Billie, Your right ! My husband always tells everyone our farm has more animals than we need and he expects Marlin Perkins to show up at any time. My answer is no sir, we have room and the love for more of them, and to remember most of the time they are easier to get along with than some of the people we know who hardly get along with anyone. Darnd' ol' cranky yankees! Our cats were adopted from a local farm too & ours also know to hang out by the chickens at clean out time. Aren't the looks on their faces so funny, they don't know if they should drop the one in their mouth, to chase the others they see... pure confusion and brain overload... Way to cute. I too will help catch a few and drop them in a bucket for later... Quick someone call PETA.... I'm allowing the torture of mice by dropping them in a bucket against their will and letting the cats find them a few minutes later. I did take pitty on a baby mouse once I found on the barn floor, all red, hairless and not even it's eyes open. I think the cats raided the nest and that one fell out unnoticed. I kept in in an old tuna can (left over from feeding the cats.) and tried to feed it milk every time I went to the barn. I think it froze to death it was early spring and nothing else to help keep it warm. I was sad, left it on the barn floor and later it was gone....hum...I didn't even call here kitty kitty. I know my friend's Jack Russels are great hunters no mice in her barn, no cats either come to think of it. No just kidding her cats are inside kitties along with the dogs. Think spring and hug your kitties. -Karyn

It is nice to see how the messages on this forum went from hysteria laden with misinformation, to a more fact filled, tolerant view. Education really is the key. People should learn the facts from the people who have the facts, and not from the people who are spreading misinformation and fear. Those that belive they need to kill every coyote that they can are terribly misguided - the biological facts are that the implementation of "coyote control" actually stimulates the coyote population growth. This concept is not an easy one for most people to understand. If "coyote control" actually worked, then why were millions killed through ADC in the Western States for years, yet a healthy coyote population persists there. Studies have shown that if they had simply left the coyotes alone to do what coyotes do, there would have been many less coyotes than before the control was implemented. Imagine the money that was thrown away on this project! If control methods actually lowered the population, coyotes would theoretically be extinct by now. However, killing coyotes actually causes their population to grow at a faster rate. The litters increase in size and the young that are produced are more viable and hardy. So it is actually the coyote haters and killers that are creating more of them. If you have coyotes on your property and you hire someone to come in a trap or shoot them, you will create a bigger "problem" for yourself and your neighbors. Funny thing is, if you don't want coyotes, the last thing you want to do is kill them. Your population will stabilize and once the prey population goes down, the coyotes will leave, or you will have a single pair protecting their territoy. Logging also will cause coyotes to move into an area. Logging creates more undergrowth, more treetops for food for the small prey species. Coyotes will move in to fill the niche of predator to control the prey populations. A lot of people see the predator /prey relationship as a Good VS. Evil relationship. This is a very naive and environmentally unsound view. Predators are necessary to have healthy prey populations. coyotes are doing what predators are supposed to do. Man should butt out and simply protect their domestic animals with good fencing and good common sense practices. A good person to look up is Robert Crabtree, or "Bob Crabtree" He is the foremost coyote biologist in the USA. He has studied coyotes for years and has the facts, not the misinformation. Elise Able Fox Wood Wildlife Rescue, Inc http://www.foxwoodrehab.com Here is a link that might be useful: Fox Wood Wildlife Rescue, Inc

In 2007, I thought I had a whole slew of mice in my kitchen, but it turned out to be only 2. I used the little trap below and it worked in 30 minutes. Mr and Mrs. Mouse were both in there together, just looking around. I drove the trap a couple of miles away and released them in a field. I've never had any more since then. I think the timing was so lucky! because I later found a lovely "nursery" in the pantry, with soft dinner napkins all torn up, ready for the babies! Here is a link that might be useful: Humane mouse trap

How about an owl! Ace Hardware in Denver has an owl advertised right now that you can get online too. See below. IÂve seen these before, buy never an animated one like this is. At my last houseÂa rentalÂI had something pecking somewhere "on top" too for a while. It lasted for several weeks. I later had downy woodpeckers build a nest in my dying cottonwood, and sometimes wondered if it had been them, but I think the woodpeckers pretty much stuck to the trees, so IÂd say a flicker is a pretty good guess for the noisy guest. And the noise was always early in the morning tooÂjust like you. Back in the early 70's in an apartment I had the same thing happen, but that time they were just outside and above my bedroom window under the roof overhang, so every morning, as soon as they came, I pounded on the window a few times to scare them away, and after a week or so, they gave up. The did come back the next spring and I had to repeat the whole thing. ItÂs AMAZING how much noise they can make! Back in the 80's, at my house in Parker, the house was absolutely mobbed by pidginsÂdozens and dozens and dozens of themÂthe roof and everything else was covered with poop, so I found this inflatable snakeÂlike BIGÂand put it up there, and it actually workedÂfor a while. The Colorado sun fairly quickly did a number on the plastic, though, and it deflated, and apparently it wasnÂt scary anymore because it quit working. I think an owl would work better than a scarecrow type thing. Good luck, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Owl!