I increased my stockade fence this year and am getting ready to put my plants out. I still have to put the chicken wire on top to be legal. Anyway I premeasured some organic dry nutes like every other year but this year something chewed holes in several bags and tried to carry it away. I think it's mice maybe a rat. I put a mouse trap out and turned on the cameras to find out for sure what it is. Any way I have grown for years and never had any problems. If this is mice or rats will they be a problem with my plants. If so how do I prevent problems. I live in the country so anything up to and including a 12 ga shot gun with turkey loads are an option
Varmints?
- Thread starter Rayi
- Start date
Outdoors, in the country? Ought to be far easier to deal with them than my in-town, indoors rodent issue has turned out to be. Do a web-search for "rodent bucket trap." A fence is a waste of time - the little b@stards can get into a building via a quarter-sized hole, five stories up, so they'll just scale your fence at a run. Plus, they can probably dig. Enclosing your entire garden in "rabbit wire," harware cloth (it's actually metal) will work. You'd need the stuff with quarter-inch holes, the half-inch hole stuff won't stop mice. And, again, they'll run right up the stuff - so you'll have to also make a "ceiling" of it, too. And, if it were me, I'd dig down a foot, maybe even a foot and a half, install the hardware cloth to that depth, back-fill, and thoroughly tamp the dirt on both sides.
Congratulations, lol, you just rodent-proofed your outdoor garden.
Another thing that might work is to tear down and remove your fence (they'll just use it to leap from
) along with any trees or other vegetation, all around the perimeter of your garden. Then set up closely-spaced runs of bare copper wire, and run 240VAC through them, alternating so that each pair of wires, when bridged, makes a completed circuit. But you'll have to use 240VAC, 220VAC, whatever it is... I did some experimenting along those lines in my house with 120VAC. Shocks the sh!t out of mice - but then they just get up and try again. The higher voltage might kill the things, maybe. Oh, and you'll need to patrol your garden pretty regularly, because if any dumb thief ends up deciding to comit suicide-by-attempted-theft, he'll probably fall across the contraption and then, bam, the mice might be able to use the carcass to traverse the death zone. Plus, it could short things out, maybe, IDK.
So it'll probably be smarter to go with the complete rabbit wire enclosure idea.
Whatever you do, DON'T attempt to capture and chain up bobcats or something. If you do, some good samaritan will probably come by, free the poor animals, and trash your garden, lol.
Congratulations, lol, you just rodent-proofed your outdoor garden.
Another thing that might work is to tear down and remove your fence (they'll just use it to leap from
) along with any trees or other vegetation, all around the perimeter of your garden. Then set up closely-spaced runs of bare copper wire, and run 240VAC through them, alternating so that each pair of wires, when bridged, makes a completed circuit. But you'll have to use 240VAC, 220VAC, whatever it is... I did some experimenting along those lines in my house with 120VAC. Shocks the sh!t out of mice - but then they just get up and try again. The higher voltage might kill the things, maybe. Oh, and you'll need to patrol your garden pretty regularly, because if any dumb thief ends up deciding to comit suicide-by-attempted-theft, he'll probably fall across the contraption and then, bam, the mice might be able to use the carcass to traverse the death zone. Plus, it could short things out, maybe, IDK.So it'll probably be smarter to go with the complete rabbit wire enclosure idea.
Whatever you do, DON'T attempt to capture and chain up bobcats or something. If you do, some good samaritan will probably come by, free the poor animals, and trash your garden, lol.
- Thread starter
- #3
Ok you must think I'm rich. My garden is 48 by 72 feet. I'd have to sell my car to buy that much wire. I will look up the bucket trap. Also turned on cameras and pointed one in the area of the mouse trap. I also have a auto that needs to be chopped. I might pull buds and put the plant out early to see what happens. Been growing medical for 10 years or so and never had problems except when I had the compost bin inside the fence but that was 1 raccoon and a .22 took care of that with no damage
Nunyabiz
Well-Known Member
Nothing beats an air rifle for taking out vermin.
Although I have seen some pretty ingenious mouse traps.
Although I have seen some pretty ingenious mouse traps.
Ouch! It must suck to have grown over $100,000 worth of cannabis (at low end of Michigan wholesale pound price) last year and not have enough money to cover expenses on this year's grow. You must be one of the relatively few people who actually give their harvest to those they provide for. I commend you for that.
