Rodents in the country are a nuisance in the garden and in the house. They gnaw the trunks and branches of bushes and trees, dig up roots, destroy bulbs of bulbous plants, destroy supplies, and spoil the harvest. Rodents are a fairly large group of animals of different species. For example, hares, moles, and shrews are mistakenly considered to be rodents. They are similar in the harm they cause to the economy. At summer cottages in our area we have to fight different types of mice and rats. You can distinguish them by photos and descriptions. They are similar in many ways, but there are also some differences in appearance, size, and lifestyle.
Signs of rodents. What you need to know about them
Rodents are hares, rats, mice, etc. There are more than 1,700 species of them. All wild species also belong to the category of rodent pests, but not all of them can be found on the site. The ones you find at the dacha will be medium in size (8-35 cm). All rodents are capable of causing serious damage to the crops on your site. If they start in the garden, it is easy to determine by the following signs:
- damaged (gnawed) bark on the trunk and shoots, branches, buds, roots;
- a network of holes in the ground, eating underground elements of bulbous plants;
- destruction of the crop during ripening and its reserves during storage.
Attention! Shrews and moles, which do not fall into the category of rodents, are also considered garden pests. They are insectivores and cause damage to garden crops by digging into the root system. On the other hand, along the paths of these pests, mice enter the area en masse and attack the crop.
Why does he appear at the dacha?
In addition to periodic floods, other conditions can drive a water rat from its permanent habitat:
- excessively increased number of colonies;
- settlement of competitors;
- depletion of food supply;
- the onset of cold autumn.
Relocation from relatives occurs, as a rule, once every 6-7 years. The number of individuals in one territory becomes so large that it is already difficult to obtain enough food and disperse. The same thing happens if rats, mice, ferrets and other rodents suddenly move into the habitat. In such conditions, the water vole looks for new permanent homes to live.
During periods of cold weather, migration is temporary with rare exceptions. The animal digs holes away from cold water, buries old supplies there and replenishes them with local food. Summer cottages are ideally suited for these purposes.
Expert opinion Stefania Bogdanovna Mityuk
Vegetable gardens within a radius of 5 km from water bodies are in a special risk zone. This is how far an animal is willing to go in search of food.
Pest mice: classification
Mice do not like people and rarely settle in houses, but they willingly come to inhabited and well-groomed areas for food. Types of rodent pests:
- Wood mouse. It has a body 9-11 cm in length and a short tail, up to 10 cm. Natural habitat: forests, gardens, fields, meadows. Digs a deep hole for life. Moves by jumping. The rodent's diet includes garden greens, seeds, and insects.
- Yellow-throated mouse. The body is 10-12 cm long with a rather long tail, up to 13 cm. In the area of the rodent’s abdomen there is a characteristic yellow spot. This mouse also does not run, but jumps and climbs well. Lives in a nest, which it builds in hollows or burrows. It feeds in the same way as the forest one.
- Harvest mouse. Short body (average 10 cm), short tail (up to 9 cm), black stripe on a gray back. In winter, it inhabits warehouses and barns; in nature, it settles in fields, forests and gardens. The rodent is characterized by average fertility (4 litters of 6-8 mice per year). It feeds on earthworms and fruitful garden crops.
- House mouse. Body length - 8-11 cm, tail - no more than 9 cm. Very fertile (up to 7-8 litters of 8 cubs per year). A group of mice lives in large families that unitely attack areas and people’s homes. They live in fields and gardens, and in the fall they move to residential buildings. Rodent pests feed on plants and invertebrates.
Precautions when working with poisoned baits
Instructions for using each Valbrenta rodenticide are provided on the product packaging. And it is important to observe it, as well as safety measures when working with chemicals for pest control. These products are dangerous not only for rodents, but also for humans and pets. Therefore it is required:
- carry out deratization measures in the absence of children and pets;
- be sure to use rubber gloves and preferably a cotton-gauze bandage;
- after finishing laying out the poison, wash your hands;
- remove dead carcasses wearing gloves, disposing of them in an earthen pit at least 1 m deep.
