Mice Contaminated My Horse Feed. 3 Horses Got Sick. My Best Mare Almost Died. The Vet Bill Was $8,700. I Tried Poison
It Killed My Barn Cat. I Tried Traps, I Caught 200 Mice and 200 More Came. Then I Found Something That Cleared 6 Barns in 2 Weeks.
A horse ranch owner shares how mice destroyed $17,000 in feed, sickened three horses, killed a barn cat from secondary poisoning, and nearly bankrupted her operation until she discovered plant-based pouches that cleared every barn on the property without traps, poison, or electricity.
★★★★★ 144,354 Ratings
By Colleen Vasquez | Farm & Livestock | September 4th, 2026 | 6:00 am EST
I'VE RAISED HORSES FOR 22 YEARS. I ALMOST LOST MY BEST MARE TO SOMETHING THE SIZE OF MY THUMB. NOT A VIRUS. NOT AN INJURY. A MOUSE. IN HER FEED.
Her name is Clementine. Seventeen-year-old quarter horse mare. I've had her since she was a yearling. She carried my daughters in their first riding lessons. She carried me through the worst year of my life when my marriage ended and the ranch was all I had left. She's not livestock. She's family.
Last February, she stopped eating. A horse that stops eating is an emergency. I called my vet within the hour.
Blood work came back. Leptospirosis. A bacterial infection transmitted through contact with rodent urine. The vet asked me one question: "Is there any possibility your feed has been contaminated by mice?"
I knew the answer before he finished the sentence. Because I'd been finding droppings in the feed room for two years. In the grain bins. On the feed bags. In the supplement containers. Tiny black specks I'd been brushing off and scooping around because "every barn has mice" and "it's just part of farming."
It wasn't just part of farming. It was poisoning my horses.
Clementine spent six days on IV antibiotics. She lost 80 pounds. Her coat went dull. She stood in the corner of her stall with her head down, not moving, not eating, not being Clementine. For six days I sat outside her stall on an overturned bucket and talked to her because the vet said sometimes they need to hear your voice to keep fighting.
Two other horses showed symptoms the same week. Juniper a 12-year-old gelding I was training for a client developed a fever and kidney inflammation. Rosie my daughter's 9-year-old paint mare stopped drinking water and became lethargic. Both from the same contaminated feed. Both from mice.
Total vet bills: $8,700. Across three horses. In one month. From one contaminated feed room.
Clementine survived. Juniper recovered in two weeks. Rosie bounced back faster because she's young and tough.
But I stood in that feed room after it was over droppings on every surface, gnaw marks on every bag, a nest behind the grain barrel made of shredded paper and hay and I realized I'd almost killed a horse I love because I'd accepted mice as "just part of the barn."
That was the last day I accepted anything.
I Run 6 Barns on 85 Acres. Mice Were in Every One of Them. I Spent $6,200 Fighting Them Over 3 Years. Not a Single Approach Worked. One of Them Killed My Cat.
Snap traps 200+ over three years. I set them everywhere. Along barn walls. Inside the feed room. Behind grain barrels. Near hay storage. Near the tack room. I caught mice. Hundreds of them. Emptied traps every morning. Reset them every evening. Fresh droppings in the feed bins every single day. One pair of mice produces 60+ offspring per year. I was removing individuals from a population that replaced itself faster than I could trap.
Poison bait stations the worst mistake I ever made. I placed commercial bait stations in four barns. They worked mice ate the poison. Mice died. Then my barn cat Hank found a poisoned mouse behind the grain storage.
Hank was a gray tabby. Nine years old. He'd been on the ranch since he was a kitten. He patrolled the barns every night. He caught mice. He slept on the hay bales. He rubbed against my legs when I did the morning feed. Every horse on the property knew him.
He ate a poisoned mouse. Secondary poisoning. I found him behind the tack room on a Tuesday morning. Lethargic. Trembling. Bleeding from his nose.
Emergency vet. $420. They tried. Vitamin K injections. IV fluids. Monitoring.
Hank died Wednesday afternoon.
I buried him behind the main barn. Dug the hole myself. Stood there with a shovel and cried so hard I couldn't see the dirt.
I pulled every poison bait station on the ranch that same day. Every one. Threw them in the dumpster. I killed my own cat trying to kill the mice. That's what poison does on a farm. It doesn't just kill the target. It kills everything downstream.
Steel wool and foam sealant $180, 3 weekends. My daughter and I spent three entire weekends crawling through barns on our hands and knees. Stuffing steel wool into every gap. Foaming every crack. Sealing every pipe penetration. A horse barn is a sieve. Sliding doors that don't close flush. Gaps between boards. Drainage channels. Ventilation openings. Foundation cracks in structures built 40 years ago. We sealed everything we could find. The mice chewed through the steel wool within a week. They gnawed new holes through the wooden siding like it was warm butter. Sealing a barn against mice is like trying to childproof the ocean.
