# Mice made a nest in my tack?!



## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

Mice carry disease...
Cornered they will bite you...be careful!!
Its baby season so nest making is a large part of their day and they love to use soft things readily available.
Yes, they will chew your saddles too in a short time.

Use mouse traps and sticky traps, put out moth balls and flakes and cedar scented items to try to drive them off...
Sadly, if they really tore into it it is garbage and not going to be salvageable...
How do you replace the torn out fluff and fibers to provide consistent protection to the horses back a saddle pad is meant for.
I think till the mouse problem is under control and done with my tack would go in my car...at the very minimum my saddles.
Maybe hanging from clip hooks not near a wall or something to climb up would protect your other tack...but me, my stuff would be removed ASAP for safeguarding.
:runninghorse2:...


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

This what I would do. Get the saddles out pronto, they will chew on them. Get all of you good stuff out and leave the chewed up pad as it's ruined already anyway. Set out traps to catch the mice that are already in there and then after that use something to discourage more from coming in. I guess moth balls would work but I can't stand the smell of them either so that wouldn't work for me. One article that I read says that cedar will keep them out and one said that it's no good for this and they will actually chew that too. I don't know if you keep feed in your trailer (some people do) but that can be a huge attractant as they like a food source close to their nesting areas. i would leave a couple of blocks of Tom Cat rodent bait for them to chew on.

I had a rodent problem for a short time and nothing got rid of them. It all started because I have birds and they were coming in for the seeds. I then kept every piece of pet food contained but then they just started going directly to the bird cages. I finally got rid of them for good when I went away for two weeks (all pets out of the house) and the only thing for them to eat was poison. No more rodents since then.


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## TeeZee (May 26, 2018)

I have heard beet pulp will kill them. They eat it, and it swells and busts their stomachs. I have not seen proof of this, but I have no mice. It might be worth a try instead of leaving poisons out. All of your options depend on if there are other animals around such as dogs and cats.


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

I keep my tack in my living room on stands and racks for the rodent reason. My shop gets mice and sometimes pack rats and no matter how fast I kill them with decon poison they still sometimes manage to chew on stuff before I wipe them out again, so rather than lose 1,000s of dollars in tack damage I keep everything inside. Get your tack out of where the mice are as soon as you can. If you live in an area with Hanta virus make sure you wear a respirator when you clean your tack after you get it out of there.


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## SilverMaple (Jun 24, 2017)

You have to get your stuff out of there. Go over the trailer's tack room with a fine-toothed comb and seal up any tiny area where they could be getting in-- roof vents, little gaps along the door, drainage holes, gaps in the floorboards, etc. Mice will get through a very tiny spot. Once you have sealed up the tack room and trapped any currently residing rodents, carefully go over your items and tack. Dump out buckets where they could be hiding, put grain and treats elsewhere, etc. Put only what must be in the trailer tackroom in there. Keep an enclosed trap in the corner, just in case. Throw away anything contaminated with mouse poop and urine-- it can carry several diseases, including hanta virus. If you can't completely seal up the tack room, I wouldn't keep anything of value in there longer than it took to haul to a ride. Get a tack trunk or garden storage shed instead. 

Peppermint will help deter mice. I have jars with peppermint-soaked cotton balls in them in my trailer tack room. So far so good. But I don't keep feed, treats, or items not frequently-used in there, and I go through every few months, take everything out, and reorganize. 

The most important thing is to seal up anywhere they can get in, and then be careful not to leave the door open or have all sorts of stuff in there for them to hide in if they do get in. They WILL chew and destroy your tack.


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## pasomountain (Dec 19, 2018)

Mice made a nest in one of my western saddle pads. The pad is still usable since they only chewed a space on the side. After getting the poop out I just threw it in the washing machine with a natural laundry soap (no chemical soap to irritate horses skin). Sounds like your english pad may not be salvageable though! 

I no longer have a mouse problem at that barn because I moved my tack to another room with a kitty door--the cats are fed in there so they are always in and out and apparently keeping the mice away. 

We did have mice in our garage for awhile though and the only way to remove them was by baiting traps with peanut butter--they love it! Caught 8-9 before they stopped showing up.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

I tried to rid my rodent problem without poison and nothing worked. Believe me, I tried everything I could find on the internet. I did trap quite a few but they were breeding faster than I could catch them. I even put out bowls of 50% corn meal and 50% cement (which they ate) and somehow it seemed to turn them into super rodents.