Be sure to wear gloves when spreading poison.
Gloves are needed to prevent direct contact with the poison and to prevent pests from smelling a person. Otherwise, they may feel threatened and refuse to eat. It is better to lay out baits and set glue traps in the evening, because... rats and mice become active at night.
Voles: varieties and harm
The vole has similar characteristics to other mice. Its peculiarity is a dark stripe on the back, slight differences in the muzzle, and a shorter tail. Classification of rodent pest species with names:
- Common vole. The body is about 9-12 cm long and has a very short tail (4 cm). The fur is gray. The rodent reproduces intensively. Young mice reach sexual maturity very quickly. Based on family connections, colonies arise, for which individuals build an extensive network of tunnels with storerooms and other compartments. The rodent feeds exclusively on plants and grain.
Vole
- Arable vole. The length of the body is about 11 cm, the tail is about 4 cm. It has looser and longer fur than that of the common vole. Color - brown. Rodent burrows should be looked for in dense grass. He loves plants and can covet the succulent bark of young trees.
- Red vole. Length - up to 11 cm, tail - up to 6 cm. It has a characteristic red coat. It can live both underground and in some shelter on the surface. The rodent is not very fertile for mice. Eats bark, plants and grains, insects and invertebrates.
Lifestyle
The rodent is active all year round , spending almost all its time underground in winter. By time of day, the greatest activity is concentrated in the evening and at night.
It emerges from the hole only for a short period of time, moving away a short distance - as a rule, while eating plants on the ground.
In summer during the greatest heat and in winter it clogs burrows from the inside . The earth produced by digging passages is thrown to the surface, forming small, flat piles of varying sizes and at varying distances from the exit point.
Underground passages are located 10-15 cm from the ground surface . The nest usually consists of an extensive network of labyrinths, a nesting chamber and several storehouses with supplies.
REFERENCE! If moles live near the habitat of an earthen rat, then they can use the moles’ ready-dug passages to quickly get to the roots and tubers.
Other rodents and garden pests
In the category of rodents, rats are especially dangerous pests. Many of them can attack domestic animals, damage property, carry diseases and be aggressive towards humans. For example, the gray rat (pasyuk) reaches 27 cm in length and has a tail up to 23 cm. The fur can be gray or black. This rodent builds passages in almost any area.
Attention! The litter of one female gray rat is 6-9 individuals, 2-3 times a year.
The black rat is slightly smaller in size and less fertile. The fur color contains brown colors. The rodent can even build a home on a tree, because it climbs well. Less dangerous than the gray one, since it prefers plant foods.
Gray rat
The water vole is sometimes classified as a rat. An adult reaches 20 cm. The tail lengthens the body by another 6-13 cm. The color of the rodent is brown-gray, sometimes black. It swims well (including under water), so it often settles near bodies of water. The dimensions allow the rodent to feed not only on garden herbs and seeds, but also on roots and root crops. The water rat builds its extensive network of passages under the surface of the earth. The litter is about 14 cubs 2-3 times a year.
Methods of fighting against mice and rats differ from each other. Therefore, by correctly identifying the type of rodent pest, you will find the best way to solve the problem.
How to get rid of rodents in your summer cottage
Pest control of garden trees, shrubs, and cultivated plants continues all year round. In the spring, animals spoil the bulbs, in the summer and autumn they eat the fruits, and in the winter they gnaw the bark.
The fight against rodents is complicated due to their extreme caution. Most mice, rats and other animals try not to appear in front of a person, and when they meet, they try to quickly hide in a hole. In such a situation, how can you get rid of rodents in your summer cottage quickly and forever? Effective control and repellent methods and preventive measures will help solve the problem.
Characteristics of the Chinese ground rat
Earth Rat people are practical and intelligent people. Although Earth Rats are not at all interested in art, they are still inventive when they need to solve a problem.
These people can truly pursue their interests in the most creative and realistic ways. It is normal for them to sense the approach of danger.
