Of Mice and Horse Owners

I love furry and feathered creatures. Thus, when we had to move our flooded out haystack and found 12 tiny baby cottontails, I was more than willing to drive halfway across Phoenix (quite literally) to meet a lady who rehabilitates cottontails, jackrabbits and squirrels. As I kneeled in the still damp earth, smelling the misfortune of those babies that had not survived the flood, I thought of all the times I'd cursed their parents for eating whatever I plant. With my shirt hem folded up like a kangaroo pouch I transported the squealing bunnies to a bird cage, loaded them in the car and spent what was going to be a pleasant Sunday evening on the farm, driving through city traffic.

I love people who love creatures, which is one of the many reasons I hold my neighbors in such high esteem. Most of the people on our street have horses. My nearest neighbors raise adorable dogs and everyone here owns an assortment of dogs, cats and horses.

One of our neighbors today informed me that he'd been having to buy hay, because he couldn't use what he had left just yet. Seems a quail had decided to build a nest on the top bail and until her babies were old enough to leave, he didn't want to disturb that section of the stack.

I love creatures. They rule my roost. I draw the line at creatures with more than four legs and creatures that can harm my family or the animals in our care. I draw that line with a heavy heart, but it's drawn in stone. Rattlers present a terrible threat so we dispatched 12 or more each year in the yard, some in the barn and around the haystack and dog kennels. I don't like killing them. It's not a point of pride and I sure don't feel like the "mighty hunter", they're simply too dangerous. Last year we put up a snake fence to attempt to deter the reptiles. It must be working fairly well. We have not found nearly as many in the barn and paddocks and I discovered other evidence.

I had lived with a mouse in my tack and feed shed for about seven months. One mouse was cute. He'd peer out at me from behind buckets, blinking his bright little eyes, waiting for me to leave his home. One mouse was cute. It was when he began to invite his friends that I started to have a problem.

At first it was still a small problem. I had two or three mice in the tack shed who ate the spilled feed. Then they decided they should stock up for the winter. They gnawed a hole in one of the bags and began carrying cheekfuls of Omolene to their larder in the corner. I didn't notice this until their stockpile had grown large enough (about a foot high and about a foot and a half long) to be seen behind all the stacked bags. After cleaning that mess up, I actually spent some time wondering if I should take action against them at this point. It wasn't until I raised a scoop full of feed at o'dark thirty one morning and felt tiny bare feet scrambling, panic stricken, over my arm that I decided to actually do something about the issue. I bought several large cans to put the feed bags in. Yes, friends. THAT was the sum total of my answer to the problem. I hoped that by depriving them of food, they'd just leave. I hoped in vain.

Depriving the mice of food in the shed only sent them foraging in the barn. The barn is a big place. They thrived. I'd go out at night and see one scurry under a tarp. As the nights passed, I'd see one scurry under the tarp, one hopping like mad across a stall looking for cover and even sat and watched as a couple of mice children (yes, part of my problem is that I think like that), making their first timid forays into the larger world from the safety of their hole under a stall mat. Still, at this point, I merely wondered if there were some larger action I should take. There was, but I didn't want to think about it.

It wasn't until I was researching Salmonella and it's dangers to horses that I found out that mice and birds are the culprits in most outbreaks. It was while I was weighing the options (live traps vs miserable death vs quick death) that I developed an inkling of the depth of my mouse problem.

I went to the barn and there was a mouse in the middle of the floor, scavenging through some fallen hay. He didn't seem bothered by my presence and I worked around him. Then I noticed several hopping through the stalls, sifting the dirt for fallen bits of grain. Then I noticed a LOT of rustling coming from the tarp. As I was feeding I was shocked to see several mice racing along the fence panels in the stalls. This could not continue. There must have been fifteen to twenty mice out there. I could almost see the trails of Salmonella bacteria being left behind them. For the health of the horses in my care, I had to act.

When John called from work that night I told him the problem, he stopped on the way home and picked up the old fashioned, kill them quickly, mouse traps. He bought twenty of them. He began laying them out when he got home. Before he'd gotten ten laid out he'd already murdered several mice. We were both amazed and depressed at the success of the traps. He literally could not bait them and set them out fast enough. Within two hours there were 15 corpses and we began to realize that the problem was worse than I'd suspected.

Within 48 hours the corpse count had risen to 53 and there were still faint rustlings coming from the tarp. It was sad. They all thought they'd found paradise and there we were sending them there. The traps are here to stay. I had to disinfect the entire barn area. All because of one cute mouse.

Two years ago we didn't have a mouse problem. We had a lethal snake problem. I suppose the upside to this depressing tale is that the hardware cloth we wrapped around the entire perimeter fence is helping. It's an age old story. Remove the predators and the prey over populates. If anyone ever had any doubts about the truth of that, they're invited to see the phenomenon in action right here.