Critter Mayhem

you should use a .250 Savage, flatter trajectory, better accuracy, not as much "overkill" on small varmits.

interesting trivia bit about armadillos that you northerners/foreigners may not be aware of.. When startled they jump straight up in the air about a foot, just high enough to get hit by the bumpers of most pickups (this is Texas after all) if they froze and stayed on the ground, most trucks would pass right over them leaving them unharmed... think of it as evolution in action...

"When startled they jump straight up in the air about a foot,"

So do cats. And if you startle them bad enough, like waking them from a deep sleep by sucking their tails up in a vacuum cleaner hose, they can run on walls.

you clearly need a stronger vacuum.

Splarf! BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, it wouldn't be a Lucas vacuum cleaner, that's for sure. They're the only product Lucas makes that doesn't suck.

We've got the cursed things in central Arkansas now. Their holes are a hazard to animals and people. I'm even seeing a little cactus, which was unheard of twenty years ago.

I think some of them came over with my Texas cousins.

I know I hit one with the rental car 5 weeks ago while on the I-410 in San Antonio...the 2nd night I was there attending my son's USAF BMT Graduation Ceremonies. The front grill and a good portion of the radiator was destroyed; Enterprise had to come pick it up and drop off a new Ford Fusion to replace the dead one (not the critter, but the car hehehehe).

Yuppers, I saw that critter tumbling head over tea kettle while looking in the readview mirror.....and then saw the car behind me hit it squarely with the driver's side tire. Big yuk factor!

Man, them's a mufugly cuss if there ever was one! I'm very glad we don't have 'em up here in the Northeast.....just have transplanted Coyotes, which are enough thank you!

The jackrabbits in the Mojave Desert are something you don't want to hit, and they bolt toward your headlights at night. They're huge. I hit one late at night in my brand-new Toyota Celica and it lodged up under the front-right wheel well, unbeknownst to me. Next day (a Saturday, and so I slept-in a bit) I came out to my car in the scorching desert heat and the stench emanating from the damn thing nearly knocked me on my backside. Went to the base car wash (I was stationed at Edwards AFB in California at the time) and flushed the carcass out with the high-pressure spray. It was revolting and I tossed my cookies on the spot. Ugh! Getting the thing's saddle unstuck was even worse.

Um, saddle?

He said they are big rabbits.

'Willie the Dillo'...

Willie had taken to foraging round-the-clock as there wasn't enough food. Armadillos have terrible eyesight and hearing, but have a keen sense of smell. As long as I kept downwind, I was able to get close enough to take these pix.

First pic:

"Anyone else think they can chair this discussion better? Hmmm? Don't bleat all at once!"

Second pic:

"God, I feel like such an ASS!!"

Third pic:

"Chuck Norris would know what to do."

Bottom pic:

"Okay, who didn't put the bluddy seat down after they peed. AGAIN!!"

All right, you asked for it. I'm so bad. One morning I start the car to go to work, bam, thump thump under the hood. Poor cat had been sleeping on the motor, now dead.

I was in a hurry to get to work on time, so I left him there. Later I pulled him out and placed his carcass under a fellow employee's car, this employee had been giving me a hard time.

After we all came back from lunch, I asked the group "Anybody seen my cat?".

Okay, that does it (based on the numerous and varied postings): I hereby declare there's too many critters in the world, so ladies and gentlemen, start you vehicle engines, generators, hay harvesters, combines or what have you, and purposely go out and seek 'em critters! Destroy and squash 'em flat like "road pizza" or fry 'em but good with the electrical service! hehehehehehe [you do know that I'm pulling y'as leg now, don't you?]

[Also, pardon me, I just finished reading a news article on msn.com that stated (based on a study by a NASA gent) that around 6% of American Road Warriors out there purposely go out of their way to run over critters in the road! You's all believe that?! Some very sick MF'ers driving around.......]

I thought their whiskers were supposed to warn them...?

That's funny Steve!

It kinda reminds me of my old college days: one of my apartment roommates had a Black-footed Ferret (domestically breed, not the wild endangered ones) that went rummaging through the kitchen garbage while we were off to classes one day. We came home to find that "Bandit" had got his head stuck in one those small narrow 8 oz. tomato paste cans we threw into the garbage the night before. Kinda funny to watch him bounce off the walls and everything else for the matter and roll down the stairwell (we lived on the 2nd floor) with a can on his head......like the blind leading the blind!

