I Really Don't Know What To Do...

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Perfectpets11

Perfectpets11

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Hi! As you guys may already know I have two boars. They currently live as outdoor piggies and in winter move into our garage. For a long long time now I have wanted to get my boys a shed once the back of our house had been completed. When we were getting rid of the trees in the back of the garden we found out we had a family of mice living there. When the trees were eventually all gone, the mice disappeared. I know the house opposite still have mice. I'm scared incase I bought a shed and the mice chewed their way in. So I reconsidered the whole thing. I have a few options.
1. I get a shed and hope the mice don't get in.
2. I make a C&C cage indoors (isn't ideal since we have a barky dog and not much space)
3. I make a large diy cage in our garage but there isn't much light (be in here on wet days and in winter.
4. They stay in their current set up which I really hate.
Their current cage is over the recommended size for two pigs but I just wanted them to have a lot more space. That's why I had always wanted a shed. I love animals but why do mice have to be such a pain! I just want my boys to have the best life possible. If we got them a shed it would probably be about 8ft by 6ft possibly 8ft by 8ft. Please help. X
 
Any advice would be highly appriciated because I would love to move the pigs into better and bigger accomodation x
 
You can buy metal sheds, my friend has one to put her horses tack in :3 Mice wouldn't be able to chew through it, but you'd need to make sure it was ALWAYS out of the sun, even in winter, so it didn't heat up. You'd have to check out ventilation with them too, but it's just an idea :3 Try looking them up as tack sheds on google :D
 
Hello Perfectpets11,
I too have had problems with mice in my house. They are not dangerous to small animals -like rats are - but can be a nuisance, chewing electric cables and soiling food and stuff. You can buy humane rat traps from Amazon. (Get one for rats as mouse traps don't always work.) I've got one that looks like a small black tunnel that electrocutes them on contact. I caught 5 in 2 days! I used chocolate and peanut butter for bait. Mice will only get in your shed (if you get one) if you leave food on the floor or where they can easily reach it. The garage is okay for your piggies, but only if you don't keep a car or motorbike in it. Really good to know that you are keen to do the best for your boys.
013.webp
 
@7squeakers. Thanks for your response. Your piggie is such a cutie pie! I thought mice could pass on salmonella to the pigs? Contamination in their urine? It must be a real pain having them in your house.

As for the food, it would be kept on levels within the shed so the pigs would run up a ramp and get it. I'm just nervous in case they figured a way in and climbed up the levels to get to the food.
 
<3 Simon'n'Joe said:
You can buy metal sheds, my friend has one to put her horses tack in :3 Mice wouldn't be able to chew through it, but you'd need to make sure it was ALWAYS out of the sun, even in winter, so it didn't heat up. You'd have to check out ventilation with them too, but it's just an idea :3 Try looking them up as tack sheds on google :D
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Would it not get too cold in winter? Thanks for the response though x
 
Tinypixi said:
Think i'd go for the shed idea if i were you!..... just deal with the mice if and when they become an issue :)
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I'm scared in case I can't get rid of them. For example, they keep breeding and we get more and more. Why do we have to have mice! :hb::(
 
My mums friend said she had them under her shed and they chewed their way in and practically ate her sun loungers. And that was without pigs in there and hay, and poo/urine and food
 
Tinypixi said:
Think i'd go for the shed idea if i were you!..... just deal with the mice if and when they become an issue :)
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I won't worry about mice, it is rats you need to worry about. If you have mice, you don't have rats, as they don't cohabit . if you have a food source outside you will get vermin. Just make sure you only feed what they will eat, and clean up daily. If you have a dog, it should keep the vermin at bay (rats)
 
Tinypixi said:
@Perfectpets11 ...you could use peppermint oil around the outside of your shed to keep them out..... mice hate it :)
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Would that keep them out for good? Wouldn't it just wash away when it rained though? Thanks for the advice though I'm just trying to think everything through before we spend £600 on a shed that could be destroyed within a few days :)​
 
Treacle said:
I won't worry about mice, it is rats you need to worry about. If you have mice, you don't have rats, as they don't cohabit . if you have a food source outside you will get vermin. Just make sure you only feed what they will eat, and clean up daily. If you have a dog, it should keep the vermin at bay (rats)
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I already know about the mice/rat thing thanks! X
I have a dog and she would chase the mice but they would come back.since I'm keeping the pigs outside and there will be hay and vegetables in the shed does that mean I'm pretty likely to get mice in there?
 
