Mouse Plague

[glend]

It seems rural NSW is suffering through a mouse plague, the images are like something out of a horror film. Have any IIS members had to deal with this infestation yet?
I have heard mice numbers are on the rise in Canberra lately - there is probably a joke in that line but I may call for help from the resident comedians to compose one.

[Steffen]

After years of eradicating stray and feral cats we now have a mouse plague. That was completely unexpected, wasn’t it?

[ngcles]

Hi Glen, Steffen & All,

There are areas worse than where I live (15km SW of Canowindra), but it is very bad here at present. Between the dog and I we have dispatched maybe three dozen inside the house alone in the past six weeks. Double that counting the garage -- combined traps, caught and poison.

I have poison baits out for them outside and I can only estimate that at the rate the ratsak disappears, I must be killing hundreds -- I am going through a 1kg box of ratsak per fortnight. Thankfully it isn't very expensive.

Bunnings Cowra have ratsak by the pallet-load and it goes like hot-cakes. I live in an area where a lot of grain crops are grown (wheat, barley, canola & oats). The harvested and baled hay is being quickly destroyed. We have had a couple of very cool to cold nights in the past few days -- which is much needed. The frost in particular knocks the babies on the head and stops the breeding cycle.

I have seen mice plagues worse than this before but not had to actually live through one. It's rotten!

We also have a feral kitty problem in this area (have done for years) but there's only so many mice a cat can eat in a day!

Best,

L.

[leon]

Hi Guys we, Alice and I have been looking after a very large property near Gundagui NSW and have just returned to Victoria.
We had them in the ceiling running around all night and the shed was infested with then.:eyepop:
We found traps and Rat Bait were the best options and were getting 15 to 20 per day, they were, and still are everywhere.:sadeyes:

Leon:thumbsup:

[fsphotography]

Looks like the stray and feral cats that have supposedly been ''eradicated'' have been sleeping on the job,or do they just prefer to control the wild life?:question:

[multiweb]

MBJ's been swamped. He traps 200 a day on average. A real calamity.

[xelasnave]

The cat catches at least one and many times three and the other night they trapped 9 in addition to whatever the cat caught that night..no poisen simply because of fear that it may kill the cat, the chooks or the ravens. All will eat the mice so we need to not kill them with secondary poisening.
Years ago mice ruined my 12 inch with their urine on the mirror when I was in Sydney a moment too long..it saddened me greatly...I suppose at least its not summer which would call in more snakes.
One could think someone could invent some kind of illness that wipes them out...
Alex

[GrahamL]

Guy in the press the other day was saying bumper grain harvest and no available storage, in the shed on hay sounds like troubles coming sooner or later.

[mental4astro]

Plague is here in Sydney now, but you wouldn't know anything about it as no one here has mice, do they... :rolleyes:

ALL the Bunnings stores have been cleaned out of all baits and traps. Can't find any for love or money. But no one here has mice, do they...

My mum has had mice appear over the last week. Her cat is proving to be a good mouser, having caught 9 in the last 5 days. Burrows have been dug into the straw bails they have as raised garden beds where none were present in the 10 months prior. She lives in Earlwood. But no one here has mice, do they...

If you think the mouse plague hasn't reached Sydney, you are not looking.

[toc]

Not seeing too many in Melbourne. Might be too cold for them?

[AstralTraveller]

I don't think they have reached here but I'll keep an eye out. I won't dispute that they have reached Sydney but I also think it's possible that Bunnings have directed their stocks of traps and baits to where they're selling like hot cakes.

BTW years ago we spent a night camping in a mouse plague in the Warrumbungles. We didn't know about it until after dark but then it was the full moving carpet effect. They got the tent and we slept in the car. Next night we were a lot further east. I feel for anyone who has to live in a plague.

[MortonH]

The plague has been going on for weeks. My daughter lives in Orange and has had several in the house. They also ate through something in the aircon unit outside which meant no heating for almost two weeks while a part was ordered. That's two weeks without heating when the temperature was falling to 0°C at night!

[dimithri86]

Would this apply to more residential parts of Sydney? Like hornbsy?

I caught 1 last month. I've kept the traps set, and there was no activity for 2 weeks after that. I removed them due to having small kids. After reading this thread, I'm considering putting them back up.

[MortonH]

I think putting them back up is a good idea.