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## humanartrebel1020 (Nov 12, 2018)

It may be terribly ruined if its English pad but I think if the tear is on the bottom underneath it may deserve a patch.


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

I HATE mice because I LOVE my tack. We also live in an area with hanta virus so there is that concern too. But I would absolutely go ballistic if they got to my tack. Because, did I mention, I love my tack. 


I keep my tack in the garage, an enclosed area, but also prone to getting mice now and then. I don't like the idea of poison because 1) I don't want an outdoor cat or other animal to get poisoned by a sick mouse and 2) I don't want something dead rotting behind the fridge or wherever! So the best traps we have found, bar none, are these:


https://www.walmart.com/ip/Victor-4...MI-qq6r56X4gIVfR-tBh2PCQy3EAQYASABEgKzHfD_BwE

I bait them with a tiny dab of peanut butter and they catch way more mice than regular traps. Set them against walls and they will catch mice even without bait because the mice step on the trigger mechanism. We only buy these and I have probably 6-8 of them set at any given time to catch intruding mice BEFORE they get into anything valuable. I even keep feed in there and the traps catch the mice before they can chew a hole in the bag. So get your stuff out if possible, set lots of traps, catch all the mice and then leave traps set in there when you put your tack back in. I just keep lots of traps set to catch any stray mice that find their way in. 

I hate to think how much I have invested in my tack. And I love my tack. I have no sympathy for the mice!


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

A mouse story for you. One of my friends said she was out trail riding, reached into her saddlebags and found........a mouse nest complete with baby mice! She said she hated to do it, but she dumped them out on the trail. She wasn't going to take them home with her!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Our tack and feed shed is baited with rat and mice pellets - nothing else is properly effective. I have them in special walk-in-walk-out containers for rodents which are not pet accessible. All my feed is in sealed bins, saddles are on saddle stands, bridles and halters on racks, miscellaneous gear in two plastic 44-gallon drums with rodent-proof lids. The floor needs sweeping regularly so bits of horse feed (AKA rodent feed) don't accumulate and attract rodents. Swept outside the shed, the birds eat any grain seeds that might have spilled at feed time.

The mice and rats will make nests in anything that's concealed or in heaps. They sadly also did this in a couple of boxes of university stuff I stored for the summer after I graduated (a million years ago). I've never stored valuable things in non-rodent proof containers since.


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

We used to have mice issues when we moved in. The mouse activity greatly decreased with the use of electric traps (it electrocutes the critter...sounds terrible but it worked. Our chickens also ate them. Like chased them down and ate the mouse. Crazy. But I'll suggest those electric traps. They won't hurt other animals if they're gotten into and kill mice easy. Rats are a bit of a different matter. But like someone said, mice do bite! I grabbed a hold of one one time and it bit me. They're dirty little things too and carry diseases. 

The issue with a trailer tack room is that it's hard for an animal like a cat to get in there and kill the mice. We have two barn cats and I haven't seen a mouse in five years. If I had a choice I'd prefer using a cat to control the critters rather than anything else, especially if there was a large infestation.


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## probablyriding17 (Feb 21, 2015)

Okay so I’ve cleaned most of my stuff out and disinfected, put dryer sheets and moth balls in there. Most of what was pulled out was black thread, they didn’t get too much of the actually padding and they made it look like more than it was. Do you guys think this pad is salvageable with a patch and used with a half pad? It’s my favourite pad, I got it half price and really don’t want to have to spend extra money to replace it.


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

If there's not a lot of stuffing ripped out I'd just put a patch on it and move on. Your saddle should cover that spot if you're worried about looks. Besides that there's nothing wrong with it that I can see.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

That doesn't look so bad and it looks like you can put a patch over it if you want to.


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## PoptartShop (Jul 25, 2010)

That honestly doesn't look too bad, I think it'll be fine, or yes you can patch it.


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## Deodar (Apr 13, 2016)

There's a product called Fresh Cab. I get it at Menard's or the local farm store. It was developed by a farmer who got tired of mice building nests in the engines of the equipment. It works well.


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