Mouse damage Kubota digger

[aesmith]

Our little KX41 digger has to go under the knife again, a coolant leak due to a mouse eating the bottom radiator hose. To be fair partly my fault as it happened a year ago, the mouse took out two other coolant hoses and several Diesel lines as well. At the time I could see the bottom hose was damaged but it wasn't leaking so I left it, mostly because it looks an absolute bear to access. On the bright side at least it was spotted before I blew the engine.

So this leads me to ask, any ideas for preventing stupid mouse damage?

Wiping out the population in a country property with chickens and stuff doesn’t seem possible. You'd think the smelly engine compartment would wouldn’t appeal to a mouse, nor Diesel and antifreeze. On the other hand I've known them to eat cement, and once ate their way into a pack of mouse poison.

 

[Nomad]

Depending if your chickens are free range, get a cat or a terrier?

I've used humane traps and they work well but you need to keep checking them and release the beast a few miles away - hopefully it finds somewhere it likes before it finds it's way back to yours.

If you have no cats or dogs at your place you can try rat poison?

I've spent a few years fixing long forgotten machines that have been sabotaged by rats & mice (including a ride on mower that has all safety interlocks and the main wiring harness destroyed !), it's a constant battle, as soon as you clear a shed / barn, they move to somewhere else nearby ...

 

[RichardM]

Get some intelligent mice to damage it first?

 

[Dev]

I’m going to invent and sell a rat poison impregnated cable wrap and make a fortune!

 

[daleyd]

I’m going to invent and sell a rat poison impregnated cable wrap and make a fortune!

Don’t forget and strip it with your teeth

 

[addjunkie]

Depending if your chickens are free range, get a cat or a terrier?

I've used humane traps and they work well but you need to keep checking them and release the beast a few miles away - hopefully it finds somewhere it likes before it finds it's way back to yours.

If you have no cats or dogs at your place you can try rat poison?

I've spent a few years fixing long forgotten machines that have been sabotaged by rats & mice (including a ride on mower that has all safety interlocks and the main wiring harness destroyed !), it's a constant battle, as soon as you clear a shed / barn, they move to somewhere else nearby ...

We have 4 farm cats and still get the odd issue. Digger engine compartments are warm and dark shelter ideal for a mouse.

 

[Dev]

Don’t forget and strip it with your teeth

Well it’d be green with skulls on it obviously

 

[Red'n'Black]

We have 4 farm cats and still get the odd issue. Digger engine compartments are warm and dark shelter ideal for a mouse.

I've lost count of how much of my stuff the little bar studs have destroyed over the years.

Does anything put them off? Sprinkle the engine bay with cat pizz maybe? Or is that a case of the cure being worse than the disease?

 

[Hotstuff]

My 3 series BMW is a daily driver and always parked on my drive. Mice have attacked the rubber throttle body runners and various other rubber parts.

My biggest concern is that they find their way into the airbox and destroy the filter.

 

[MetalMonkey]

Very difficult to keep them out.

They only exist to cause the maximum amount of damage in the most inaccessible, expensive or difficult to repair locations possible. I’m pretty sure its intentional.

I had a real mouse issue in the workshop, tried everything.
In the end I suffered a complete sense of humour failure, stripped every square inch of cladding and roofing off, bleached everything, wrapped the entire building in rolls of 6mm square mesh laced all together, and reinstalled everything.
It was either that or a flamethrower.
So far. So good.

They say if you can fit a biro in a hole, a mouse can squeeze through it, and given some of the places I've found their corpses, I can well believe it.

Short of parking it in a sealed shipping container, I’d suggest you are fighting a losing battle.
They mark their route as well so all their friends know the way. Bleach will help, but chances are once they are in, you will struggle to deter them.

Try and eliminate any cover in the surrounding area as well to make it less attractive.
I'd personally recommended a scorched earth tactic for at least a 5 mile radius, but I might be slightly biased.

 

[500e]

We have had alloy cased capacitors in radio base stations chewed through. The parked up Volvo tractor unit was another level of damage though, was like Attila the Hun had passed through, not a wire not chewed.
In the workshop we leave the covers off the trunking live neutral earth no matter.
Bait boxes they laugh at, a mate who flies in Alaska was told dont shoot the bear, spray it with this after shouting "Hey Bear"

 

[Hotstuff]

Very difficult to keep them out.

They only exist to cause the maximum amount of damage in the most inaccessible, expensive or difficult to repair locations possible. I’m pretty sure its intentional.

I had a real mouse issue in the workshop, tried everything.
In the end I suffered a complete sense of humour failure, stripped every square inch of cladding and roofing off, bleached everything, wrapped the entire building in rolls of 6mm square mesh laced all together, and reinstalled everything.
It was either that or a flamethrower.
So far. So good.

They say if you can fit a biro in a hole, a mouse can squeeze through it, and given some of the places I've found their corpses, I can well believe it.

Short of parking it in a sealed shipping container, I’d suggest you are fighting a losing battle.
They mark their route as well so all their friends know the way. Bleach will help, but chances are once they are in, you will struggle to deter them.

Try and eliminate any cover in the surrounding area as well to make it less attractive.
I'd personally recommended a scorched earth tactic for at least a 5 mile radius, but I might be slightly biased.

“Nuke the site from orbit…..it’s the only way to be sure”

 

[Barking Mat]

You can buy spray cans of some product to prevent this.

Tap 'anti rodent spray' into Google.

 

[sparkysy]

They are an absolute nightmare, I find them all over the place, my workshop has them and they have nibbled on just about everything they can and avoided the poison and traps.
I find them in consumer units, electrical panels and trunking, lofts, sheds. There was one living in the air box on the car!
The van has been nibbled on and I drive that daily.
They are unstoppable, as said above they need the smallest hole to get in through which isn't always the easiest to find!!

 

[Smallfry]

More likely to be a rat IMO. Got a mini digger, two tractors, and a Unimog. All live outside on grass, and none have been touched. One of the tractors has no electrics anyway, because the PO kept it in a barn, and mice and rats destroyed most of the wiring loom, even behind the dash.

Trouble with poisons, is the effect on owls, birds of prey and carrion eaters, and foxes.

 

[aesmith]

Thanks. I've had some other hellish mouse damage. Two different motorcycle air filters, one of which they filled with peanuts as well as mouse droppings, the other their urine corroded the throttle bodies.

By the way I don't think it's rats. We do have them from time to time but typically we find them where there's a food supply. Do rats do that sort of random pointless gnawing damage? I did once find half a rat under the bonnet of the MG. But I haven't seen rat droppings in the buildings for years.

 

[gaz1]

if you get hold of some stainless braided sleeving and wrap that around the tube it will stop the mouse getting at the tubes

 

[Tom O]

Try some hot sauce or ghost pepper solution maybe?

 

[frank horton]

we got 4 cats and a waste of space......just recently rescued a new born kitten from the bins in the street....dumped.....
wow, what a mouser....
I find in the workshop it's best to move stuff around every few months...but I have a bit of room to play chess...
all my stuff can be moved with a pallet truck or it's on wheels.....even the Bridgeport...

 

[Bobupndown]

We have a male tuxedo cat who is essentially a mass murderer. There is nothing with feathers or fur safe from him. Barely a day goes by he's not proudly bringing us his latest kills. I'd say my garage and vehicles are safe from such rodent vandalism.