If your fence is of the "100% solid" variety, with NO gaps, you would only have to cover the top with ¼"-hole hardware cloth to rodent-proof your garden. But that's still 3,456 ft.2 of hardware cloth. And, without calling a distributor that the hardware store (RIP) I once worked at to check wholesale prices, the best I could find was between 300 and 400 square feet for $100, depending on what configuration (width x length) I chose. So, yes, could be near or even a little over $1,000 after factoring in other miscellaneous hardware and minimum necessary overlap. If you do end up considering this solution, be sure to call any "Mom & Pop" hardware stores in your region, too. Yes, their prices will (probably) be higher than the "LowDepot" hardware-themed department stores and Amazon. However, the small real hardware stores have to meet minimum buy agreements with their suppliers. For many of them, it's a real stretch to do so in a good year. Not just to buy enough product to get even halfway decent prices - but to not get cut off altogether as a customer. Just one of the many stresses that the owner of the store I worked at went through on a daily basis. Anyway, because of this kind of thing, you might be able to talk the owner of such a store into basically selling you the quantity of hardware cloth you'd need at cost plus something for their trouble (so to speak - the "trouble" would be nil if you arranged to be there on delivery day with a truck, trailer, and someone to help you unload the stuff from the semi truck. I saw that happen a handful of times. Once, the guy was an hour late and two of us employees had to do the unloading - it was fencing material, but a different type. When he did get there, he apologized to one and all, gave us both $25, and then returned to drop off lunch. So that worked out, lol.
If it was me, what would I do, what would I do... Take out a loan? NO! Have to pay it back "tomorrow," and there's no way of knowing whether I'll still be above ground. Reduce the size of my garden to one that I have the ability and... liquidity to properly care for within the environment and location that I have chosen to situate it? That's a possibility. I wouldn't want to, of course. Both specifically, because it's difficult to decide to downsize a cannabis garden and, generally, because we humans find it very hard to admit that we've bitten off more than we can chew. Oh, I know! Find someone to buy you the hardware cloth for a pound of bud at harvest time on speculation. My buddy got his roof replaced about ten years ago that way. Bud prices were a little higher than they currently are in MI (again, assuming the low-end wholesale price), and he had to offer TWO pounds. On the other hand, it wasn't a small, single-story house, the owner of the roofing outfit had to buy materials, pay his crew's labor, and "eat the profit," etc.
If there are any gaps in the fence, fix that problem ASAP. I've read that rodents won't chew through copper wool. One of the few things they won't (at least eventually) chew through - they have to gnaw on stuff, because their teeth grow continuously, all throughout their lives. I'm told there are some really good commercial rodent repellents out there - and that they'll work right up to the point when the rodent gets hungry . Because they'll do anything to get food, cross any barrier that they physically can cross, and eat... anything. Including each other. They're just not wired with a "starvation" option.
You could buy a dozen Burmese pythons, lol, and turn them loose in your garden. Problem solved - but those things cost anywhere from $400 to $1,200 each, so they kind of make the hardware cloth idea seem like a bargain.
There's always bird shot. But you'll probably only want, at most, four people in there shooting, due to the very real danger of someone losing situational awareness and winging somebody else (even bird shot can destroy an eyeball, as you undoubtedly know). And that won't touch a serious rodent infestation. A pair of the little monsters can, in theory, turn into 10,000. Also, they must sleep in shifts, LOFL - because the mice in my house are active day and night. Someone kicked in my back door early in the year, and it was several days before I got enough scrap wood to (mostly) patch it. Near as I can figure, that's how they got in here. Started out, I saw one. Then I could kind of, maybe (hard of hearing) hear something. Next thing I knew, they were EVERYWHERE!!! I don't even know what they're eating. There isn't a scrap of food in this house that isn't securely contained (trust me!). Especially since my refrigerator quit working and I started using the @%^# thing as a pantry/storage. About the only thing I bring inside comes in cans. Once a month, I go to the local food pantry, and (so far) they've been able to give me either some kind of bread item or a pound of whole(?) rice each time, but that goes into the refrig-pantry. When I go on a late-night dumpster crawl looking for something to eat... well, that source has greatly dried up this year, the competition is fierce around here these days, and I tend to finish off anything I find before I make it back home (I walk pretty slow, and am pretty hungry by the time I break down and head out). I do have a cat, but I have only been able to feed her one tiny can of the cheapest food available