Old MacDonald had a Farm

There are pigeons in my barn, and it is getting out of control.  Living on a farm I am pretty darn used to seeing animals around, and outside of my personal livestock of horses, pigs, a few head of cattle, I’ve also got chickens, turkeys, barn cats, and a couple of dogs running around.  I get along well with animals and respect the positive way they can impact my land by helping with insect and rodent control and keep food from going to waste.  When I first saw the pigeons in the barn, I figured that they’d help with just about the same things as the rest of the animals do so I let them nest in the upper level.  Obviously, I was wrong.

When it started out, I found about 3 or 4 pigeons in the barn, just casually roosting on the roof.  Later that evening is when I discovered that they were nesting in the hay storage at the top of the barn, but I figured they would help control any ticks and mites that would get into the hay.  What I didn’t realize, was that pigeons can actually have bird mites in their nests!! They got everywhere, all of the animals were itching and scratching, it was a nightmare.  After that I tried to shoo the birds away and left poison pellets out for them to eat.  But my plan failed.

A year-and-a-half later, I’m still here with the same pigeon problem, only now it has more than quintupled in size! My original 4 birds has now grown to nearly 30.  Having a few pigeons in the barn was annoying, but this is absolutely mad.  The cats will kill a few now and again but not nearly enough; that’s what I get for teaching them to leave the chickens alone I guess.  Even worse, the pigeons have learned not to eat the pellets I set out and I’m too slow of a shot to kill them all.  I need some help, please!

It’s a Dog-Eat-Dog World

There is a skunk in my yard and he is at war with my dogs. It started about two weeks ago after we had about 3 days of hard rain.  The skunk was denning underneath our shed out back, and I think that the rain may have flooded it out which is why we’re just now seeing activity from it.  The problem is that now that it’s out it is wandering around our property and we have two small dogs.  Needless to say the two types of animals do NOT get along.

Even though I know the skunk is out and about, the sightings are scattered.  We will smell him long before we see him, especially with the dogs.  It has been a nightmare dealing with it, if we let them out and forget to watch them they’ll be long gone, chasing after the skunk before we realize it and can stop them.  In two weeks, they have each been sprayed twice; the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda are practically all gone from using them so much and I can still smell the skunk lingering in their fur.         I’m not even sure if the skunk is in the yard or if it’s hiding out under the shed still.  I know that when I let the dogs out the immediately head for the foundation of the shed, but they just sniff and don’t usually bark or scratch.  When they see the skunk, though, they go absolutely bananas!

We need help getting rid of this thing.  The skunk is turning our backyard into a war zone, world war three is happening: dogs vs. skunk!  I’ve looked up skunk traps and skunk repellents, but it seems unlikely to me that they would help get the skunk out of my yard for good.  I’d rather have him trapped and relocated so that I know he’s gone.  I need a professional skunk trapper and I don’t even know if that’s a real job!

Living in Fear

I am literally on the verge of moving into a different house.  There are raccoons in the ceiling of my split level home, and they are pushing me to my limits.  Before they got into my house I would occasionally see them outside, sometimes even running across the roof. They are huge animals, I don’t have the slightest idea how they got into the ceiling.  There aren’t any gaps that big, I checked; but since they’ve gotten up there they have caused me nothing but anxiety and problems.

At first they just ran around and you could hear them skittering and chirping, and it was only a mild problem; definitely something I could deal with.  Then one day my front porch light stopped working, I changed the bulb but nothing happened, I checked the cord and it had been completely chewed through.  I let that go, I could live without a porch light.  Then things went from bad, to worse.  Urine stains started showing up on the ceilings in multiple rooms, not only was the smell bad but the ceiling material was starting to rot and crack.

After the urine stains, my raccoon problem got unforeseeably worse: THEY CHEWED THROUGH MY AC AND HEATING SYSTEM! It was completely destroyed, beyond repair, I couldn’t believe it.  I was tearing out my hair and picking at my skin, constantly on edge, and then a raccoon nearly fell into my lap!!  The raccoon had been standing on the vent just above me and another raccoon put weight on it and it fell open! The one fell, looked me in the eyes and ran rampant through the house until I could get it outside.  I’m at my wits end, I’ve become superstitious and am always looking over my shoulder and flinching at every sound, I can’t keep living like this. The raccoons in my ceiling are about to run my out of my own house – I need help or I need a realtor.