Perfectpets11 said:
@7squeakers. Thanks for your response. Your piggie is such a cutie pie! I thought mice could pass on salmonella to the pigs? Contamination in their urine? It must be a real pain having them in your house.

As for the food, it would be kept on levels within the shed so the pigs would run up a ramp and get it. I'm just nervous in case they figured a way in and climbed up the levels to get to the food.
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Bonnie lives up to her name, doesn't she? I have not heard about mice passing on Salmonella. I will look it up on the Net. 4 of my pigs live in the spare room and have bowls of food on the floor all the time. During my mouse trouble, I saw one mouse in the spare room at one of the food bowls. (It got away!) My piggies did not catch anything from it. I didn't get any more mice in my house after I had caught those 5. I didn't actually mind them in the house as I love all our small wild furries. I was just worried about the wires on my computer.
A word of warning; Mice are VERY good climbers!
A metal shed is not a good idea as they are not designed to house living things. As you say, it would get cold in winter and hot in summer.
 
7squeakers. said:
Bonnie lives up to her name, doesn't she? I have not heard about mice passing on Salmonella. I will look it up on the Net. 4 of my pigs live in the spare room and have bowls of food on the floor all the time. During my mouse trouble, I saw one mouse in the spare room at one of the food bowls. (It got away!) My piggies did not catch anything from it. I didn't get any more mice in my house after I had caught those 5. I didn't actually mind them in the house as I love all our small wild furries. I was just worried about the wires on my computer.
A word of warning; Mice are VERY good climbers!
A metal shed is not a good idea as they are not designed to house living things. As you say, it would get cold in winter and hot in summer.
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She does! I really really don't know what to do anymore! I just don't like the fact of having my boys living with wild animals. I know guinea pigs are technically but they have been domesticated into pets. Field mice aren't pets. I really really don't know what I should do!
 
Perfectpets11 said:
I already know about the mice/rat thing thanks! X
I have a dog and she would chase the mice but they would come back.since I'm keeping the pigs outside and there will be hay and vegetables in the shed does that mean I'm pretty likely to get mice in there?
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I never worried about mice, they don't do the same sort of damage that rats do. I have two cats and two dogs, the cats caught the mice. I also had two ferrets too, they were my rat deterrents.
It is the hard food they are more likely to go for. But they might like the veg, and if they nest in the hay, you don't want to be feeding it to your piggies
 
I understand thx for the advice. The only thing is that I don't have cats or ferrets so I wouldn't know how to get rid of them
Treacle said:
I never worried about mice, they don't do the same sort of damage that rats do. I have two cats and two dogs, the cats caught the mice. I also had two ferrets too, they were my rat deterrents.
It is the hard food they are more likely to go for. But they might like the veg, and if they nest in the hay, you don't want to be feeding it to your piggies
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X
 
Can mice dig? If we got a new fence fitted that had no gaps at all do u think they wouldn't get through? The. Fence would be about 6ft talk
 
Pleas don't panic! You might never have any trouble with mice after all. And they are not such terrible things to worry about. One thing you can do if you keep your boys in a shed is put some pet mouse/rat food somewhere outside the shed. Why should they come in if they can get food outside? Also remove things that they could nest in or under, like sheets of corrugated iron, bales of hay/straw. Block up small holes. Mice can get through holes the size of a pencil. Keep stored food in metal containers. But the rat trap I told you about earlier is the best idea. I haven't seen a single mouse since I used that trap.
 
