Rodents are one of the toughest challenges to deal with on horse properties. They are small, stealthy, and primarily active after dark when we aren’t around. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mice and rats can directly or indirectly transmit over 20 diseases worldwide, some seriously dangerous to humans. Several, such as leptospirosis and salmonellosis, are contagious to horses as well. Plus, mice and rats can cause hundreds of dollars of damage per year in feed loss and structural damage.
How do you go about reducing the populations of these persistent, sneaky creatures without lethal trapping or using chemicals that are deadly to other animals in our shared environment, including our dogs and cats?
Here are three eco-friendly, non-toxic, low-tech, and low-cost techniques for keeping rodents in check.
1.Reduce rodent habitat
First and foremost, discourage rodents by eliminating their habitat: food, water, and cover sources. Keep things picked up and put away in your barn to eliminate hiding and nesting sites. Piles of towels, rags, horse blankets, or old feed bags are examples of things rodents love to shelter in. Store all feed in aluminum garbage cans with secure lids. Clean up spilled feed or grain and pick up cat and dog food at night. Installing downspouts and creating good drainage around your barn will reduce watering sources for rodents.
2. Barn owls for nocturnal control
Nature’s mousetrap, the barn owl, is death on wings for rodents. These stealthy creatures of the night fly silently and have excellent low-light vision, sharp beaks, powerful talons, and extraordinary hearing. A family of barn owls can consume approximately 2,000 rodents in just a couple months.
Barn owls are native to every continent in the world except for Antarctica, so no matter where in the world you are, your horse property can benefit from having a barn owl working for you. Barn owls are not aggressive to people, nor will they attack pets or livestock.
Barn owls are secondary cavity dwellers, which means they live in a hole somebody else created. This could be a hole in an old tree made by a woodpecker, or the dark rafters inside a quiet barn. Humans can take advantage of this because it means barn owls adapt well to nest boxes, which can be purchased or made. You can get free plans for building your own nest box from CornellLab.
For tips on how to use and care for your owl nest box, check out our Attracting Barn Owls for Pest Control on Horse Properties tip sheet.
At Sweet Pepper Ranch, we have two owl boxes. I love to hear their eerie calls and chatter as I do my evening feeding chores. I assume they are cussing me out for interrupting their nighttime hunting. Sometimes I even catch glimpses of them as they silently wing past, hard at work catching their dinner.
3. Kestrels for daytime control
The American Kestrel is a small but fierce member of the falcon family. Its primary food source is larger insects, such as grasshoppers or crickets, as well as small rodents like our pesky mice, rats, and gophers. Kestrels are found year around in open habitats across North America, including grasslands, pastures, and other agricultural lands, in both urban and rural areas. Unlike owls, kestrel hunt during the day and will catch critters active during these times.
Like barn owls, American Kestrels are also secondary cavity nesters and accept nest boxes very well. We also have kestrel nest boxes at Sweet Pepper Ranch. We take great pleasure in pausing a ride in our outdoor arena to marvel at how the kestrels hunt for gophers in our pastures, holding steady like a hovercraft as they watch for rodent movement below.
Free plans for Kestrel nest boxes are also available from CornellLab.
Once you reduce rodent habitat and install barn owl and kestrel nest boxes on your property, you can generally let nature do the rest. Be sure to select the correct nest boxes for the specific birds you wish to attract and follow instructions for where and how to hang them. It’s hard to find an easier method of rodent control than these low-cost, nature-based solutions, and you can’t beat the entertainment value either!