We had to remove the can with a borrowed pair of tin snips....

I guess the curiosity/smell overrides ALL the warning signals. Maybe curiosity really does kill the cat?

Curiosity doesn't always kill 'em; sometimes they get canned. [go ahead, flog me, see if I care]

Critters that have caused me pause, loss, anguish and sometimes opportunity:

• Rats
• Termites
• Ants
  
• Black snakes
• Brown snakes
• Dugites
• Cobras
• Vipers
• Geckos
• Mosquitoes
• Cockatoos
• Moths
• kangaroos
• Wombats
• Redback spiders
• Funnelweb spiders
• Bees
• Wasps
• Possums
• Monkeys
• Blue bottle jelly fish
  

and the worst one of them all

• PEOPLE.
  

Gotta love 'em.

what pray tell is a dugite?

a snake

Glad you enjoyed it, and yes I could write a book on 'Building the Lake House-25 years and the saga continues'! If published the money could help finish it. Fortunately, I can laugh about it too, because I know there are much worse things that can happen than losing two thirds of my insulation to these critters.

I suppose I'm lucky I haven't had to deal with 'city' squirrels. Although mine have been destructive, they have not yet tried to kill me.

consider self-publishing for the Kindle and/or nook....

Throw a couple of cups of mothballs in the attic. Maybe even the dryer sheets mentioned before. I know the mothballs will do the job inside and you will not smell them as the odor goes up and out the vents. It may even get them out of the overhang area.

LMAO, I had a very good belly laugh over your "war".

Yeah, I heard that the US Army's Delta Force was training these little gray guys to be sappers! Also, they're impossible to kill, even going through the perimeter wire! Be careful they don't turn the Claymores around on ya or you'll lose your head and upper torso to 600 steel ball bearings. Ya know, Cong have trained them to do this niffty trick! They're even tougher than Chuck Norris or Rambo in a B+ flick!

Actually, a good way to kill 'em "COMMIE TREE RATS" is to fry them, literally! Try placing two 120VAC wires (w/ insulation stripped-off a fair piece on both) in their entrance hole, an inch or so apart. All they have to do is just touch the two wires! ZAPPPPP ya MF's! Or is that REMFs!!???? LOL

Or you could employ two square pieces of steel wire mesh an inch or so apart, parallel, & hooked up to the 120.....just enough apart so the juice doesn't arc from one to the other, but a tight squeeze for the little buggers.

All kidding aside, it does work well well....they can't smell electricity, only their dead brethen.

Hey Ma, fire up the gas stove and drag out the frying pan, we's having Tree Rats for dinner! HIC!!!!!!

I think they're a step ahead of me Capt! They have already stripped the insulation from some of the the wires!

Your idea reminds me of another 'critter' story. In the coal mines, they made a similar apparatus using three steel plates separated with sheets of rubber, topped with a wet chunk of bread, all hooked up to a huge 440 3-phase generator that powered the drag-line. When the rats came after the bread, they would get blown into the air. I suppose this was the coal miner's idea of fireworks!

I have rats tunneling under the floor in my shed, the cement and tile floor drums like mad and has subsided in a few spots. The bastards aren't going for the baited traps anymore (live capture then drown). I have dogs so I don't want to use poison,,,then there's rate cadavers in awkward places associated with their use.

My top rat catcher, terrier, died (12YO), the dingo bitch who was pretty good is now 14 and not so effective. Her younger brother is still learning the craft.

Instead of moth balls I use naphthalene flakes,same same, sprinkled all through my shed to keep the bug count down but this does not seem to deter the rats.

I'm working on access denial at the moment.

Has anyone here had first hand experience with The Rodenator or similar?

No experience with the rodenator, but similar and 'way more fun.

I was getting some work done at a local fab shop a few years back on an afternoon shift. The guys needed some 6" pipe and went out the back to pick up some with the shop forklift. They surprised a huge packrat that took cover in one of the pipes. Well, being the fun loving rat haters they were, they trundled the 20' pipe over to one of the shop doors, clapped a scrap of plate over the end of the pipe and tack welded it on. They then torched a small hole in the plate and proceeded to fill the pipe with a nice rich oxyacetylene mixture. A little juggling with the forklift and the 20' pipe was aimed into the sky like a howitzer. The mixture in the pipe was ignited and the rat disappeared into the evening sky with a h*ll of a bang. It went at least a city block.