Barn cats. After Hank, I got two more barn cats. They catch mice. They're good at it. Maybe two or three a day between them. But a colony produces dozens per month across six barns. The cats are outnumbered 30 to 1. They help. They don't solve.
Electronic ultrasonic devices $240. I bought eight of the "commercial grade" ones. Plugged them into the three barns that have electricity. The other three barns the hay barn, the equipment shed, the old dairy barn have no outlets. No power. The devices buzzed and blinked in the three powered barns. I found fresh droppings six inches from one of them the next morning. The mice didn't care. And half my property had no electricity to begin with.
Exterminator $3,200 per year. They came quarterly. Walked the property. Set commercial traps and bait. Removed what they found. Sprayed perimeter repellent. $800 per visit. Four times a year. The technician told me: "Ma'am, with a property this size and this many structures, rodent management is an ongoing process." Ongoing process. Translation: ongoing invoices.
Three years. $6,200 in direct costs. Three sick horses at $8,700 in vet bills. One dead cat. Hundreds of pounds of contaminated feed thrown away. Equipment wiring chewed through. Tractor that wouldn't start because mice had eaten the ignition harness over winter. $4,500 to rewire.
Total rodent-related losses in three years: over $23,000.
And the mice were still in every barn. Every morning. Every day. Every season.
Then my feed supplier a woman who delivers grain to forty ranches in the county said something that changed everything.
"Colleen, Half the Ranches I Deliver to Have the Same Problem. Three of Them Don't. Want to Know What's Different?"
Her name is Lorene. She's delivered feed to ranches for 18 years. She walks into feed rooms all day long. She sees what every rancher is dealing with.
"Most feed rooms look the same," she said. "Droppings on the bags. Gnaw marks on the corners. Nesting material behind the bins. Mice everywhere. Every ranch. Every season."
"But three of my ranches are different. Their feed rooms are spotless. No droppings. No gnaw marks. No contamination. The bags are clean. The bins are clean. The floors are clean."
"I asked all three of them what they were doing differently. They all said the same thing."
She reached into her truck and pulled out a small green pouch. Held it up.
"PestLab Rodent Repellent Pouches."
It smelled like peppermint and cinnamon and cedar. Strong. Clean. Not chemical. Like walking into a holiday market.
"Plant-based. Four essential oils at industrial concentration. You drop them in the feed room, in the barn, in the storage areas. One every 8 to 10 feet. The mice leave. They don't come back for 30 to 90 days until you replace the pouch."
I stared at her. "Lorene, I've tried peppermint oil. Cotton balls. It evaporated in hours. The mice didn't care."
"This isn't grocery store peppermint on a cotton ball," she said. "This is four oils peppermint, cinnamon, cedarwood, castor oil — blended at industrial strength. The castor oil is the key it's a slow-release carrier that keeps the scent active for months, not hours. The concentration level is ten times what you get at the store. To a mouse, this doesn't smell like peppermint. It smells like the most hostile environment they've ever encountered."
"And here's the thing that matters for a ranch no electricity. No batteries. No wires. Just drop them. In every barn. In every building. Even the ones with no power. Especially the ones with no power because those are the ones the mice love most."
I looked at the pouch. I looked at Lorene. I thought about Clementine on IV antibiotics. About Hank behind the tack room, bleeding from his nose. About $23,000 in losses.
"How much?"
"A few dollars per pouch."
I ordered that afternoon. Enough for every barn on the property.
I Placed Pouches in All 6 Barns on a Saturday. Here's What Happened Barn by Barn, Week by Week.
My daughter helped. We walked every building. One pouch every 8 to 10 feet. Near every entry point. Near every feed storage area. Behind every grain bin. Inside the tack room. Inside the equipment shed. In the hay barn the big open one with no walls and no electricity, the one that had been the worst for mice for a decade.
Thirty-eight pouches across six barns. Took us one afternoon. The entire property smelled like Christmas.
Day 3 — I walked into the feed room first thing Monday morning. Opened the grain bin. Checked the lid. Checked the rim. Checked around the base.
No droppings. First time in three years.
I checked the feed bags on the shelf. Clean. No gnaw marks. No new chewing on any corner. The bag of senior supplement the one Clementine eats, the one that was contaminated was untouched.
Day 7 — Walked every barn. All six. Behind every barrel. Under every shelf. Along every wall. Inside the hay barn the worst building on the property. Zero droppings anywhere. The hay bales were clean. The equipment shed floor was clean. The tack room where Hank used to sleep on the saddle blankets was spotless.
