Mice and your food storage

When the winter comes in my area of NJ, the mice decide that my house is a vacation haven. Now, I'm all for live and let live when it comes to animals I can't eat. But there comes a time when you have to say enough already. I employ two cats, and our relationship is a simple one. Keep the house free of vermin and I'll feed you, keep you healthy and even scratch your ears every now and again. But I have to call foul here, these cats, while catching an occasional rodent and leaving it on the steps for me to step on is good, they aren't working hard enough.

This weekend while clearing the shelves for stock rotation and culling out expired stuff I found the following: One (1) bag of Ramen, half gone, One (1) bag of pecans UNDER the shelves, empty with a small hole in the bag, and finally, One (1) box of Rice-A-Roni, once again UNDER the shelves, empty with a hole chewed into the side. ENOUGH I SAY.

Eh, righteous indignation, I love it. I've been moving to cans for some time now and these little annoyances are slowly going away but it can be therapeutic to rant about them. But the reality of having mice running around in the dark around my food stores is still upsetting to me. So I thought I would talk a little about rodent control and your food supply.

This little tidbit comes from Do it yourself Pest Control : A mouse will eat almost anything, but prefer cereal grains, seeds, or sweet material. They require very little water, obtaining most of their water needs from their food. Mice can consume large quantities of stored seed and grains from farmers and granaries. A truer statement has never been spoken, trust me. and the main point of my discussion here today will be about eliminating the reason the mice come visit: FOOD. During rotations I am restocking almost all of my stored food in cans and or Jars. I have also found that plastic containers such as food grade 5 gallon buckets are a good way to store large amounts of items and keep out unwanted pests. There are also elaborate Canned food rotation racks that you can purchase, they are however very expensive.

When considering Can storage you need to consider space. So FIFO Can storage racks are pretty cool. Availability is pretty good and the price is about $27-$30 for a mini rack that can store 25 cans. Take a look HERE and HERE for some ideas. Of course there's always the super solution and that's pretty cool from a can storage point of view.

As I go through my food storage and move away from foods that need no refrigeration, preparation or cooking I find that I get a more hands on knowledge of what my prep exactly contains. It sort of keeps me in touch and more comfortable in the knowledge. The folks over at Pharoh's Storehouse have a pretty good short section on the 7 Reasons Why Food Storage is Important. We can all come up with 7 reasons now can't we?

Now, back to my fight the the furry little buggers, lets see if they can chew through a can.