per day - and she seems to have some kind of worms - so she "inhales" her food immediately, licks the plate clean, then licks the lid and empty can clean. Plus, I stand there to make sure that she is the only animal eating her food, while trying not to salivate over the odors of her food. In other words, there's no food - whole, leftovers, or waste - available. And yet I... the other night, I heated up a can of some kind of chili stuff or other, wrapped a towel around the can so I could take it in to the table and eat it, forgot the spoon, turned around to get one (within reach of the table) - and there were two mice on the table by the time I turned back! I yelled, they did that lightspeed retreat thing that they do. Before I had the first bite in my mouth, one of them was back on the table. Yelled again, it ran again... and came back. That time, I flipped the little f*cker square on the nose and it went flying ass over teakettle off the table and didn't come back. A while back, it got pretty cold. And I shut down my heat the moment the chance of my water pipes freezing drops to "maybe not." I no longer own long johns, so I slept fully dressed (except for my boots, I wake up hurting even worse than usual if I wear them to bed). Woke up, huh - my left leg is itching funny. Without thinking, I flipped the blanket over, reached down to scratch my calf - and the itch turned out to be a %#@#%&&@%#!#^%ing MOUSE that had gotten up my pants leg! That really sucked. And the worst thing of all about it - I don't move all that good any more - by the time I managed to get up and try to catch/kill the SOB, it had gotten away. My cat used to be the most awesome little predatory hunter you could imagine. Now she won't even go upstairs. I don't blame her, either. I wouldn't go up there if my couch hadn't sold in the big yard sale I had the first warm weekend in February. Probably shouldn't even bother anyway, half the time I end up sleeping on the floor because it's easier on my back than trying to lay flat on a mattress. I suppose, one of these days, I'll stumble into one of the walls that have wallpaper on them and fall through because the rodents have eaten the lathe and plaster. IDFK.
I have a feeling that, if I read everything that I just typed, I'd delete it all instead of posting it. As recently as two years ago, I'd have been too embarrassed. <SHRUGS> If I cannot solve your problem, at least I can commiserate with you and show you that you are not alone. Good luck!
If your fence is of the "100% solid" variety, with NO gaps, you would only have to cover the top with ¼"-hole hardware cloth to rodent-proof your garden. But that's still 3,456 ft.2 of hardware cloth. And, without calling a distributor that the hardware store (RIP) I once worked at to check wholesale prices, the best I could find was between 300 and 400 square feet for $100, depending on what configuration (width x length) I chose. So, yes, could be near or even a little over $1,000 after factoring in other miscellaneous hardware and minimum necessary overlap. If you do end up considering this solution, be sure to call any "Mom & Pop" hardware stores in your region, too. Yes, their prices will (probably) be higher than the "LowDepot" hardware-themed department stores and Amazon. However, the small real hardware stores have to meet minimum buy agreements with their suppliers. For many of them, it's a real stretch to do so in a good year. Not just to buy enough product to get even halfway decent prices - but to not get cut off altogether as a customer. Just one of the many stresses that the owner of the store I worked at went through on a daily basis. Anyway, because of this kind of thing, you might be able to talk the owner of such a store into basically selling you the quantity of hardware cloth you'd need at cost plus something for their trouble (so to speak - the "trouble" would be nil if you arranged to be there on delivery day with a truck, trailer, and someone to help you unload the stuff from the semi truck. I saw that happen a handful of times. Once, the guy was an hour late and two of us employees had to do the unloading - it was fencing material, but a different type. When he did get there, he apologized to one and all, gave us both $25, and then returned to drop off lunch. So that worked out, lol.
If it was me, what would I do, what would I do... Take out a loan? NO! Have to pay it back "tomorrow," and there's no way of knowing whether I'll still be above ground. Reduce the size of my garden to one that I have the ability and... liquidity to properly care for within the environment and location that I have chosen to situate it? That's a possibility. I wouldn't want to, of course. Both specifically, because it's difficult to decide to downsize a cannabis garden and, generally, because we humans find it very hard to admit that we've bitten off more than we can chew. Oh, I know! Find someone to buy you the hardware cloth for a pound of bud at harvest time on speculation. My buddy got his roof replaced about ten years ago that way. Bud prices were a little higher than they currently are in MI (again, assuming the low-end wholesale price), and he had to offer TWO pounds. On the other hand, it wasn't a small, single-story house, the owner of the roofing outfit had to buy materials, pay his crew's labor, and "eat the profit," etc.
