Little $#!+ mice, need peace of mind

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Joewalla88

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Some little a hole mice chewed a hole in a 55lb bag of grain. I bought a new bag of grain last week, and kept it up off the floor thinking it qould be safe there for for a few a days. But those little $#!+s managed to find it and chewed a couple little holes in the corner. I put it away in my grain cupboard now, but just wanted to check, I don't have anything to worry about with that bag do I? I hadn't had a mouse issue till just recently, and I thought I'd had it handled with traps and repellent, but there must be at least one that's out smarting me.
 
Dry hopped Hauntavirus ale has a nice ring to it.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. Any little nasties wouldn’t survive the boil.
I figure it's fine. I opened the bag and made sure there wasn't anything gross in there. Just getting really f'ing annoyed by these little crapheads. I guess it could be something else like birds or squirrels. I do leave the garage door open a lot during the day. But the bag looks clean on the inside, and I reset my traps and put my grain somewhere safe now.
 
I have been fighting mice for years. One year I got 11 in my traps. This year I got 5. I got traps all over my house. Since it is spring, they head outside until the cold weather gets here. I just can't find the spot where they are getting in.
 
Vittle vaults are also a nice option. I use them for my base malt and also the pet food. One field mouse got into my garage 2 years ago, when my youngest cat (born feral, still a weird little SOB) still hadn't reached a year old. He stalked that thing for days, and one morning I came out to the kitchen to find a nice present under the table; said mouse, very dead. Cat got a lot of praise and treats for that. Have had no more varmints since then; either the cat chases them out, or word got out on the mouse interwebs to avoid my house.
 
If they only made a small hole then grain spilled out, they got some grain and they went away happy. They most likely never actually entered your bag. The bag of grain is fine. I would probably empty the bag into a sealable container but it's fine. And like others have stated, the boil would eliminate any issues. BTW the FDA allows a small amount of mice feces in human consumable food. Think of the huge mills and processing plants. No way can they keep 100 % of the animal feces and other undesirables out. Soooo don't stop eating bread and cereals now it's just a fact of life.
 
Not that this applies to homebrewing but it brought back a vivid memory .... was with a small brewpub when a state Dept. of Ag. inspector found a mouse dropping on the outside of a bag of malt. Condemned the whole pallet and waited while we opened and poured all 40 bags into a dumpster followed by dousing with a case of bleach. What a stupid and expensive waste that was.
 
If you can find them, Ziplock's WeatherShield boxes are great. I like them over the Vittle Vaults as they are stackable. The 60qt boxes hold a full sack of grain and the smaller 16qt boxes I use for my specialty grains. I like them as they are stackable and have a foam gasket in the lid so there's a good seal to keep the critters out. Amazon, Target, and Walmart are some places to get them, but they are hard to find. I have seen them listed under the brand name Iris too.
 
Incorporate 130 F mouse-poop rest into mashing schedule.
In a yesterday thread on a very similar subject of admissibility of weevil poo in the mash, the overwhelming majority voted in favour of that being totally fine and permissible, citing the solid argument that fish piss, poop and vomit into the sea and still we swim in there. I was looking weird and ridiculous with my germaphobic advice to sieve the bug frass out, so I won't give my advices here. I may have some deep thoughts to share about mice-borne Leptospirosis, Iersiniosis and Tularemia but I prefer to not look weird and ridiculous once again 🤐
 
I remember an old show on Discovery called Brewmasters that followed Sam Calagione. One episode, he brewed a beer made with blue corn that required the employees to chew up the corn, and spit it out so it could be mashed. The spit helped make the starches break down easier for mash conversion.

Even though everything is killed in the boil, I still don't think I'd drink that particular beer.
 
I just got a new roof because of mice. They were getting in through the old one. I have been battling mice while waiting, and I have learned some things. I kill mice like crazy now. No problems.

Buy Tomcat white plastic snap traps. Buy peanut butter. Buy Victor rat poison balls. They're green, and they look like corn Kix cereal that has been dyed. Don't buy wooden traps. They're a waste of money.

