The problems with mieces

I never thought mice would be such a problem on a farm with so few animals. 

The fields are just riddled with them.

Normally I'd leave my winter veg in the ground and harvest as needed.

But they disappear.

You come to pick it and find it is just a hollow shell with a mouse/vole/rat tunnel below.

And every autumn the mice move in.

The cats occasionally bring mice in the house. But we have traps for them and they are relatively easy to remove and once gone, they are gone.

The autumn invasion is different.

Every autumn we spend several weekends reinforcing mouse defenses.

This year in the cellar we had to cement the walls and build a mouse proof potato bin when they dug thru the walls.

In the barn we had to reinforce the walls everywhere they had chewed a way thru to get at the chicken feed.

And now they are in the house roof, between the walls. How did they get there? And how to get them out?

We think this is the most likely culprit:

These poles were put up to grow grapes on,

https://worldofwuwu.blogspot.com/2017/10/grape-vine-transplant.htm

but became repurposed for down gutter supports.

But maybe they have been repurposed once more as mouse ladders? 

Time to repurposed some old rusty metal sheets as mouse baffles

First, mark a large semi circle

Then a smaller one at the centre - the circumference of this semi circle needs to match the circumference of the pole.

Cut out

Bend

Drill hole (it helps if you punch a small guide hole first

Insert nutsert

Fit to pole

One way only sign for mice

 Fingers crossed for no more chewing, scampering and squeaking noises in the night. Otherwise we'll be back for round 2.