dormice - loir advice please

[alleycat]

Can our someone tell me what we do when we find a hibernating loir?  There wonderful creatures, which we seem to have in abundance and enjoy watching in the summer, seem to hibernate within the thick walls of our buildings and recently we have come across several whilst beginning to take down walls as part of renovations to our farmhouse.  We feel quite upset when we suddenly have them tumble from their little nooks and crannies, still fast asleep.....  We have been carefully putting them into boxes filled with straw in one of the barns (still cold temperatures in the hope that they will not wake) but so far all of them seem to be gone when we go back and check them.  Are we doing the wrong thing - is there a better way to re-accommodate them?  We can't stop work till hibernation time ends as we are already way behind with this year's targets for making the house a decent habitation by next winter - i.e. more than two rooms!!  We love the little creatures and want them to live here safely and carry on their families.

[maude]

If you were a Roman they would have been in the pot!(or French perhaps?) Maude

[splishsplash]

The only advice I can find is to put them in a box that has a warm towel in it & they should then go back to sleep until May.

You can't force them to do this though!!

[parsnips]

[quote user="splishsplash"]The only advice I can find is to put them in a box that has a warm towel in it & they should then go back to sleep until May.

You can't force them to do this though!!

[/quote]

Hi,

    Glad to see you're taking care of them. I was shocked to see in our local supermarket a packet of poison baits intended for souris,rats, et loirs!

[JohnRoss]

Just to put balance into the equation these cute critters are not what you would want too close to home as their nocturnal habits wake you up with their clumping about, they pee everywhere and the smell is worse than tom cats and it is said they cause damage and risks by chewing the wiring!

Having caught and relocated up to 25 of these in a year chez nous, a short trip a few ks away to some woods where hopefully they can avoid the owls and find hollow trees in which to nest, we really don't want them to continue to live with us! Tried everything to persuade them to go other than poison which we don't use out of respect for them, the owls that eat them and the risk to our cat.  Repulsive oily smells, ultra sound, loud music, wall banging, blocking holes, curses etc etc have all been tried. The most effective so far seems to have been a combination of rabbit repellant and ultrasound, a squeaky unit in most of the rooms. The "Gosh they are cute" thing wears off after 7 or 8 years. Last year we only caught one Loir but as they move out maybe other things move in as we caught recently a few mice and a rat in their place. Nature is a force to be reckoned with and no mistake..............................................................JR

PS Forgot to mention that I marked one of the mice with a tiny blob of paint before taking him/her two fields away and by the time I got back he/she was back in the roof space finishing the apple that had been in the trap! This site, one of many, gives information about Loir. http://www.arkive.org/fat-dormouse/glis-glis/info.html

[alleycat]

You made me smile JohnRoss and I do understand what you are saying but we're a little barking over here!  We hear them dancing about sometimes it's true but as yet there isn't a dancing troupe to keep us awake and watching swinging through the trees outside our bedroom window is something we enjoy.  Unlike mice and rats they don't produce multiple amounts of offspring so we're not that concerned about the four or five we may possibly still have around - we have lots of large owls in our trees also - ouch to loirs!  Having said that we were soppy enough to allow a couple of very sweet field mice (long long tails and big ears - cute) to spend the cold winter months with us....... like I said we're barking.  However 2 mice became four mice (friends invited back we think) and so we had to assist them to move on and set up home elsewhere seeing as the weather was much more clement!  Rats we cannot afford to have at any price and so far have not been bothered despite having hens.  Clearly you have homing mice which was a fun story!  Thank you.

[nectarine]

We were told that the smell of mothballs were good deterrents and chucked a whole load in our loft. No more loirs!

[JohnRoss]

Yes rats are a worry and our neighbour has all sorts of hens, geese, guinea fowl, ducks, turkeys and a pig which must attract rats. Having said that the rat we caught was not like the horrible grey town rats we used to get in the UK but a rather handsome big big chap with deep brown fur and a cheeky expression so I guess some sort of field rat. We also see coypu (Ragondin) down in our field next to a small stream that runs along the edge. Quite big about 10kg and hope we don't get them in the roof! The locals don't like them as they cause damage to river banks and certainly part of the edge of the field has slid into the waters where they live and they are very shy but no worries for us as long as they don't eat my veg which they have not done so far unlike the ruddy hares! See http://www.lost-in-france.com/wildlife-in-france/195-coypu  .........................................JR

PS Tried Mothballs but not too effective for us, maybe they liked the free apples too much!