7squeakers. said:
Pleas don't panic! You might never have any trouble with mice after all. And they are not such terrible things to worry about. One thing you can do if you keep your boys in a shed is put some pet mouse/rat food somewhere outside the shed. Why should they come in if they can get food outside? Also remove things that they could nest in or under, like sheets of corrugated iron, bales of hay/straw. Block up small holes. Mice can get through holes the size of a pencil. Keep stored food in metal containers. But the rat trap I told you about earlier is the best idea. I haven't seen a single mouse since I used that trap.
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Thanks so much @7squeakers! You have helped me alot. Also the peppermint oil like @Tinypixi suggested would work well too! Thanks guys x :nod::hug: I love the piggie community! X
 
Perfectpets11 said:
I understand thx for the advice. The only thing is that I don't have cats or ferrets so I wouldn't know how to get rid of them

X
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My old set up was a run, which was technically a shed, with a mesh front. Keep your food and hay in metal dustbins, and strap the lids on. I had mice, and I also had rats, but the run was at the bottom of the garden. So, it wasn't too much of an issue. The ferrets got rid of the rats, but, I did not like it, and when the mice moved in, I was relieved, as the cat got them, with alarming regularity. The run is falling down now and my last free range piggy died, so my new lot are in the house.
 
Perfectpets11 said:
Thanks for the advice @Treacle it means a lot! What makes the rats worse than the mice?
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Where did I start? Apart from size, they are more likely to live in sewers, they carry diseases that are transferable to humans, they are omnivores, so they will eat meat and can attack other animals. I only know this because I kept fancy rats for years.
 
Perfectpets11 said:
Oh haha! Now I understand. Glad I have mice lol @Treacle
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To be honest, it is us humans that have made the rat what it is in the wild today. The rat is such an adaptable animal, and we have forced them to live as they do. They just survive and breed. Domestic fancy rats are actually very clean animals. We make the wild ones live in sewers, because of what we throw away, they are just opportunist. we are the messy animals.

Rat facts: if they ear too much meat, their fur falls out. Their skulls are not solid, and cross over, like mice, they can get through very small holes.
 
Treacle said:
To be honest, it is us humans that have made the rat what it is in the wild today. The rat is such an adaptable animal, and we have forced them to live as they do. They just survive and breed. Domestic fancy rats are actually very clean animals. We make the wild ones live in sewers, because of what we throw away, they are just opportunist. we are the messy animals.

Rat facts: if they ear too much meat, their fur falls out. Their skulls are not solid, and cross over, like mice, they can get through very small holes.
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Nice little fact! Never knew about the fur and meat thing! Learn something new everyday! I know exactly what you mean. We are the animals. We are the ones who leave food wrappers outside, we are the ones we throw away so much food!
 
Perfectpets11 said:
Nice little fact! Never knew about the fur and meat thing! Learn something new everyday! I know exactly what you mean. We are the animals. We are the ones who leave food wrappers outside, we are the ones we throw away so much food!
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Two of my male rats started fighting, and I stuck my hand between them and got bit, it penetrated to the bone. It was a hospital job, and a steroid injection into the joint of my middle finger. I had to go to the hand clinic to straighten the joint and they said, human bites were worse than rat bites ( I suppose it depends what diseases the rats might have), but the human mouth is dirty and human bites are more prone to infection.
But, now I have done them down, and built them up, it is still not good to have a wild rat around......
 
Treacle said:
Two of my male rats started fighting, and I stuck my hand between them and got bit, it penetrated to the bone. It was a hospital job, and a steroid injection into the joint of my middle finger. I had to go to the hand clinic to straighten the joint and they said, human bites were worse than rat bites ( I suppose it depends what diseases the rats might have), but the human mouth is dirty and human bites are more prone to infection.
But, now I have done them down, and built them up, it is still not good to have a wild rat around......
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Oh wow! Are you okay now? Must have hurt! Was it an intentional bite or accidental?
 
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