When you set a trap, put a glob of peanut butter in the trigger tray. Then use the peanut butter to glue one Victor bait ball into the tray. When the mice try to get at the peanut butter which is under the ball, they will trigger the trap. I have had mice beat glue traps, wooden traps, and Tomcat neurotoxin bait. I have had them turn their noses up at special mouse bait that comes in squeeze bottles. I have had them clean peanut butter off trap triggers without getting caught. They NEVER beat the poison ball and peanut butter combination. I have flushed all sorts of dead mice this year and last.

You can dump a mouse out of one of these traps and into the toilet without touching the rotten mouse or its blood, guts or brains.

The Victor balls are very good on their own, if you don't mind dead mice in your walls. Mice love them, and if they're not resistant to the poison, it kills quickly. The Tomcat neurotoxin blocks are supposed to kill with one feeding, but mice will eat them for days before dying.
 
I don't like the wooden traps because they seem like a one time use, but they are the best bang for the buck for getting rid of mice. The old school wooden Victor mouse trap is still the king of the hill in my experience. Victor makes a plastic reusable trap that is "user friendly" that has been golden for me. It doesn't hurt near as bad and less F bombs if you accidentally trigger it trying to set it. It's not much more than a pack of the wooden ones. Easy to set, and like mentioned, a little peanut butter goes a long way.

I don't like poison for many reasons. First, I do not recommend it at all if you have kids/pets. Second, the last thing you need is for the mouse to remain hidden somewhere within your house, but you know it's dead and still there due to the scent of its dead rotting carcass because the poison didn't kill it right away.

The glue pads work but......the sounds of the mouse struggling to break free and hearing them "chirp" in pain trying to break free is, well, uncomfortable to hear.
 
+1 for the wooden traps. Had chickens that attracted rats. Chickens were out a few hundred feet away but the rats took up residence in the house. Ate up our tea lights, soap, decorations, anything that wasn't nailed down. Called the professionals out and they put down 10 or so wooden traps with some sort of jelly bait on it. Placed them around well-traveled areas and soon we were hearing snapping in the middle of the night. I think 8 or so found home. One actually caught two at the same time. That was awkward.
 
I don't like the wooden traps because they seem like a one time use, but they are the best bang for the buck for getting rid of mice. The old school wooden Victor mouse trap is still the king of the hill in my experience. Victor makes a plastic reusable trap that is "user friendly" that has been golden for me. It doesn't hurt near as bad and less F bombs if you accidentally trigger it trying to set it. It's not much more than a pack of the wooden ones. Easy to set, and like mentioned, a little peanut butter goes a long way.

I don't like poison for many reasons. First, I do not recommend it at all if you have kids/pets. Second, the last thing you need is for the mouse to remain hidden somewhere within your house, but you know it's dead and still there due to the scent of its dead rotting carcass because the poison didn't kill it right away.

The glue pads work but......the sounds of the mouse struggling to break free and hearing them "chirp" in pain trying to break free is, well, uncomfortable to hear.

I don't like poison, either. It doesn't kill fast enough, so the critters can get out and end up eaten by raptors. The old-school spring traps work great with a tiny bit of peanut butter smeared into the little hole on the bait lever. Make 'em work for it and WHAM!

Glue traps work well, but if you don't check them daily you'll have suffering mice stuck to them. And they squeak.

We had a crop of voles this year (lots of snow to hide in). They didn't make it inside the house, but they laid waste to a lot of our shrubs--chewed the bark clean off. Guess we'll be replanting some things this summer. :(

Voles(1).jpg
 
Bummer. I've had a mole problem too. I've got a weeping cherry I planted many years ago. I thought it was dead this year as it produced no blooms. In the past, the blooms usually powder my driveway, especially on a brew day. It does have leaves despite no earlier blooms. There's a lot of mole holes near it, which I treated last year. I'm hoping it's just getting a late start this year since there was some cold snaps here and there.