It is as if Earth Rats rely on a sixth sense and immediately understand when something bad is about to happen. If one of them tells you that you should avoid contact with the person, you better listen to him or her.
Their attention is more focused on internal issues. Earth Rats love to keep their home tidy and hate having things pile up around them. It's nice to have a coffee or other drink from them
They are not very interested in fashionable furnishings and the combination of armchairs and sofas, but Earth Rats certainly want a certain level of comfort and coziness.
You will feel at home visiting them even if you know you live somewhere else. Their children will always be well fed and well cared for, but they won't necessarily wear the latest clothes in the fashion industry because Rats take good care of their money.
If you know someone who can support a family on minimum wage, then you can be sure that this person belongs to the Chinese sign of the Rat.
When others didn't even think they had a chance to save some money, Rats came up with solutions to save money and get a used car in the first place. If you need someone to take care of your budget, don't hesitate to ask them for help.
Although Earth Rats love to take care of themselves, they can still get tired of housekeeping because they are too nervous and tend to suffer from anxiety. And when they feel like that, they turn into real assholes.
When the element Earth is present in their chart, Rats become more down-to-earth and pragmatic. Earth Rats save their money until bad times come. The same element will reassure them, but they still save something for an emergency because they think that life can hit their pockets hard.
While this means that Earth Rats are reliable, it also suggests that they may have concerns that others wouldn't even think about. These Rats are not the most spontaneous people in the Chinese zodiac. They think that taking a vacation will only be a waste of time.
Earth Rats rely heavily on their routine and prefer to stay at home, doing what they do best. They are smart, but still don't like to take too many risks in life. Even though Earth Rats are very careful with their money, they do not mind giving as much of their time to others as possible.
Since they like to take care of people and Earth Rats are kind, many will want to be around them as much as possible. Putting family first, they will never betray a friend or loved one.
Vole
Looks like an ordinary mouse. Body length is no more than 13 cm. The color is brown, and gray on the tummy. Unlike the shrew, the vole will feed on your crop.
She likes roots, shoots, leaves and sometimes even seeds of some plants (for example, beans). It is even more prolific than the shrew - the field mouse is capable of reproducing offspring up to 7 times per season, 5 and sometimes 12 babies each.
In winter, voles are protected by a layer of fallen snow, so pests may simply not survive snowless winters. In winter, they can harm raspberry bushes and gardens.
Below is a photo of field mouse burrows. Pests usually live in groups and dig branched, complex tunnels. But this happens at a shallow depth - from 15 to 35 cm.
Regular weed removal and timely harvesting can be used to prevent the appearance of voles on your site. But alas, even taking all the precautions cannot guarantee that you won’t get a vole.
So, what to do if field mice are already infested on your property?
The first way is to get a good, not lazy cat. Of course, if you take a kitten, things will not go the fastest, but this method can scare away voles for a long time and protect your area.
It would not be the wisest decision to use traps, since they are effective in the presence of only a few pests, and the number of voles tends to increase quickly.
Mole rat
In many ways it is similar to a mole, although it is larger in size, but the marks it leaves behind are about the same. The main difference is that mole rats are voracious rodents, and the fight against them can be painful and long.
Mole rats are usually no more than 32 cm in length. They have very short legs and gray fur. The tail is not visible, as it is too small, the eyes are reduced and hidden under the skin.
The widest part of a mole rat's body is its head. If you look at the animal from above, it resembles a shovel. The mole rat's front teeth are long and protrude.
This pest especially loves potatoes and carrots; it affects garlic and beets, onions and bulbous flowers. It can also damage other plants, such as corn or beans.
The fight against mole rats, due to their underground lifestyle, is not always effective, but is still possible. Just remember that there is a giant mole rat listed in the Red Book.
Usually, when the entire garden is in holes, the summer resident is not particularly concerned about who did it, just to exterminate the pest. The giant mole rat is distributed mainly in sandy and clayey soils near water bodies.
They can be found in the Caucasus, in Dagestan, near the Terek, Sulak and Kuma rivers. It may turn out that just such a rare animal lives on your site.