 

[chris pp]

Only three types of rat in France and one of them is the introduced Musk rat - a water rat for lack of a better term.

Link to List of Mammals in France in English / Latin / French, hope it comes in handy.

http://www.planetepassion.eu/MAMMALS-IN-FRANCE/List-of-Mammals-of-France-in-Latin-English-French%20.html

Chris

[Clair]

Chris,

As an aside, I thought I'd bring this article to your attention: Une étude de deux ans sur la genette

[chris pp]

Cheers Clair.[:D] It's a shame that so many French wildlife groups still don't have a basic web site that would give them a window to a much larger section of the public

Il faut employer tous les moyens de comunication.

Chris

[odile]

Chris what would YOU HONESTLY do if you had doormice in your walls/roof etc. I personally would hate to hurt them, but would have to get advice to protect electrics. Hope I never have to make a decision myself. Thanks.

[chris pp]

We have, and the answer is "nothing". They don't cause any damage, they don't chew our electrics, they don't smell or piss everywhere, they do make a bit of noise, but so what? So do the birds.... which brings me neatly to a story, a true story.....I'll keep it short.

Last summer I arrived home one evening about 9.30 pm after a long day out with a group. Lynne greeted me with "Your going to love this one, someone at  xxxxxx  has got four baby barn owls that some other person has left in a wheelie bin, the phone numbers on your desk"

Fine says I, I'll sort it. Make me a quick cup of tea and a snack while I phone up and get instructions to find the house.

On arrival at the house the person greeted me with the story. It seems that the person next door, a Brit, has a holiday home that they were visiting at the time and in the chimney was a family of Barn owls, but as he couldn't stand the f....ing noise he had decided to evict them, which he did, put them in the wheelie bin and took them next door saying to the person that called me "Do you want some owls? If you don't want them I'm going to dump them in the woods". The person that had evicted the owls had gone out for the evening and there in the bottom of the rubbish bin were four baby barn owls. Needless to say I rescued them and all four were fine.

So, you tell me, Brits a Nation of animal and wildlife lovers? I think not.

Back to the Loir, no worries, all a lot of froth and myth. These house have stood here for hundreds of years with Loir, bats, mason bees, birds nesting in the walls, untreated oak and chestnut timbers, all with no structural damage what so ever, but lets not let the facts and evidence get in the way.

Does that answer your question?

Chris

 

 

 

[JohnRoss]

Thanks for posting the link Chris, very interesting. The rat we caught must have been, having used your post to find pics on the web, a Rat Surmulot. As far as the dreaded loir go I still think their pee smells 'orrible. One time we had them nesting above a beam across an alcove in the wall and you could see where it had soaked through and the stench was unbelievable. It was not the smell of a recently dead one but similar to tom cat glandular produce. Took a long time to get rid of it. I always know when they have been in the roof space as I can smell where they have been. Still glad they don't eat wires but I am sure mice do so I am keeping vigil and the ultra sound going full blast though still not sure how effective it is!...........................................JR

[chris pp]

Are you sure it wasn't Stone marten, (Fouine)? Now they do stink and would make stains where urine etc soaks through walls or ceilings. Of course you may have had both which can cause confusion.

http://www.planetepassion.eu/MAMMALS-IN-FRANCE/Pine-marten-and-Stone-marten-in-France.html

Chris

 

[water rat]

we've lived in harmony with Lerot ( bandit mask dormice) for 6 years and have never had any probs with electrics. They make a bit of noise when they are coming back in the mornings after a night on the tiles,but I enjoy their antics and there isn't any smell

It can be a bit disturbing for our guests ( we have a chambre d'hote) but I explain it's all part and parcel of spending time in the countryside.I refuse to go aroud killing creatures.

They do make a weird noise though. Like the twanging of a jew's harp. In fact we once had a sensitiive soul who asked if our place was haunted ,as he thought he'd seen someone playing a guitar at the foot of the bed." Oh it's just the dormice" I said ,so he decided to try to stay awake to see such a spectacle. It wasn't until he left that I realised what I'd said. He's probably telling everyone that we're rather bizzare hosts. Still; there's no such thing as bad publicity!