About the poison......One reason I don't, and haven't, used it is because of my dad. Many many years ago, my dad got the bright idea of using Coca-Cola as pest control. Put a little Coke in the cap lid and they'll drink it up like we do with home brew. Apparently mice can't burp, so the co2 from Coke builds up to a point where it kills them. Well, when they die (and start to smell), good luck finding them. After visiting him one evening, walking in just to get the scent of dead bloated mouse (a scent you'll never see on a bottle of Febreze, thank God), I knew then and there any mouse poison was going to be off the list.

Sorry to hear about the shrubs.....

EDIT: You said voles, sorry. For some reason I ran with moles in your post.
 
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I use the food grade 5gal buckets from Lowe’s with Gamma lids. Comes out to less than $15. When I’m out of grain, I use them to store wood smoker pellets.

I use those for grain storage too and they work really well. But if you have a rodent issue, those little f'ers will chew right through the plastic.

In that case you'll need to set the buckets inside a steel trashcan with a lid or some other chew-proof solution they cant squeeze into. If they know there's food to be had, they will be relentless at trying to get into it.
 
Mouse poison is not really a problem for predators. A mouse would have to eat like a Rottweiler in order to store enough poison to endanger a predator later. And you don't have to put the mice where other animals can eat them. Mine get their own version of Space Mountain, right to the septic tank. Either that, or I dump them in the trash.

Where I live, it would be a great blessing if dead mice poisoned other animals. I have coons, possums. bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and squirrels. They all need to die, basically.

I don't rely on poison by itself to kill the mice. I use it because it's an ideal tool to make traps do what they're supposed to do. The mice don't get to eat it, because the traps kill them while they're trying to grab it.

I've used the old wooden traps with peanut butter, bacon, factory mouse bait, and God knows what else. The mice lick the traps clean and run off. When you use a Tomcat plastic trap with peanut butter under a ball of Victor poison, the mouse has no shot. The mouse has to move the ball to get the peanut butter, and when it does that, it dies. I have a 100% kill ratio with this method. I have never found a snapped trap with no mouse in it or an unsnapped trap with the bait gone. I have reused the same bait balls because the mice died before they could eat them.

With the wooden traps, the mice usually won, and I've seen a mouse run across the house with a glue trap stuck to it and then escape. I've seen them shake glue traps off, and I've found footprints in glue traps that didn't have mice in them.

The mice love the stink of the Victor balls, just as they love the smell of peanut butter. Put them together, and a mouse can't resist. I assume other things will work, but using poison balls guarantees me kills if the mice ever succeed in stealing bait.

I also use bait balls to see if there is mouse activity. Put several in a neat row on the floor, and if there is a mouse around, you'll wake up to see the balls moved. If nothing happens for many days, you know you probably don't have a hole in your roof vent or some other opening mice can get in.

I don't worry about dead mice stinking the house up, because it hasn't been a problem. I've put glue traps in my attic, and when I caught mice, I never noticed any smell. Maybe other people with different construction would have problems. I had some smelly mice when I found them in traps I set in the open, but it's not a big deal. Flush and mop. Problem gone.

I wouldn't use the bait balls where a pet could get at them, or if I had really stupid children, but they're perfect for my situation.

Now that the roof is fixed, I don't expect to need the traps, but they will definitely do the job for other people.
 
We have 4 cats so mice will never be a problem here. I found one on the floor one day. They have a bunch of toy mice but this looked different. Sure enough it was a real, once alive, now dead mouse. I don’t know how he got in but that was his mistake.

If you have your stuff in a barn there are many rescue organizations that have cats they want to adopt out as barn cats. They might have come in as ferals or they’re not quite socialized, etc. Cats that prefer to be outdoors. They would live in your barn and you just feed them. That would solve any mouse problem.
 
“Honey, after all the research I’ve done about ridding gardens of squirrels, seems like the only ethical, environmental, humane way is to purchase a fancy pellet rifle.”

I would totally go out and buy a fancy Gamo w scope.
 
“Honey, after all the research I’ve done about ridding gardens of squirrels, seems like the only ethical, environmental, humane way is to purchase a fancy pellet rifle.”

I would totally go out and buy a fancy Gamo w scope.
I'll shoot BBs at the metal objects those stupid woodpeckers keep going after. I feel like I'm sparing them the headache.
 
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