Dirty Rat

We’ve tried everything to get rid of the raccoons in the attic, but at this point it seems impossible.  They’ve been there for what, a couple of months now?  I can’t pinpoint an exact time because we actually didn’t know they were there until a month or so ago, which is when we first saw the mother raccoon go into the attic.  Before that, we just heard the occasional bumps and creaks that we gave the old house credit for.  We would have been none the wiser if our neighbor’s cat hadn’t gotten into a tiff with the raccoon, leaving us to investigate the commotion and catch the raccoon crawling through a gap in the soffit.

After that we listened carefully to the sounds from above the ceiling, and it became fairly clear to us that there was more than just one raccoon in the attic, she had babies, so we started to do our research.  Anything we could think of we looked up: how to get rid of raccoons in the attic, trapping raccoons, the most effective raccoon removal methods; all of it.  After we made a list of possible solutions, we started to check them off one at a time.  We turned the lights on in the attic, we started playing loud music during the day when we were gone, we set traps outside where we thought we might catch the mother, and we even put ammonia soaked rags up there with a fan to blow the smell around.  We took every step possible, and we thought it had worked.

Not long after we had started harassing the raccoons, I saw the mother leave the attic with what looked like a baby in her mouth. We were ecstatic! After we celebrated for a minute, my husband went out and sealed off the gap we saw her entering and exiting through.  We went to bed happy that night, thinking all was well.  Of course, happy endings are for fairy tales and the next night the raccoon came back, tore the soffit open again, and has been hiding out there for the last 4 days (she hasn’t left once).  We can’t hear any babies anymore, but we don’t know what she’s doing up there and we have nothing left to try.  Please, we need some serious help to get rid of the raccoon in our attic, I can’t keep doing this.

Dangerous Tunnels

I have a severe vole problem in my yard.  Last week was warm and small holes started to melt in the snowing exposing the grass beneath.  I was surprised to see that the patches of grass were split into sections of green, healthy grass, and yellow, dead paths.  It wasn’t in just one spot either, it was in a few so I dug up some of the snow to investigate and they were everywhere!  Trails of dead grass snaking across my yard.  I had never heard of animals that did that until I Googled the things I was seeing and found out that it was a common sign of voles (a small, mouse-like creature).

I did some research on why they would have suddenly moved to my yard, and I guess they look for areas with a lot of water.  I’m guessing that the snow we got this winter is what brought them around.  But since I can’t control the weather, I need help controlling the voles. They burrow through the ground, consuming the roots of grass, flowers, even trees!  They kill off all the vegetation and not only that, but they can spread a dangerous disease called the Hantavirus through their feces.

A couple of days ago, the vole problem got worse.  It’s not just the trails, but things started to sink into the ground where the trails are dug.   I was walking across the stone pavers in my garden and a couple of them sunk into holes in the ground.  I’m worried that someone will fall into one of the tunnels when they’re walking across my yard and get seriously injured.  I need some help; I didn’t even know these animals existed until a week ago, I have no idea how to get rid of them.

Out of Ideas

We’ve tried everything to get rid of the raccoons in the attic, but at this point it seems impossible.  They’ve been there for what, a couple of months now?  I can’t pinpoint an exact time because we actually didn’t know they were there until a month or so ago, which is when we first saw the mother raccoon go into the attic.  Before that, we just heard the occasional bumps and creaks that we gave the old house credit for.  We would have been none the wiser if our neighbor’s cat hadn’t gotten into a tiff with the raccoon, leaving us to investigate the commotion and catch the raccoon crawling through a gap in the soffit.