A friend was having trouble with pack rats on his stump ranch. Being a hen-pecked sort of bloke, he live-trapped them and took them about 5 miles down the road to a neighboring farm, rather than kill them, to keep peace in the family. After this went on for a month or so, he thought he detected some familiar rat faces in the crowd he was trapping. So out came a spray can of fluorescent orange paint and the next batch of rats hitting the road got their tails prettied up with fluorescent orange. It turned out that the rats were practically beating him home! They turned up in his traps over the next few days. Out came the .22 pistol to properly finish the job-to heck with peace in the family!!

Jon.

"...and the rat disappeared into the evening sky with a h*ll of a bang."

A RatRocket^TM!

My dad tells the story of growing up on the farm in the late '40s and using enviro-friendly methods of ridding the pastures of rodents. He and is brother would locate the entrance and exit holes of a rodent tunnel. His brother would pour buckets of water down one end, my dad would be waiting at the other end...with a golf club. Perfect decapitations. That was 70 years ago, so don't go "ratting" me out to Greenpeace or the Humane Society.

consider tenting the shed and connecting a hose to the tailpipe of your vehicle... CO will kill anything... you may however have to leave the shed for a while until the stench dies down...

The critters burrow for shelter from the elements so take away the shelter. A leaf blower down one hole multiple times daily will generally have them move to more hospitable surroundings......

Good luck

I've never heard of the "Rodenator", but it looks interesting!

You could always resort to tossing in some plastic explosive (like C4 or Semtex) into the rat hole just like Bill Murray's character did in the Caddyshack movie!

I'd be a bit concerned that the concussive force just might damage your shed.

There is that....not to mention what it might do to my neighbours' floors. I gotta feeling that the tunnel network is extensive. I live in a dense urban environment.

I'd pump something inert down there like maybe Nitrogen and flood the tunnel network with inert gas.

Neighbor, high end software engineer, buys a brand new BMW, also high end--Goes on a family trip for two weeks--Comes back--No start--no power --NADA--Mice had invaded the wiring harness, and with in two weeks, had totally destroyed it--Insurance bill was $4500--Maybe the Soy based plastic was the reason??

Raccoons can fly. Oh yes! Backward!

For several months last year it seemed as though our property featured invisible signs - readable only by raccoons - signs which read, "Free Grub! Bring One! Bring All!" Boy, did they!

We were going through 25 lb. bags of IAMS cat chow every ten days, but it wasn't our three cats who were on a binge, it was raccoons - a whole troop of 'em! One was big enough to saddle-up and ride into the sunset. And meaner than Chuck Norris on a Good Day.

Time to introduce them to The Grid.

The Grid is a 18" x 30" sheet of 1/4" Plexiglas on which parallel strips of 1/4" copper tape have been applied, 1 1/5" apart. The strips are alternately attached to two busses, the first strip to one, the second strip to the other, the third strip to the one, the fourth strip to the other, et cetera, resulting in a pattern of interdigitated, conductive stripes which cover the entire surface. The busses are each connected to one side of a 12,000-volt neon sign transformer. Around the sheet edge is a 'guard ring', which is grounded.

At the sheet centre is a metal-screen pencil cup which is fastened to the sheet by means of a short, stubby 1/2" nylon bolt. The cup is also in contact with one of the stripes.

The Grid

The Ol' Bait-then-turn-on-the-switch trick.

I set up the grid on the veranda and filled the cup with Free Grub. Also set up an infrared surveillance cam and recorder. The transformer is manually operated by remote control - no taking chances with the cats.

IR cam and IR flood to better see them with.

Once everything was set up I turned out the lights and waited. Didn't have to wait long because the buggers were watching me the whole time from just beyond the fence, cursed moochers.

Here is a photo sequence of our first flying coon. Coons are remarkable aviators, did you know that?

Tip: Best to copy these pix into a folder and play them as a 'slideshow' if you want to see this fella in action. Also...just in case you're concerned, none of these guys were injured, but they were very, very surprised! Shock and Awe! Nor did they come back. They've been Off the Grid for going on fifteen months now.

Given their rate of departure, they were obviously quite healthy - not to mention considerably wiser. It isn't visible in these pix, but the transformer is plugged into a variac which I'd set to about 30% (the arcing is due to bits of stuff and moisture between the traces. It doesn't arc at that setting when clean & dry). I wanted to scare the coons off, not injure them - it's their world, too! The best part wasn't the coons', but the cats' response to it all.