Giant mole rat
Common mole rat
Mole rat minks
There are several ways to get rid of the pest.
The first way is to set traps. This method is not very effective, because mole rats are smart and cunning. It is best to get mole traps. When fighting a mole rat, you can be cunning.
Animals do not like open areas and wind, so you can dig up their hole and make another smaller one next door. Place a trap in the hole and cover it with something. When choosing from two options, the mole rat will, of course, choose the more protected one and will most likely fall into a trap.
The second way is to flood the holes. The mole rat is quite helpless against water. But if your soil is sandy and absorbs moisture well, then most likely this method of control will not suit you.
The third way is to use poisons and chemicals. But it may also not work. If there is enough food for a mole rat in your area, then it will not even look in the direction of the poison.
The fourth method and one of the most effective is noise and ultrasound. Mole rats hate noise. Therefore, installing noise repellers will not be superfluous. One of the surest methods is a vibration-sound repeller.
Shrew
The animal is similar to a vole, but has two obvious differences - a much longer tail and an elongated muzzle. There are two types of shrews: shrews and shrews.
The shrew reaches a size of no more than 7 cm and is gray in color, but most often a shrew with brown fur and no more than 5 cm in length appears in the garden.
shrew
Shrew
Don’t be fooled by the appearance of the animal, because just how cute a shrew looks in the photo does not mean that the damage from it will be minimal. In just a couple of days, the entire area can be dug up, and the lawn will be full of tussocks.
The shrew has a high metabolism, so it is constantly looking for food, which results in furrows like those in the photo of its burrows.
The baby feeds on insects, and it would be quite useful if the harm it causes were not many times greater than the benefit. In a day, it destroys pests several times its own body weight.
The furrows it creates help the earth to become saturated with oxygen. But the fact is that there is usually practically nothing left to grow on such land - the shrew gnaws through the roots and plants that stand in its way.
The first way to combat shrews is with poisons and chemicals. Products such as Anti-Rodent are used against animals. It is important to remember that the poison can be dangerous for pets or children, so be careful and read the instructions for use.
The second method is to flood the shrews' burrows. In this case, it is better to flood any hole that causes suspicion.
The third way is to use items with a strong, unpleasant odor. Shrews have a very delicate sense of smell, so they cannot tolerate strong-smelling things. Place rotten fish or eggs in the holes. The shrew will not tolerate such aromas and will leave the hole.
Using traps against shrews is ineffective. And any of the above methods does not provide a 100% guarantee. Shrews can easily come back to your site, so you should be very careful.
Krawczyk (snow beetle)
A representative of the dung beetle family. Only it differs from its relatives in that it feeds on herbivorous food. It was nicknamed the shear beetle because it literally cuts off plant stems with its powerful jaws.
The beetle is black, up to 2.5 cm in length. Its head is large and very noticeable, for which it is also called the bigheaded fish.
Red minnows dig deep burrows for themselves, which are quite complex and large. This happens mainly in early spring, during the mating period. Then the female begins building a burrow. A common, not yet branched burrow sometimes reaches up to 70 cm in depth.
From greenery and their secretions, they form enough cubes to fill a hole. The beetle larvae will subsequently feed on this mass. Next year the number of kravchiks will increase, and all cycles will be repeated again and again.
Kravychiki greatly damage corn, sunflowers and, of course, grapes. These beetles stock up on food for their children so carefully that they are able to literally cut off all the seedlings.
Chemicals are not very effective at getting rid of those that live deep in the ground. As a preventative measure, we can recommend a thorough and deep (60–70 cm) digging of the area. This depth should be enough for the holes to freeze over the winter. The main way to get rid of snow beetles is to pick them up by hand.
You can loosen the ground, filling up the entrances of holes, you can dig around the area around the perimeter, putting grass treated with special substances - pyrethroids - into the resulting grooves, but in any case you will have to collect pests and monitor their appearance.
Another effective method is to pour the most fragrant and cheapest vegetable oil, diluted with water, into the burrows, and after the minnows come out, collect and destroy them.
