jackieb wrote:

My son plays paintball, early spring of this year my car started getting terrible gas mileage. So i check the airfilter box on my car. It had about 300 to 400 paintballs in it. We guess a field mouse packed it full on a weekend. Two mousetraps and some cheese end of problem.

Sorry mate...I just had to laugh...I can imagine the look on your face when you found the paintballs.

Cheers, Vince

I had the same problem, but the mouse packed my air filter housing full of dog food!

I don't know how far their range extends but we have a large rat (pack rat- about a foot long, excluding the tail-they are tan colored with a white stomach) that lives in prickly pear cactus and brush piles in the brush country down here. He builds very large nests (I've seen them 3 feet high by 6 or 8 feet wide) out of sticks, prickly pear, and just about anything else he can drag up there. He has a bad habit of picking up (and stealing, if necessary) anything shiny or unusual and storing it in his nest. I have no idea why he does such a thing, but they are quite an oddity.

When I'm in an area with native artifacts, I'll tear into their nests and quite often, I'll find arrow heads.

Once, in a hunting camp in LaSalle County, Texas, my hunting mate (that was in charge of the hunting lease) got up to get ready for the morning hunt and starting looking for his lighter, for his morning cigarette. He couldn't find it. He said a few curse words, stormed out the door and came back with his lighter a couple of minutes later. When he walked back through the door, all he said was, "da*m rat."

Last month, I was in my shop (blacksmith and welding shop) and couldn't find some of my tools, I was in the process of looking for them when I noticed a pile of screws on the floor at the edge of my work bench. I got on my knees and looked under the bench and found a huge pack rat nest. When I tore it apart, I found dozens of my wrenches, sockets, screws, nails, charcoal briquettes (that I was using in my forge), sprokets, and dozens of other items. I even found a foot long metal toy wagon of my grandsons. I don't know how he dragged that thing in there, it's heavy.

They are quite amusing animals and I almost never kill them. They do not come inside homes (as far as I know).

Cary

Here's an article that I found in the Wilson County News (www.wilsoncountynews.com) that could be helpful if you are having trouble with squirels raiding your bird feeders. This could make them go elsewhere to look for food.



How to feed birds, not squirrels

December 2, 2008

Q. We have started to feed the birds, but the squirrels are eating us to bankruptcy. Is there anyway to feed the birds and not have to feed the squirrels?

A. There are lots of tactics to thwart the squirrels. Feed safflower seed instead of sunflower seed. Squirrels do not seem to like the white seed, but cardinals, chickadees, and most birds do. Use seed or suet that is flavored with pepper. Birds like it and squirrels do not. Feed thistle seed for the finches, squirrels are not fond of thistle. There is a great line of steel feeders with weight sensitive perches that keep the squirrels and even white wing doves from eating all the seed. Look for Absolute brand feeders.

Wikipedia wrote:

A pack rat, also called a trade rat or wood rat, can be any of several species in the genus Neotoma, but most commonly the Bushy

I like the Wikipedia blurb on the pack rat above.



That is really funny. We don't have a critter like that over here...well no9t that I know of. The closest we come is our Bower Bird...likes to ornament his Bower...nest to attract a female...with items coloured blue.

Cheers, Vince

You know, they do (sort of) look like ........ naw, maybe not...

Cary

Vince,

Check out the Kangaroo rats on Wikipedia.

We have lots of those also. They are supposed to be similar to the hopping mouse of Australia.

Cary

Cary

Ah, see, the birds eat peppers and drop the seeds, it is the method of spreding pepper plants in asia. Birds do not have taste buds so a pepper is just another treat to them, But Mr. bushytail can taste so a pepper is a bad thing for him to eat. I have seen them eat a hot bunch of seeds, they roll around and grab their mouth, of course they have no idea what happened to them.

But if you are looking to stop a squirrel from getting in your bird feeder, just consider the attempt to be a joke or an educational tool. They will spend weeks figuring out a way to get to the seed, usually with great sucess. You blood pressure will be ok if you just laugh it off.
Best,
Ed

OntheLasGallinas;It sounds like those Texas rats are more "well behaved than the ones up here in the Oregon desert,as my family cabin is constantly being invaded by the nasty buggers!I have killed them with handguns,shotguns,traps,poison-and still they persist.They have eaten their way through 1+2" wooden board and bat and slab siding to gain access-just so they can crap all over the inside of the cabin!If ever there was a more insidious pest (other than field mice)I have'nt found it.We have put out bait boxes with "One step bar bait"-it works pretty well-but newer generations of the little buggers keep eating the bait and we can never seem to eradicate them from the area.And oh yes there are many abandoned homes in the area that have been destroyed-or taken over from pack rats,and left virtually uninhabital for humans because of these stinky little critters-they can destroy about anything,and they leave a heck of a smell too!My 110 lb hunting dog killed one once inside the cabin-but hardly even would get near it-evidently had a bad taste or smell,I just found the carcass when I came back and when I picked it up the dog just looked away!!!

Birds do have taste buds they just can handle more Capsaicin then the average animal or even insect can.

However when eating "real" hot sauce not that watered down stuff most people eat, dip a fry into it and try and feel it to a bird, they will generally have a hard time trying to eat it I find. Or at least they act like it as compared to a fry not dipped in hot sauce.

Dimitri

TRBLSHTR
Your rat problem sounds more like a "rat epidemic"!

Cary

Cary -that could be a rat epeidemic.Trouble is that is has lasted for fourteen years so far!

Darn, they must be reproducing like................rats!

Cary