The three - Velcro, Shelf-Life and Boo - lounged on the patio table and watched, unconcerned, as if this were all perfectly normal and expected. Velcro, the huntress, mother of the other two and semi-feral, finally got down and sat by The Grid to get a closer look at one of the coons. It snarled at her as it approached (she didn't budge, as if knowing what was coming next) and then proceeded to chow down - for about three seconds - before getting zapped. Velcro went after it hammer-and-tongs all the way to the fence. Next visitor the other two cats followed her example, sat by The Grid at a safe distance and waited, then went after that one as well. It became a game.

It almost appears in the video that it was an apparition or poltergeist as it left the scene, so to speak.

I'd like to know what this is. It was taken (presumably) by a motion-activated wildlife cam at a deer feeder.

That's me mate!

It's a zombie scout. The Apocalypse is set to begin.

A zombie vegan. Deer corn.

zombie, vegan... same thing...

Vegans taste better.

but there's no fat on them. you need marbling!

Certainly not a "Gray" or "Reptilian", but some other species of alien.....

I certainly wouldn't want to cross paths with it on a dark moonless night. Give me the creeps looking at that pic!

i think it was photoshop

What site did you find that pic on? It's certainly creepy!

One rat caught itself yesterday.

I found it swimming in my office toilet. Couldn't get out.

Mrs insisted that I catch it and let it go (Buddhist).

Her will be done.....

A friend calls me, a rat in her toilet. First I tried to kill it with a mix of ammonia and bleach, but it lived on. So I went out to my truck and made a snare out of a stick and some wire. Caught the varmint in the loop, took it outside and bashed it to death with a rock, very disgusting, not a fun thing at all. Then I put wire over the place where it got into the drains.

We're not Buddhist, but I still did not like that chore. Ugh.

The live capture cage traps I normally use fit into a 20litre pail.

I just drop the cage with trapped victim into the bucket full of water and walk away. Come back later to deal with it.

Less grizzly. They can't scream under water.

That's probably best. Drowning does not cause pain, they just black out from lack of air, better than being shot, or crushed in some spring trap.

I trapped one in a cabinet once. Ripped the cabinet out and took it outside. Grabbed a military insecticide spray can, pyrethrins, pierced it with an icepick and tossed it in quickly and slammed the door. The next morning all was quiet.

But the question still remains if that rat in a cabinet ate the ENTIRE package of Oreo's before dying?

....naturally, along with half the door most likely.

I would've, but not before asking for a glass of milk to dunk them in (be still my heart!).

My dad had a nice machine shop which I used from time to time. Only thing about it which I couldn't stomach was the smell of mouse urine. The mice had the run of the place and completely ignored the traps dad had set. It was time for a new approach.

Dad loves wild birds and buys bird seed in these extra-tall buckets - like 5 gal. paint buckets but half again as tall. There was an empty one in the corner of his shop. One morning I discovered a mouse had fallen into it and couldn't jump out. This gave me an idea.

I'd often seen mice run across this one shelf late at night. It seemed to be a sort of 'mouse highway' for the stinky little buggers. The shelf was about 40" off the floor.

I placed the seed-bucket under the shelf, then took a 6"-long, half-inch wide strip of anodized aluminium and punched a dimple into the strip about a quarter-inch from one end. I put a dab of peanut butter on the other end, then positioned the strip on the shelf so that 4" of it extended beyond the shelf edge, then balanced a 5/8" steel ball bearing atop the dimple.

Next morning the strip and bearing lay at the bottom of the bucket. The mouse looked up expecting the worst - and got it: a burst of engine starting fluid - which contains ether, along with carbon monoxide - put the little bugger peacefully and forever out of my misery.

Ten mice walked that plank in ten days and that was all she wrote. No more mice!

Put a hinge on that setup, and it will catch all night. After the mouse falls in the weight will reset the trap.

Mutinous Pirate Mice walking the plank! I love it!!!! hehehehe

Steve of the North

Worked at animal hospital and in winter had many customers with torn up cats that crawled into engine compartment to keep warm and get caught in fan belt when they started cars (pre 70's cars constant running fan belts)

Red Squirrel moved into crawl space under my office and tore down all the floor insulation.

Hot tap on gas distribution line and found dead woodchuck in the shell cutter !