[mental4astro]

Yes, i too agree to set them up again. It will give you an idea if the little buggers are around or not. I've set a few to monitor hings where I am.

Mice coming into Sydney have been brought in by hitching rides on trucks, cars & trailers that have been to plague areas. Their rate of spread within Sydney will depend on a few factors.

[xelasnave]

When I lived at the old place I had a barrel trap set up permanently so you could get an indication if they were about...plus there was a python I had released (kind thing to do) who I saw rarely but I suspect he would have been onto them early and of course they would show up in the barrel trap and when that happened I purchased baits..I didnt worry about poisening "Snakey" however and there no animals at that point up there just me.

They are making the classic mistake here but I wont say anything, as I am tired of being called a control freak over various things, ...one night the cat does not catch one and there were none in the traps so it is over..so wrong..stop setting traps...but no one will know until numbers are up again...even in the city I always have a few baits out and look every now and then to see if anything has been taken...its not like they are not there somewhere...waiting to move in.
Alex

[glend]

It seems the Mice are becoming Cannibals!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/mice-resort-to-cannibalism-as-plague-goes-into-overdrive/news-story/a43d2a9a72dab75d9657feedac0af60a

And as if the Internet or mobile service was not bad enough, those pesky Mices are eating the cables too,

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-19/mice-partly-to-blame-for-telstra-outage-in-southern-nsw/100150206

[Hans Tucker]

Reminds me of the story Silva tell James bond in the movie Skyfall when they are at Hashima Island .. but that was concerning a rat plague.

Oh .. and PETA aren't happy urging farmers not to kill the mice but to capture them humanely and release them .. oh they need a reality check.

[glend]

"Last rat standing". Haha.

[gregbradley]

Anyone heard of the mouse problem around Wyangala?

Greg.

[Pepper]

They sure are. Often when I empty corpses out of my traps I find some have been chewed on.
They aren’t news worthy bad in my spot, but enough to see them frequently running around.
Not as bad as some places I work at all around the north west where home office desks are covered in poo and wee. Be hard to live with that.
Makes me shudder to think about what they are doing to wiring inside houses.

[JohnF]

Shortage of Carpet Snakes.

[JohnF]

We had Mice or Rats eat a hole into our plastic bucket of Rat Baits.

[drylander]

I think they may all be full, even the browns, blacks and even lizards. They can only eat so much.

[Merlin66]

OK an idea....
What strength "glue" is needed to hold a mouse? Something like a heavy grease?
We have fly paper catchers....what about something similar for mice?


Say 150mm wide strip and laid say 1- 2mtr along the perimeter and a coil at either end.
The feed out being sprayed with the glue, laid out and connected at the other end to a take up spool.
Monitored by a IR camera....when the body count is good, the strip is wound on to a new section and the "filled" coil dumped in water.
A possible automatic system and subject to the glue could be cheap and effective.
Comment/ feedback??

[GrahamL]

The undead will run across the backs of the first layer Ken ( world war Z )and they cant be stopped or reasoned with and they will not give up .

[TrevorW]

Someone needs to call the Pied Piper Pest Panacea to permanently eradicate the pesky little vermin :)

[Steffen]

Or just offer them a great career opportunity at Pfizer :lol:

[Tandum]

I'll be in dubbo on Tuesday.

Staying at the RSL

[Steffen]

They have a new receptionist, now accepting cash, credit card and cheese.

[drylander]

I'm sure PETA will accept them with open arms and accommodation with lots of cheese. Send them to their members in the cities and wait for the results.
Pete :rofl:

[mental4astro]

There are such traps. The are called, funny enough, mouse and rat glue traps. These can be found in $2 shops.

Peel, set and then you need to appropriately and humanely dispose of the trap with animal.

[mura_gadi]

Hello,

I'm in Canberra one of the first houses in from the bush/rural paddocks. We counted 5 mice jump out of the Ratsack box (1 kilo)when we walked into the garage the other day.

About to buy our 2nd kilo bag, traps and smaller single baits are just not cutting it.



Steve

[glend]

Do mice develop a tolerance for Ratsack? Can they build immunity?

[sharpiel]

Poisoning mice and rats is problematic in that the rodents become toxic to all the wildlife that eats them once they become sick or die. Poisoning rodents results in catastrophic deaths and decline in numbers of native rodent predators such as raptor birds, kookaburras, butcher birds, pythons etc. anything that eats a rodent that has been poisoned with current technology poisons will die and once the rodent infestation is over there will be no natural ecochain predators alive to deal with the reduced numbers of rebreeding rodents and there will be another infestation until predators rebreed. Which takes years.

