Sunday, March 3, 2019

Many barn mice

Friday I did a little work in the barn.  I still had some grain left over from when I used it to entice Red to bond with the Holstein calf.  I stored the bags of grain in a large plastic garbage container.  I thought it was mouse proof.  I was wrong.  When I opened the lid I found the plastic bags were quite shredded.  Inside the container were lots of mice, including baby mice.

I went and got Daisy from the house.  He wasn't too thrilled at being put in the garbage container.  Eventually he settled down and stopped trying to get out.  I thought he would go crazy on the mice but it was like shooting fish in a barrel - too easy and not interesting.  I rattled things around to get the mice moving and Daisy half heartedly chased a few mice.  He killed one and I had to kill the remaining six or seven mice.

One mouse got out of the container and then I discovered how they got in and out.  There are two small holes halfway up the container.  Why?  I don't know.   I plugged the holes with rags.

Later when I was moving some hay bales to get the barn ready in case I had to put a cow and calf in there (which I did have to that night), a mouse ran out and Daisy got all excited to chase it across the barn floor.  Daisy more wanted to play with the mouse than kill it, and after a bit the mouse got away having got among a stack of hay bales.

Why did you put me in here?