If there are any gaps in the fence, fix that problem ASAP. I've read that rodents won't chew through copper wool. One of the few things they won't (at least eventually) chew through - they have to gnaw on stuff, because their teeth grow continuously, all throughout their lives. I'm told there are some really good commercial rodent repellents out there - and that they'll work right up to the point when the rodent gets hungry
. Because they'll do anything to get food, cross any barrier that they physically can cross, and eat... anything. Including each other. They're just not wired with a "starvation" option.You could buy a dozen Burmese pythons, lol, and turn them loose in your garden. Problem solved - but those things cost anywhere from $400 to $1,200 each, so they kind of make the hardware cloth idea seem like a bargain.
There's always bird shot. But you'll probably only want, at most, four people in there shooting, due to the very real danger of someone losing situational awareness and winging somebody else (even bird shot can destroy an eyeball, as you undoubtedly know). And that won't touch a serious rodent infestation. A pair of the little monsters can, in theory, turn into 10,000. Also, they must sleep in shifts, LOFL - because the mice in my house are active day and night. Someone kicked in my back door early in the year, and it was several days before I got enough scrap wood to (mostly) patch it. Near as I can figure, that's how they got in here. Started out, I saw one. Then I could kind of, maybe (hard of hearing) hear something. Next thing I knew, they were EVERYWHERE!!! I don't even know what they're eating. There isn't a scrap of food in this house that isn't securely contained (trust me!). Especially since my refrigerator quit working and I started using the @%^# thing as a pantry/storage. About the only thing I bring inside comes in cans. Once a month, I go to the local food pantry, and (so far) they've been able to give me either some kind of bread item or a pound of whole(?) rice each time, but that goes into the refrig-pantry. When I go on a late-night dumpster crawl looking for something to eat... well, that source has greatly dried up this year, the competition is fierce around here these days, and I tend to finish off anything I find before I make it back home (I walk pretty slow, and am pretty hungry by the time I break down and head out). I do have a cat, but I have only been able to feed her one tiny can of the cheapest food available per day - and she seems to have some kind of worms - so she "inhales" her food immediately, licks the plate clean, then licks the lid and empty can clean. Plus, I stand there to make sure that she is the only animal eating her food, while trying not to salivate over the odors of her food. In other words, there's no food - whole, leftovers, or waste - available. And yet I... the other night, I heated up a can of some kind of chili stuff or other, wrapped a towel around the can so I could take it in to the table and eat it, forgot the spoon, turned around to get one (within reach of the table) - and there were two mice on the table by the time I turned back! I yelled, they did that lightspeed retreat thing that they do. Before I had the first bite in my mouth, one of them was back on the table. Yelled again, it ran again... and came back. That time, I flipped the little f*cker square on the nose and it went flying ass over teakettle off the table and didn't come back. A while back, it got pretty cold. And I shut down my heat the moment the chance of my water pipes freezing drops to "maybe not." I no longer own long johns, so I slept fully dressed (except for my boots, I wake up hurting even worse than usual if I wear them to bed). Woke up, huh - my left leg is itching funny. Without thinking, I flipped the blanket over, reached down to scratch my calf - and the itch turned out to be a %#@#%&&@%#!#^%ing MOUSE that had gotten up my pants leg! That really sucked. And the worst thing of all about it - I don't move all that good any more - by the time I managed to get up and try to catch/kill the SOB, it had gotten away. My cat used to be the most awesome little predatory hunter you could imagine. Now she won't even go upstairs. I don't blame her, either. I wouldn't go up there if my couch hadn't sold in the big yard sale I had the first warm weekend in February. Probably shouldn't even bother anyway, half the time I end up sleeping on the floor because it's easier on my back than trying to lay flat on a mattress. I suppose, one of these days, I'll stumble into one of the walls that have wallpaper on them and fall through because the rodents have eaten the lathe and plaster. IDFK.
I have a feeling that, if I read everything that I just typed, I'd delete it all instead of posting it. As recently as two years ago, I'd have been too embarrassed. <SHRUGS> If I cannot solve your problem, at least I can commiserate with you and show you that you are not alone. Good luck!
- Thread starter
- #6
IDK, personally. I just went off the prices mentioned here:
The low end of the "But that price fell to $1,800-$2,200 a pound in the past few weeks, which will negatively affect any grower that’s selling into the medical market" part when medicinal-use growers were rushing to offload product before April 8 of this year, not the previous price of "around $4,000" (*wow*) that was mentioned, and which linked to this:
Wait, your grow space has to be covered all the way 'round? How are varmits getting in, then? Some part of the covering have relatively large holes or something? What's the point of covering it, then, a symbolic gesture?