After that we listened carefully to the sounds from above the ceiling, and it became fairly clear to us that there was more than just one raccoon in the attic, she had babies, so we started to do our research.  Anything we could think of we looked up: how to get rid of raccoons in the attic, trapping raccoons, the most effective raccoon removal methods; all of it.  After we made a list of possible solutions, we started to check them off one at a time.  We turned the lights on in the attic, we started playing loud music during the day when we were gone, we set traps outside where we thought we might catch the mother, and we even put ammonia soaked rags up there with a fan to blow the smell around.  We took every step possible, and we thought it had worked.

Not long after we had started harassing the raccoons, I saw the mother leave the attic with what looked like a baby in her mouth. We were ecstatic! After we celebrated for a minute, my husband went out and sealed off the gap we saw her entering and exiting through.  We went to bed happy that night, thinking all was well.  Of course, happy endings are for fairy tales and the next night the raccoon came back, tore the soffit open again, and has been hiding out there for the last 4 days (she hasn’t left once).  We can’t hear any babies anymore, but we don’t know what she’s doing up there and we have nothing left to try.  Please, we need some serious help to get rid of the raccoon in our attic, I can’t keep doing this.

The Great Pigeon Predicament

We have had a pigeon problem for the last two years now, and it’s only getting worse.  It started off with just one or two that would occasionally land on the roof and hang out; eventually we noticed a small nest tucked into the side of the chimney.  As the months went on we started to hear the small chirps of baby birds and in time saw the small birds leave the nest, but of course they came back in the end.  The cycle continued, we would see new birds roosting, then we would notice either a new nest, or an addition to the original, and then baby birds would start to come out. It was an endless loop we couldn’t get out of.

Last year we started to try to get rid of the pigeons.  We set up spikes along the slope of our roof, we would spray water at the pigeons that were simply roosting, and anything else we could think of.  No matter what we did it seemed like they always came back with twice the number of birds as there were before.  Our pigeon problem was escalating to the point of complete chaos!  In the mornings you would hear them chirping and squawking, and their poop was covering EVERYTHING!! I was slowly losing my mind.

This year, we took a different approach to our pigeon problem, we checked the nests for any eggs or baby birds AND THEN WE KNOCKED THEM DOWN! Every single nest we could find went into the dumpster and out to the curb.  Then, knowing they would inevitably come back, we installed mesh netting along all of the niches and nooks that a nest could be built.  We were very proud of our work, but I’ll be damned if the birds didn’t come back anyway.  Instead of nesting, they stood and pecked at the netting and roosted on the netting and still, pooped, EVERYWHERE. Every single day I was spraying pigeon crap off of my deck and siding and roof until I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I called in a professional and he’s setting up a huge pigeon trap on my roof.  It might not be the cheapest solution, but it is the most guaranteed solution of any I’ve seen or tried.  At this point, I would try anything short of black magic to take care of my pigeon problem.

The Longest Night

Around this time last year, we had rats in the walls.  I look back on the whole situation and I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t realize it beforehand.  I would find little black pellets both inside my house and on the deck near some gaps in the siding.  Obviously I’m not completely oblivious, I recognized the pellets and feces and assumed it was a small mouse problem so I set out some mouse traps here and there, but never had any success so I assumed the feces I had found was old and that my cat had already killed the culprits.

That was until one night I was enjoying old NCIS reruns, and my TV stopped working.  I tried turning it off and on, and plugging and unplugging it but still nothing; no sound, no static, no anything.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to do so I Googled possible problems.  I came up with a blown fuse, faulty cord or plug, or even a failed power supply; I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that information so I called my neighbor and asked if he’d come take a look.  He came and checked everything he could and said he wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t work, everything seemed perfectly fine and nothing else was down.  I had to wait out the night in radio silence until the cable company could come in the morning.

When they did, I was genuinely surprised at what they had found!  It wasn’t a problem with any of the actual electrical sources, but something had chewed through the cable in the wall that fed to the back of the TV.  After that I called in a Wildlife Technician and they were able to identify my problem: there were rats in the walls.  It took a month or so to get them all trapped and all of the mess they left behind cleaned up, but I was very happy with the outcome.  Now I can sit and watch my shows without any worry of rats chewing up my wires.