Does your bike need a mouse filter?

I have been working on my carburetors, trying to get this bike running again after removing nonfunctional California emissions equipment. I had to open it up again, and found this inside the air cleaner:



This was after only one week of my having put this thing together. Don't ask me where he found sunflower seeds, but I think my neighbor has a bird feeder. This may have been a squirrel rather than a mouse, since that is a long distance to go for a mouse. I've got squirrels in my garage, the destructive little bastards. I have declared war on them, and shoot every one I can see around this place.

I have found mouse and squirrel nests inside other vehicle air filters as well. Anyway this is my solution for the VFR - I did the same thing with my car when I found a nest in it:



It's aluminum gutter screen, of course. Nothing but the best for my bike!

Still don't have the bike running though. It runs, but acts extremely lean, like I have a big leak somewhere. If I even open the throttle a bit, it dies. I have put this old bike on the back burner because I am playing with a new (to me) toy, an '88 BMW K75S. I have to say, working on the K75 is a lot more fun than working on the VFR. Better design for maintenance, even if the K75 will never be as fast or handle as well as the VFR. I'm 60, and no longer need to go so fast.

 

Wow...another critter nest in the air box.

 

Shooting squirrels could mean you're an idiot because trapping and relocating is far more humane.

Having squirrels around is a sign of a healthy environment.

Based upon years of amateur rodent research, i believe there are clues that a mouse or chipmonk, not a squirrel, left that mess.

Does this mean you'll be shooting the mice ?

 

I suggest just stomping on them. Killing mice is a lot more fun when you can hear them squeaking as you crush their bones. I usually let the cat kill them, no blood on my boots and the mouse suffers longer, sometimes for hours.

My brother traps his squirrels and releases them on my property. I don't mind them, they taste pretty good and nothing is more fun than squirrel safari. :wink:

 

Squirrels are just over sized mice with fuzzy tails. Trap them, shoot them, whatever. Just not the black squirrels, as I think they are on some list somewhere to forciably relocate them. Right into a river, preferrably.

 

You guys just have to provoke Squirrelman, huh?

I like squirrels. But the mice are not so lucky.

 

If it gets in my shit, its dead. Period. Mice, squirrels, racoons, etc. Anything unlucky enough to mess with my bike has starated world war 3 and will soon be on the list of nearly extinct animals.

 

On a related but slightly off-topic note... A small, lost opossum tried to make a home in the intake of my old Chevy Suburban. I didn't discover this until loss of power upon acceleration caused me to pull over and start looking under the hood. By this time the hapless opossum was disemboweled with guts / little bones plastered against my K&N air filter. Opossum Killer ran fine again once entire intake system was cleaned.

 

Sorry Squirrelman, around my place, the squirrels have to die. The red ones anyway; I leave the greys alone because they leave me alone, other than planting walnuts from the neighbor's orchard all over the place which I don't mind. Might get my own walnut tree that way, except they don't grow so well underneath all the firs.

Trapping? If I trap, it will only be so I can "shoot fish in a barrel". It's not like red squirrels are endangered or anything. But I probably won't trap. I like to keep my shooting skills in shape. Anyway, squirrels might be a bit small for a conibear.

Had reds running in the walls of my house for a while. I'd be laying down on the couch, listening to them run hither and yon. Little holes in the walls and ceilings would appear. I declared war then too, for a while. Any red within a hundred yards of my house got the old .22 treatment. After I solved that problem there was a truce, but now that I want a clean garage I'm at war again. My tool of choice this time is an air rifle because I don't have to worry about getting directly underneath to avoid downrange grief. Pellets don't go far. I'm thinking of trying 35gr bullets in one of my .223's though, just to make sure the squirrel explodes properly. No red mist with a pellet gun <sigh>.

I once opened a hood and saw a mouse sitting on the air cleaner, looking at me. He ran down and went for the vegetation. I was trying to stomp him but he always changed course at the last second, so I ended up stomping a lot of air. It was like watching a wily coyote cartoon.

Last time I left my helmet in the garage, I found it packed full of pine cones the next day. Damn reds! They must DIE!

What I really need is a pet Pine Marten. They sure keep the squirrels down.