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  1. #1
    Senior Dog katALlabs's Avatar
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    Need a way to remove mice/rats from below my deck.

    Here’s my problem, mice/rats are living under my deck outback. It’s a 20’ x 12’ wood deck that sits about 6" to 14" off the ground. I know this because all my potted plants/veggies around the deck have been chewed on. So far we’ve pulled up the deck boards close to the house and found a lot of baby mice so we removed them and humanly eliminated them. Put rat traps down there to catch the adults and check them twice a day. And they still find a way to reproduce in there.

    I need a natural way to get rid or repel the little varmints without endangering the dogs.
    Mothballs come to mind and will be placed under the deck where the dogs cannot get to them but if the mothballs find their way out from under the deck they are toxic to the dogs plus I don’t want Zoe who is known to eat the dead mouse if found.

    Has anyone tried any of these remedies? According to an on-line source.

    Raw sweat potato? Once consumed (and rats love it!) a cyanide reaction takes place in the rodent’s stomach, thus causing death.

    Boric acid + peanut butter? You mix ¼ cup Boric acid and ½ cup peanut butter. Now create a bunch of marble sized balls and dump them near any rat infested areas in your house or on your property. This particular mixture has been proven to actually kill rats for good, once they ingest your mixture.

    Raw dry beans and peanuts? The way it works is quite simple: It blocks the rat’s digestive system by aborting vitamin A and all those enzymes necessary to digest both protein and starches. Due to this, the red blood cells tend to cluster and the rat eventually dies.

    Ultrasonic rat repellents or electronic rat repellents? They are high pitched sound machines work by emitting a high frequency sound which rats hear (and supposedly cannot stand), but humans don’t. Their main goal is to keep rats away.

    We don’t want to pull to the whole deck up as this may open up another can of worms that I would like to avoid. I’m open to hear everyone’s suggestions.

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  2. #2
    Senior Dog POPTOP's Avatar
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    They are so tough to get rid of. Like you, I'd be concerned that a rat/mouse would ingest one of the mixtures, crawl out, and the dog get the mouse. I've been using Shake Away granulated fox urine to repel skunks. Just read some more on it and one site says it repels mice. Hey, it even repels cats. It's all natural, won't hurt the dogs or any of your plantings. Been using it for several years now and no skunks in the yard. Come to think of it, we didn't have mice in the garden shed this winter. In past years bought it of Amazon but happened to find it at our local feed store this spring.

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  4. #3
    Best Friend Retriever emma_Dad's Avatar
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    Would getting a cat be an option? A friend has a indoor/outdoor cat that hunts rats/mice. He used to have a rat problem due to him having chickens, they were attracted to the feed. once he got the cat the rat problem disappeared with-in a few weeks

  5. #4
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    No real suggestions except to NOT use anything with peanuts/peanut butter....one whiff of that and the dogs just might go digging to find it.

  6. #5
    Senior Dog doubledip1's Avatar
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    I agree, get a cat!
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  7. #6
    Best Friend Retriever
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    Our cat is a real hunter, & neither us nor our neighbor seems to have any problems with mice. I know she catches lots of them because she leaves "parts" of them right outside our front door almost every morning. Unfortunately, she also kills lots of bats, birds, & bunnies.

    She is an indoor/outdoor cat, always lets us know when she needs to go out, so thankfully, we've never had to have a litterbox.

  8. #7
    Senior Dog
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    or borrow someone's cat.

    when i had squirrels in my attic, that's what we did.

    and then i was told not to feed the cat.

    gone. left a tail and a leg.
    not kidding.

  9. #8
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    How do you feel about snakes?

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  11. #9
    Senior Dog MikeLynn's Avatar
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    You've already gotten some great advice and I agree that getting a nice big hungry cat would be probably the safest and most natural way to go. The sound emitted by the ultrasonic rat repellent, although inaudible to you, would probably drive your pups crazy because I'm pretty sure they would hear it too. Have no experience with rats, but just recently someone told me that he was desperate because he couldn't get rid of martens that were killing his chickens and stealing the eggs. He was advised to get some tiger poop from the local ZOO and surprisingly the martens were gone in no time at all - the minute they smelled the huge cat they didn't want to take any chances. Even bunches of human hair are known to repel these "weasels", but I'm not sure it'd work for rats and mice. Good luck
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  12. #10
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    Good luck getting rid of the rats. Like domesticated rats, but wild ones, disgusting, disease carrying. Definitely not needed. Unfortunately, can't really help. But have to say, those sonic things, have several for moles. IMHO, don't really work and would think would drive the dogs crazy with the noise. I know I can hear the constant beep of them on a quiet night.

    KAZ

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    katALlabs (06-09-2014)

 



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