Even farmer’s cats and dogs will die if they consume poisoned rodents. This is why the NSW Farmers Association yesterday asked the government to rethink its strategy of rolling out many thousands of liters of rodent poison to farmers in NSW. The farmers association requested the NSW Government to at least consider less toxic poisons such as the lower toxicity warfarin based rodent poisons to protect the natural wild life.

The warfarin based poisons are not sold at Bunnings. If you’re buying Bunnings based rodent poisons like RatSak then you are potentially killing our native wildlife or your Neighbour’s pets. Please at least research something called secondary poisoning before you buy rodent poisons.

[glend]

Perhaps the NSW government could cut a deal with Elon Musk to supply a quantity of his Flamethrowers to farmers battling the infestation.

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/1/25/16933812/elon-musk-boring-company-flamethrower-price

At $500 USD a piece, it is cheap by farm equipment standards, and would not poison the native predators. Of course, in the wrong hands, it is incredibly dangerous.
Still if your hay crop is infested, burning it might be an option, as it has no other use if infested. Perhaps it could be a job for the Army.

I imagine a scene from the movie "Fahrenheit 451", where the firemen show up to burn things.

Still Australia's recent bush fire traumas may make this solution too much for even ScoMo to pursue.
Light 'em up Scotty.

[DarkArts]

I'm looking at the cargo capacity of SpaceX's Starship (something like 150 tonnes) and how many tonnes of mice we have to get rid of ... just wondering if we can put these two things together. :question:

Seems fitting to propose that here, you know, because this website is called (M)Ice In Space ...... :P

[Rob_K]

Oh no, this is next level stuff, zombie mice now? :scared2:

Have been through a couple of mouse plagues, no fun when they're running all over your bed when you're trying to sleep at night.

Cheers -

[leon]

Now that we are in Ballarat until the end of the month, I admit i haven't seen any at all.
But i have to say it has been bitterly cold the last few days with daily frosts of up to -3 maybe that dose help.
When we were in Mundarlo NSW however they nearly carried us out of the flat.

Leon

[mental4astro]

Well, well, well, the local Sydney media has finally announced that the plague has reached Sydney. Finally!

Haven't seen where the hotspots are though.

[RB]

We're going to be in huge trouble once they start chewing through the toilet rolls at the supermarkets.

I suggest you stockpile now and bait your stash...

:lol:

[glend]

Here is a link to the Mouse Tracker:

https://www.feralscan.org.au/mousealert/map.aspx

They have a novel way of counting the mice, a standard card with a grid, soaked in edible oil, left over night the chewed areas indicate the relative infestation.

Get involved

[Steffen]

I thought the standard way of counting mice was counting the legs and dividing by four?

[glend]

I guess the feralscan people cannot be everywhere to do the counting, so approximation would have to do for census numbers.

[UniPol]

I'm covered, my little ginger will take care of them:thumbsup:

[MortonH]

Has anyone reported any mouse-related damage to astro gear yet?

[mura_gadi]

Does using my 8" mirror I am working on as a loo count?

[MortonH]

Yep!

[glend]

On the TV news this morning was a report of a house in rural NSW that was destroyed by fire overnight. The fire is being blamed on mice! The conjecture is that the mice chewed through the electrical wiring in the ceiling, causing a short which caused the fire.
Obviously not equipped with mice safety switches. The particular mouse that completed the circuit must have been momentarily surprised.

Now this brings me to that great Aussie back verandah accessory, the Bug Zapper. We need a Mouse Zapper! This electrocution device could be place in areas of infestation, at ground level, potentially baited to draw them near. When they walk over the grid, Zap.
You would want to keep the cat away from it.
What other devices can we invent to dispatch the rodents?

[RB]

These electric traps already exist Glen.

I use them around the house and they're very very effective.
Expensive, but they work so much better than any other trap I've tried.
Plus no poison needed and so easy to reset.


RB
:)

[glend]

As if Covid worries were not bad enough, Mice give pub owner deadly infection.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/wouldnt-wish-it-on-anybody-man-fights-for-life-after-contracting-rodent-disease/news-story/e89ea933932154c3e1484dab9399c84d