Small bale straw and mice

[GmB]

Does stacking small bale straw on it’s side really stop mice eating the strings?
We don’t make many, but too many are being damaged by mice eating one string, don’t want to go to the effort of turning every bale for no reason.

 

[Devil's advocate]

i'm watching this one with interest

 

[czechmate]

i'm watching this one with interest

Yep, I used to do thousands of barley bales. Some years it could be 2 out of 3 bales - 1 stringers

 

[bobk]

i'm watching this one with interest

If you put them upside down the mice go dizzy

 

[Generally01]

Get some cats!

 

[Bury the Trash]

just another One of the reasons why we use round bales

 

[getting on]

Get some cats!

To much grain going over the back of the combine then baled up with the straw. I agree a cat round the yard is a good thing for a mice problem.

 

[Will 1594]

Yep, I used to do thousands of barley bales. Some years it could be 2 out of 3 bales - 1 stringers

Or worse still ,they just nibble enough to hold bale together till you pick it up and swing it , or launch it on trailer with fork and explodes in mid air ,

 

[GmB]

To much grain going over the back of the combine then baled up with the straw. I agree a cat round the yard is a good thing for a mice problem.

My old combine may be guilty, but my neighbour runs a modern combine and the bales I buy from him sprout growth when left outside.
The shed the bales are stored in is out across the fields away from the main farm, did have a feral cat that had kittens many years ago in residence, I even fed them, but they soon disappeared, probably after they had exhausted the natural food supply!

 

[Pan mixer]

The best thing that I have found for this is to move the swath before baling with a haybob or rake or something, most of the grain falls out, mice starve in thousands.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Put diesels the string

 

[neilo]

I was once told to make sure the knots were on top so the mice wouldn’t get at them..