Hey, one thing that I've read of that might work (haven't tried it, yet, as I cannot afford to purchase the three ingredients) is to mix equal parts of sugar, flour, and baking soda. Then you can place it into shallow dishes and/or roll it out into pea-sized balls and put them everywhere. The mix is obviously not poisonous - but when a mouse or rat eats the stuff, the baking soda reacts with the acid in the stomach, and produces a good bit of gas. And, well... rodents lack the ability to burp or fart, LOL. So the rodent ends up with a ruptured/burst digestive system, and won't bother you any more, because it'll be dead. The flour and sugar are only there because rodents like to eat the stuff, it's the baking soda that does the trick. If I had the money, I'd buy 15 pounds of each of the three ingredients, spend the day mixing it up and putting "little balls o' death" all over my house... and the next week searching for and disposing of dead mice.
Michigan wholesale medical marijuana prices fall on flood of caregiver product
Wholesale prices for medical cannabis plummeted in Michigan after a change in regulations that prevents caregivers from selling into the recreational market caused them to offload large amounts of flower, coupled with brisk demand from dispensaries.
mjbizdaily.com
The low end of the "But that price fell to $1,800-$2,200 a pound in the past few weeks, which will negatively affect any grower that’s selling into the medical market" part when medicinal-use growers were rushing to offload product before April 8 of this year, not the previous price of "around $4,000" (*wow*) that was mentioned, and which linked to this:
Marijuana wholesale prices in Michigan soar on tight supply
A tight supply of flower in Michigan is leading to higher-than-average marijuana wholesale prices as producers struggle to keep pace with growing demand.
mjbizdaily.com
Wait, your grow space has to be covered all the way 'round? How are varmits getting in, then? Some part of the covering have relatively large holes or something? What's the point of covering it, then, a symbolic gesture?
Hey, one thing that I've read of that might work (haven't tried it, yet, as I cannot afford to purchase the three ingredients) is to mix equal parts of sugar, flour, and baking soda. Then you can place it into shallow dishes and/or roll it out into pea-sized balls and put them everywhere. The mix is obviously not poisonous - but when a mouse or rat eats the stuff, the baking soda reacts with the acid in the stomach, and produces a good bit of gas. And, well... rodents lack the ability to burp or fart, LOL. So the rodent ends up with a ruptured/burst digestive system, and won't bother you any more, because it'll be dead. The flour and sugar are only there because rodents like to eat the stuff, it's the baking soda that does the trick. If I had the money, I'd buy 15 pounds of each of the three ingredients, spend the day mixing it up and putting "little balls o' death" all over my house... and the next week searching for and disposing of dead mice.
- Thread starter
- #8
Our wonderful governor made it so medical growers can't sell their overages so that price goes out the window. How I do it the first oz is free and any additional ounce is 200. The new problem is unlike recreational as a grower I can have 2.5 oz of "useable product" per patient and they can have 2.5 oz. So to stay legal the product has to be not usable for some time. Grey area. The other problem I get into is you can't mix medical and recreational so my stuff can't be grown outside unless it's in a completely different enclosure. My top is chicken wire and is not on yet. The lock down in Michigan is severe and I can't get help. Also the fence is stockade fence do it's not mouse tight. I'm hoping I'm over reacting I've never had a problem in 10 years. Hope the top goes on Monday and Tuesday so nothing big can get in. I put one of my cameras close enough to a baggie of fertilizer with a mouse trap on Sunday. Maybe by Monday I will know more. I like the idea of blowing the little bastards up
- Thread starter
- #9
Forgot to say the encloser is to keep people out and is so vague so any cop that's didn't get laid rescently can be a dick. I'm thinking this may be my last year. I don't think 3 of my patients will be around in 2021 and I'm too old for this shit. Only reason I'm doing it this year is for the three old patients and a a favor for a family member
Been my experience that the only way to stop a thief is to kill him. Failing that, the best a person can do is to make it so it's easier for him to rob your neighbor than it would be to rob you. And half the state/local governments have made it so that one has to practically have an arm inside your house for you to ventilate him without fear of reprisal or need to dispose of the carcass yourself. Which would have been fine when I was 25, but now it's going to be a PITA and probably require dismemberment and some contractor's trash bags.
Bob Loblaw
Well-Known Member
Ferret
Bob Loblaw
Well-Known Member
Sorry TLDR You probably want to read up on the ferret Idea first....
If you put chunks of Irish Spring original in the shed it will keep the mice away.
Ya the hand soap stuff.
If you put chunks of Irish Spring original in the shed it will keep the mice away.
Ya the hand soap stuff.
