What will repel mice & rats from tractors and vehicles

[MontagueMech]

Just experienced an expensive problem with rats chewing through the transmission wires on a cab tractor. I’m going to try using moth bolls but am wondering if there’s also a liquid spray that might also keep them away. The feed truck has a heavy smell of mouse urine that’ll just about choke a person.

Would peppermint oil mixed with water help any? Melathion might work but that stuff isn’t healthy to breathe.

[S-3 Ranch]

Peppermint oil, and try to keep daylight on the area

[oktx]

The only thing I’ve found is poison. I put the blocks of poison all around the block.

[Dale Moser]

Green poison blocks. You can drill a hole in them to zip tie them different places on the tractor. I put some on the ground all around the area and pour a little honey or bacon grease on them. Keep the surrounding area mowed down and free of clutter.

[mdeaso]

rubber snakes

[dclifton]

I started putting the green poison blocks in all of my barns underneath shelves bolt bins etc. It has helped alot. Its weird we use to never have a mouse problem. Now its becoming a problem.

[SaltwaterSlick]

I've done 2 things..
I QUIT putting poison/bait out... that actually attracts 'em.. yea IF they eat the bait, it'll kill 'em, but they can still do a lot of damage before they get sick n die...
The other thing I did is I put those 12 volt pest ultrasonic devices on all my vehicles and when not in use, I keep a battery minder on them...
Absolutely zero problems with rodents after I did this...
We have a bad problem with em at our deer camp... Some guys use the mothballs, peppermint oils, the dryer sheets (that smell to high heavens), all kinds of stuff. When we got our camp (a 16X80 foot 5 bedroom, 5 bath mobile home), we put one of those "mousers" in every room... ZERO rodents inside the house... Others at our camp (most who are TBH'ers who may chime in here) battled mice/rats in their campers, but once they installed the devices (and cleaned up any exposed food stuffs), the problem went away.

I keep my tractor in my barn and I have the devices installed throughout the barn too...



I always thought those things were just "gimmicks", but the dang things work... Now if there is food out for them, they will still come to the food and ignore the annoying ultrasonic sound generators, but if there's no strong attraction for them in the area, they will completely avoid those little devices.

[Casey]

My buddy had a mouse chew wires in his F250. He put poison out for the rats and one crawled into the AC vent and died. Poison was a bad idea. He spent a fortune with his mechanic trying to get it out of there. Short of removing the dash, he did everything he could to find it. Mechanic didn't want to remove the dash because he believed it would squeak from now on if he had. They found oozing fluids in ducts but never fully got the carcass out. The truck sat for most of the spring so it could air out to the point of being able to be used. I suggested vanilla extract in the intake and that seemed to help a lot.

That's the long way of saying, "be careful with the poison".

[easeup]

barn cats

[czechgrubworm]

The coyotes eat all my barn cats... So following. I also had a rat eat the entire wiring harness in half in my toyota. Was nice he did it neatly. I just have to strip them and fix. I also have to replace the water line for the windshield wipers... He ate that.

[slayer]

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/fresh-cab-1-botanical-rodent-repellant-10-oz-4205547?store=1529&cid=Shopping-Google-Organic_Feed-Product-4205547&cid=Shopping-Google-LOB-Local_Feed&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_campaign=LOB&utm_content=Local_Feed&gclid=CjwKCAjwve2TBhByEiwAaktM1Pq_DmpSi4-4bMKLtsKTIvJo0t801gbvvkkY-sUD-q4YVNHdrDKqwxoCSagQAvD_BwE

[myway]

We quit putting poison in the vehicles as well for the reasons mentioned above and if you ask exterminators it will attract them to the source. We bait around the perimeter of the barn houses etc.. but not in vehicles or tractor. The peppermint oil and bags that Slayer posted a link to seem to help in the engine compartments but as Dale mentioned keeping the grass extremely short or better yet parked on slab or gravel has helped tremendously.
They can tear some stuff up in a hurry and I am convinced they like the smell of the lubricant on wiring harness's on anything new so I would do your best to poison as many as you can before parking something new.

[preaux40]

Found these in the barn the last 3 years . . During that time the rat/mice problem has been nonexistent . . Nothing has touched the corn, dog food . . He is a friend . .

[sticknstring]

it helps alot to keep it parked on concrete or caliche, away from grass or any kind of structure or clutter.

[Leemo]

I spray HD Corrosion X Marine on all wires
No problem