[odile]

Thanks for your honest answer Chris and for dispelling myths. If ever I have some here, I will write to tell you and do ... nothing else.

As far as the barn owl story - it is hard to believe such people still exist. Shame and more shame - thank Goodness you took them under your wing (it must have kept them warm and secure).

[JohnRoss]

Ok Chris and whilst it is not impossible I don't think it was a Fouine. We have never seen one here but plenty of loir so I still think they are responsible for the pong! We tend to catch them in the small hours or very early morning after they come back home from wherever they have been besporting themselves. The odd baby caught has been released so they can go back to their mothers though I don't know at what stage they become independent. I will have a good sniff around the cage before taking the next adult one to the woods for release. The most caught have been late Summer so I assume they would be fully mature by then. The odd nest I have found when making structural alterations has been made out of mostly the polystyrene insulation we have in our walls so there has been some damage in that respect. I have found the odd desiccated dead one but as the wall spaces are fairly dry there is no knowing how long they have lain there, the house is over 150 years old. Any corpses found have always been intact but the previous owner did use poison so maybe that might have something to do with it. When I have opened walls up I usually find poo everywhere but usually quite dried out so I don't think that is responsible for the smell. It is a bit of a puzzle eh...............JR

[alleycat]

When I said we don't have rats - well not the usual kind as mentioned by JohnRoss as per in the UK.  However we have seen (fleetingly) brown things that disappear down holes in the veggie plot and around piles of stones that were dug out from when we put the septic tank in.  They are as large as small guinea pigs but I wasn't able to catch sight of tails as they were too quick (see three in all).  I read in my poultry book that if you see rats in daylight hours then you have a thumping big colony somewhere which put the fear of God in me!??  Our cats haunt the spot where the stones are so I do worry a little - we can't begin to move the stone pile without some heavy digging machine and we're not ready to shift it yet anyway - any ideas how I can find out if there's a problem brewing in there and if so what can I do?

[alleycat]

I have to add that I'm not phased by critters and happily have them alongside us as long as they don't create problems for our domestic animals and fowl - I do draw the line at rats however as I onced moved into a large old victorian house in Kent that was inhabited by rats running up cavity walls from the cellars and the under the floorbaords and it was a nightmare!  I was recovering from a major op at the time and confined to bed listening to these things and on a couple of occasions actually spied these large grey things with horrid fat tails running along the skirtingboard in my bedroom!  We called the council and the rat catcher took three weeks to deal with the problem - we then had the most appalling smell of rotting bodies under floorboards and it turned out these blighters we actually living outside in a large grass bank in the garden!  They took the bait in the house but to actually get the whole colony they had to flood the bank in the garden by sticking hose pipes in as many holes as they could find and leaving them running............  it was a nightmare and I have never been able to deal with rats ever since!  Sorry - am I going on here?  Just brings it all back when I think we might have them to deal with here....UGH!

[chris pp]

Rats are everywhere, simple as that, most people simply aren't aware of their presence outside. Cats can and do deal with them easily.

Chris

[JohnRoss]

Chris what do think of these little ultrasound devices as sold by Bricomarché and others, not very expensive. I have several in my house, they just plug into a mains socket. I have formed the opinion that they do scare them off but not very far maybe. I think you can get them for external use as well, waterproof I suppose. I did try one to start with but it only seemed to move them to another part of the house. I now have five spread about and in rooms near where the beasties can be heard in the wall spaces and one up in the roof where they sometimes come in. Of course I may be just kidding myself that they work, opinions from the web seem to be divided on this, what think you? They don't seem to worry our cat but he is stone deaf anyway. I assume that if they work they would repel loir, rats and mice. Dr Morris once suggested to me that oily smells should work but my experiments did not prove effective, wrong oil maybe!.................................................JR

[water rat]

In my experience they do work for a while ,but the critters get used to them. As for rat catchers ,you can't beat a couple of terriers. We have two locally bred  and they're even called "Ratiers"

[chris pp]

I don't know anything at all about them, sorry.

Chris