Anyone else have critters that want to use your dozer as a home. Everytime I have removed my rock guards, I have found mouse nests. I found a black rat snake skin in the battery compartment. A friend of mine said birds nest in the compartment of his dozer. He said they carry in enough grass and straw to feed a cow through the winter. I have seen mud dabber nests in my engine compartment.
Yes, I have to watch out for the Hornets in Spring and Fall. I have gotten stung when going to operate the dozer not knowing they had created a hive. Mice are constancy nesting and I will toss in some rodent poison every year into the engine area and battery box area.
This last fall, every time I started to run my dozer, I would have a little mouse run out from it. This went on for a week or so before he finally figured out that things where'nt going to change. He either moved out or I ran him over.
Red Wasps!!!!
We have huge problems with starlings nesting in our loaders for about a month during spring. We have to tell our operators to check the engine bay everytime they start one up, because the starlings often place their nests around the turbo or in between the fan and the radiator. They seem to particularly like our yard loader, we can leave that for two hours and they willl be well on the way to having a nest built when we go back. Another loader we have, they always nest in the exhaust pipe, no matter how many times it is used, when we come back a day or so later, there is a nest in the exhaust pipe, which also can be a bit tricky at the start of summer, because the grass is lodged in between the baffles, so then it catches fire. The odd thing is, that these loaders are in different areas, kilometres apart, so different starlings are nesting in them, yet they will put their nests in exactly the same place every year. Another problem we experienced, was when one of our operators left the machine, he put the keys inside the frame underneath the cab. When he came back a day or so later, the keys were gone. We hunted high and low for those keys, we were accusing him of all sorts of things, then by sheer luck, we found the keys laying on the side of a gravel heap a little way away from the loader, obviously the birds had found them and decided to have a play with them. RnR.
Found a dead cat under the radiator of my 955L. They crawl in to get warm.
For your info RnR, starlings can smell where other birds have made nests the year before so hence the reason other birds always go back to the same spot. They hate diesel being sprayed over their nesting area and so go look for somewhere else. But for obvious reasons be careful where you spray it and you don't need much.
Crikey Animal, where were you when we needed you. They must have a good sense of smell, because the loaders are washed numerous times through out the year. I hadn't heard about the diesel trick, but it is something I will keep in mind, thank you for that. I did buy a bird scarer that emitted sounds a bit like cicadas, I was told that would keep them away, we were having limited success with it, until another contractor hopped in the loader and backed over the speaker, the starlings woke up to that very quickly. RnR.
I had a track loader with the bucket in the air at the yard. Bees must have though it looked like a good pit stop fot the night. I bet the ball hanging on the bucket was 12" or better! Of course I jumped on the machine and was about to crank it when I saw it and bailed out. Had to call an exterminator. Boys had to be careful when driving by machine to get in shop.
You guys have it easy....wait until the "wood rats" move in. They devour everything, seat cushions, hoses, wires (insulation & wire), anything plastic is chewed on. Got other pets on the place so can't really use poison.....run a trap line year round. Anything that is shelter has an occupant. Huge piles of sticks, grass and the smell!!!!!!. Aaaaah life in the country.
It can be a real problem, had a cottontail go thru the fan on a D8K, must have been small as it just vaporized, blew a few starling nests out of the 623 stacks on start up, opened the water truck glove box to get something and there was Mickey and Minnie mouse ready to start a family. Knawing rodents can do big damage on later electronic machines with those harnesses running everywhere, just trouble shooting a bad harness can be a nightmare.
When I was working out in the redwoods here we had a huge problem with the bears eating our seats at night. The old timers told us they like to chew on the seats because they like the salty taste from the sweat, makes sense I guess. On the plus side they also licked all the zerk fittings clean because they like the taste of grease. That part was actually very handy because we would just wait till morning to grease and all the fittings would be clean! The bears were usually there in the morning when we showed up and we would have to run them off so we could get to work. One young bear even managed to get into the enclosed cab backhoe and shut the door behind him, that was one hell of a suprise when we showed up in the morning and had to come up with a way to get him out!
I have birds nesting in the excavators were all the hoses are above the control valves. This never happened when we worked steady now they get lots of time to build. In years past the field mice had a favorite wire on all the GM diesel cars that they just loved, it was part of the glow plug system, and it would not start. This year a bird built a nest in side the 680 backhoe boom for a first. I used to have a problem every spring the birds built nests on top of the sliding doors in the barn. I got some very sticky stuff that comes in a calking tube just a little and they won't come back, it really does work.
Darryl Thanks for the info, but politics can be discussed on many many other boards
Ok, I have a better one. I was on University of Texas(Hookem Horns!) and having problems the a telehandler operating on the end of the boom. Tore it apart and found a squirrel had eaten three inches of a four wire harness. It was qiute funny seeing his little paw prints in the dust trails inside the boom. Next day I get a call, tractor is doing the same thing. The squirrel is poking his head out of the boom when I pull up. Guess what the problem was again? He only chewed up two inches that day. Is it bad to have 8 splices in and ten inch section of wire?
