. teach your dogs not to chase cats, that is not hard if the dog is worth anything. If not resort to number 1.

Number 3;; Crib should be 1-2 ft off the ground so cats and useful dogs can get underneath. If it is not on the ground other critters will come moussing and the mice can't hid as well as they usually don't live just in the corn. The like dirt.

Number 3;; You can tunnel under from the sides where the dogs can't get at and place Antifreeze in small dishes where they can easily get in. Does not have to drown them ,Just so they can drink it. Go all the way around every 5-8 ft apart. Mice will find it and drink it and die but they can't contaminate the corn as the can't carry a liquid like they can poison. If there is a little more space under a shed it gets dry underneath and mice and rats both will get thirsty a lot more than if there is no air space between floor and dirt.

Maybe the dogs would get along better with a herd of snakes to eat the mice.

No solution has been invented yet. D-con used to make a good poison but I can't find it anymore.

Thanks for the input. Looks like the best idea is to get the corn crib off the ground.

When we would see a black snake when I was a kid, we'd catch it and put it in the barn or corn crib (after I'd show it to my sister...Mom put a stop to that ). Didn't have much of a mouse problem.

But I haven't seen a good sized black snake in quite a while. Don't spend as much time in the woods as I used to though, either.

Fred

check youtube for ideas. 5 gal of water looks like a safe way to kill them.

Get rid of the dogs you have and get a couple of rat terriers.

(quoted from post at 18:49:25 05/04/21) No solution has been invented yet. D-con used to make a good poison but I can't find it anymore.

Click to expand...

Amazon carries d-con, tomcat, and victor poisons. Don't know if they are the older formulas but if they contain anticoagulants they should work.

Itll kill em if they eat it but they wont

My uncle ran the family dairy farm he didn't like the cats. One day my druggy aunt dropped off her doberman she couldn't handle it anymore. First thing it did was start killing cats. My uncle would laugh and say good riddance. When he found a dead cat he would throw it into the pig pen for them to eat. Finally no more cats. Then the mice and rats moved in, they were so bad they would get into the grain and eat a 100 pounds a week. You would open the barn in the morning and the floor was moving as they scurried into the walls of the barn and milkhouse. Milk inspector made a surprise visit and shut him down. Was told he couldn't use poison because it might get into the feed and had to pay an exterminator. Exterminator charged $800 a month, and barely put a dent in the rodent population. He shot the dog and fed it to the pigs and tried getting cats from other farmers. No luck he had shot off his mouth about killing them. He ended up stealing two cats and then the ones that had run off came back. No rodent problem after that.

If the corn is dry now it could be loaded into a steel tank with a lid to cover it mice can't get in and the food source is now gone. Would need a slide gate or tight door to let the corn out for feeding though. with the food source gone mice will leave.

Patch any holes in the building, then paint it . Mix red chili powder in the paint.

1. Rat terrier dogs. Crosses are often just as good or better.

2. Cats.

3. Move the corn into a structure the mice and rats cant climb. That is more difficult than it sounds.


We are having troubles keeping kittens around here, with no dog the bigger garments are coming in and killing the little kittens. Have a batch now in the machine shed, they and their mom go poop in the gravel side of the shed. Its a problem but I much prefer that to having no cats.

Tom cat walks past the outdoor camera 3 times a month with a rabbit in its mouth, it doesnt parade the smaller catches he makes. The momma cat stays away from the camera but I know shes working when shes outside.

Back in the day when I ground feed out of the crib we had an orange and white kitty, when I would start the grinder tractor in winter she would run to the corn crib. She knew the corn was going to be disturbed and an easy meal was coming that day.....

Grew up with cross rat terrier dogs, they are very persistent at killing things. Almost had to do some building repair now and then. But it was worth it, they really keep the rodents down. I had white rabbits in a pig part when I was a kid, the barn was not animal proof. I remember the day a cottontail got chased into the barn by the rat terrier, he was very determined. He jumped into the rabbit run and out again, he wanted to kill that cottontail! But he left my pet bunnies alone, they were on his approved list..... not that I would trust that 100%, but he knew what were pets, the bunnies and the cats, and anything else was fair game......

Poisons can work for a small population where you can control the feed sources. If you have a shed and remove and seal up any food source and put out poisons, it will work. In a crib or trainers or feed shed, no way. The feed or grain is more tasty than the poison, you wont get them to consume the poison in any quantity. If you get rats, they have a social structure where they learn what kills their buddies and refrain from eating that. You need to rotate the type of poison pretty often and really work at it with poisons. But wont work if they have free access to real grain and feed.

Paul

So, a shorter version given your conditions:

Build a crib on stilts of solid metal that cant be scaled by small furry critters. A lot of I beam or angle iron has enough pitting or scale or over time flaking paint to let them climb, you would need A collar of smooth flashing 2 feet high or plastic pails around each leg type of thing that is sealed to the bottom concrete. That sort of design.

Paul

Snakes. Get a bunch of Black Snakes and they will take care of your mice/rats pronto. Dont ask me how I know about black snakes and corn cribs early in the morning!!

Take a 5 gallon bucket , drill 1/8" holes across from each other , take an aluminum soda can drill 1/4" hole centered top and bottom , insert a wire through the can and stretch across the holes in the bucket centering the can on the wire . Fill the bucket 1/2 with water, paint the can with peanut butter , then put about a 3' board for the mice to climb up to the top of the bucket at each end of the wire. Mice will climb up the board, smell the bait and jump out on to the can which will rotate plunging them in to the water and drown ..
For rats take a larger barrel , fill it 2/3 with water , sprinkle some cow feed ( preferably with molasses ) on to the top of the water, install ramps from the ground to the top of the barrel .
Dump out the bodies ,wash and repeat till the problem goes away.