We’re in a constant battle against rodents here on the farm. Mice and rats do lots of damage to farm equipment and supplies as well as to crops. For instance, we’ve had growing seasons where rats eat a noticeable percentage of our bell peppers and, most recently, mice in our greenhouse at a whole batch of pepper and eggplant starts. Two mice (I trapped them the next day) ate over one hundred baby plants in one night this week.
The tops of these baby eggplants were bitten off by mice.Photo (c) 2009 BH Photos
The main weapon in our rodent defense arsenal is mouse traps. They are the most environmentally-friendly rodent control solution and are very effective. However, they require a lot of management because they need to be re-baited and monitored very frequently.
The other rodent-control strategy that we employ is lots and lots of grass mowing and weed-eating. The less cover rodents have, the better because rodents need places to hide in order to make themselves at home. Since we are an organic farm, we don’t use any herbicides, so all weed and grass control on our farm is done by mechanical means such as mowing or mulching.
And, no, a cat isn’t a good means of rodent control. In fact, cats tend to drag mice in from the fields in order to “play with” (torture) them close to home. Often, they get distracted before they get around to killing them, and release them near the barn, house, garden, or wherever else you would least like rodents to take up residence. Also, cats kill a huge number of birds, and seem to prefer hunting birds to hunting rodents.