I found a pack rat skeleton under the tilt cab of a Komatsu log shovel one year. The reason for the skeleton was because of the electrical fire that got started after the rat chewed the insulation off the hot wire to the key. I've also been on a Komatsu with another mechanic that had a big surprise in the fancy computer box the Canadians built for the rear entry cab. My partner practically flew out from under the cab onto a log deck next to the machine. Dog gone pack rack probably weighed 4 pounds. I gave my buddy a pry bar and he hit the critter square. The fur ball only looked back at us like if we did that again he was going to make a mess of us and the machine. Then he abled out of the box and down into the center of the machine. I'd have shot him with the pistol but all the damned computer crap was so expensive.
found a dead mouse in my skid steer the other day. going to give is buddies some good old fun stuff for them to eat that they cant resist. thell be gone for this season. yeah.
I don't know how many bird nests and mouse/rat nests I've removed. When I first started my 977H after I bought it, a large cloud of Hornet nest shrapnel came flying out of the exhaust, luckily the hornets had moved on already... The best one was one morning we hopped into my mom's car and opened the glove box to find it full to the top with dog food, the dry stuff you get in a 50lb bag. Seems that night the mice had decided that it was the ideal storage silo for this stuff. No idea how they even got it in there as all the cracks and holes we could find were smaller than the dog food bits. Another time just recently we were working alongside another helicopter company and the engineer working on the machine calls me over all excitedly, laughing his head off. I stomped over and peeked into the tailboom and the whole length of the tailboom had about 2 inches deep worth of dogfood in it. Last year I went to use the old F600 dump truck I have, I climbed in the cab and was met by protests from an angry squirrel behind the seat. I folded the seat forward to find the whole thing had been packed full of pinecones.
Well you should have hired him then gave him a hard hat,vest and safety glasses.
Probably be a better employee than 90% of the seasonal help we get...
This spring we had a coon in the engine compartment of a D6D. Machine has full engine enclosures. My brother started the machine and he came out the hole around blade lift cylinder. Went and did a small job and brought machine back to yard. The coon must have though, good my house is back and moved back in. A few days later we started it up again and the fan belt was screaming. This time he didnt make it out. He was caught in the belt at the alternator (i think). Only half dead and very pissed off. At this point we didnt have many choices. Loosening the belt to get him out didnt look like a good idea. I hate to say it but we ended up hitting the starter a few times and he went on through to the belly pan.
I got into the skidsteer a month ago and was greated by the smell of dead mouse. I found her dead, with four little ones still alive trying to get milk. I guess the bait worked, just wish it would of worked faster. A long time ago I started my motorcycle, and heard a new noise. It was acorns hitting the inside of the metal building. Every time I cracked the throttle it would shoot a stream of acorns out the muffler. I had just finished sweeping the floor, to got to start over. Last year I went to get more mouse bait out of the box and all the packages were empty. A mouse must of thought it hit a real nest egg of food. Opened every bag, and cleaned it out. I never did find where it hid all that great food. Hope the others found it.
We have had all sorts of critters take up home in units, especially in winter trying to stay warm. In the winter of 1994, super cold, when we used to be loggers, we had Ruffed grouse roost in the engine compartment of slashers on the valve cover, and young deer under the belly pans of the skidders--frozen to the ground partially alive, no joke. We of course put them out but it wasn't fun. What I don't like is during warm months those big-ass spiders trying to get cozy in my cabs. And they pop out or hang out all of the sudden at the wrong time when you are either on the road in a dump truck in traffic, steep slope next to a deep pond on a dozer, and top of a muddy peak in an excavator. None of which are the best times to get scared as hell because you already are.
I had forgotten about bee's in a semi while driving down a road. Thats never fun. :/
Around Christmas last year, I went out to start all of my equipment (as I try to do at least once a month). I started my dozer and it fired right up. I let it idle for about 5 minutes and then gave her a little throttle. All of the sudden black smoke started pouring out the exhaust and it only gained about 200rpms above the idle speed. WTH?? I shut it down and went to see if I could find out what was going on. As is turns out, a pack rat was stealing dog food of my porch and storing in the intake hose that lead to the air cleaner. I swear there was about 5lbs of food in there! Anyhow, I got it cleaned out and put a screen over the end of the hose. All good now. Mice are a different problem. They eat wires and insulation like it's candy. Can't quite figure out how to stop that...
I have had a Ringtail and a Rat snake under the seat. A Ringtail looks like the cross between a Coon and a Weasel. The Ringtail was not bad but the Rat snake which was about 3 ft. long scared the crap out of me when it came out between my legs.
Had mice make a nest in the dash of my D6c which happens pretty often and usually isn't a problem. Last time though they chewed the insulation off a wire. Next time I started it it shorted out on the brass tube of the engine temp. gauge. Burned a hole in the tube so I had to replace the temp gauge & fix the wire.
had a mouse the other ran out of the dash of my 580C.....it got stomped and kick out of the cab......