Day 10 — I did something I hadn't done in two years. I opened a bag of feed, scooped it into the bucket, and didn't inspect it. Didn't hold it up to the light. Didn't sift through it checking for droppings. Didn't smell it for urine.
I just scooped and poured. Like feed is supposed to be handled. Clean. Simple. Safe.
Clementine ate it with her head in the bucket and her tail swishing. No hesitation. No fear. Just a horse eating clean feed on a clean ranch.
Day 14 — My daughter walked into the feed room after school. She'd been helping me check for droppings every morning for three years. She looked around. Opened a drawer. Checked behind the bin. Looked at me.
"Mom. There's nothing. There's literally nothing."
"I know."
"It's been two weeks."
"I know."
She looked at the pouch sitting on the shelf behind the grain barrel. Then she looked at me. Then she walked over to Clementine's stall and pressed her forehead against the mare's neck.
"She's not going to get sick again, is she?"
"No, baby. She's not."
That was sixteen months ago. I replace the pouches every 60 to 90 days. One afternoon. Thirty-eight pouches. And not a single mouse dropping has appeared in any feed room, any barn, any storage building on this property since day three.
Sixteen months. Six barns. Zero mice. Zero contaminated feed. Zero sick horses. Zero dead cats.
Why Pouches Are the ONLY Option That Works Across an Entire Farm Especially the Buildings With No Electricity
Here's what nobody in the pest control industry acknowledges about farms and ranches: the buildings where mice cause the worst damage are the buildings with no power.
The hay barn. The equipment shed. The old storage building. The grain silo annex. The livestock shelters. The tack room in the back pasture. No outlets. No wiring. No electricity.
Electronic devices? Useless. They need a wall outlet. Most farm buildings don't have wall outlets. Most farm buildings barely have walls.
Poison? Kills your barn cats. Kills your farm dogs. Contaminates the soil where your livestock grazes. Secondary poisoning is the #1 reason farm vets treat cats and dogs every spring.
Traps? You'd need hundreds. Across six buildings. Checked and reset daily. On a working ranch where the day starts at 5 AM and ends at dark. Nobody has time to run a trapline across a hundred acres every morning.
Exterminators? $800 per visit for a property this size. Quarterly. $3,200 per year. They set traps and spray repellent that washes away in rain. The mice come back within weeks. Ongoing process. Ongoing invoice.
PestLab pouches go everywhere. Every barn. Every shed. Every storage building. Every space with or without electricity. Drop them on a shelf. Behind a barrel. On a hay bale. Inside an engine bay. Next to a grain bin. Anywhere mice enter. No outlet. No battery. No wiring. No maintenance except replacement every 60 to 90 days.
And the critical thing for livestock operations: 100% plant-based. Zero poison. Zero secondary poisoning risk. Your barn cats are safe. Your farm dogs are safe. Your livestock is safe. Your feed is safe. Your soil is safe. Nothing toxic anywhere on the property.
No more choosing between dead mice and dead cats. The pouches drive mice out alive. Your cats stay alive. Everything stays alive except the infestation.
What Makes PestLab Pouches Different From the Peppermint Oil You Already Tried
Every rancher I've talked to says the same thing: "I tried peppermint oil."
I did too. Cotton balls. Grocery store peppermint. Evaporated in four hours. Mouse walked past it by midnight.
PestLab is a completely different product:
Four oils instead of one. Peppermint overwhelms scent receptors. Cinnamon triggers threat response. Cedarwood destroys scent-trail navigation. Castor oil sustains the barrier for months. One oil is a nuisance. Four oils at industrial concentration is a sensory assault on the mouse's entire navigation system.
Industrial strength instead of consumer diluted. Store-bought oil is a fraction of the concentration needed. PestLab triggers an involuntary avoidance response. Mice physically cannot stay near it.
30 to 90 days instead of 4 hours. Slow-release matrix. The barrier never drops. Not overnight. Not after rain. Not after a month. Continuous emission for up to three months.
- 🌿 4-OIL INDUSTRIAL FORMULA — Peppermint, cinnamon, cedarwood, castor oil. Four mechanisms. Industrial concentration. 30 to 90 days per pouch.
- 🔌 NO ELECTRICITY. NO BATTERIES. — Works in every building on the property. Especially the ones without power — the ones mice love most.
- 🐱 SAFE FOR BARN CATS, FARM DOGS, LIVESTOCK & SOIL — Zero poison. Zero secondary poisoning risk. Your cats live. Your dogs live. Your horses eat clean feed. Nothing toxic anywhere.
- 🚫 NO TRAPS TO CHECK DAILY — Drop and walk away. No daily trapline across six barns. Replace every 60 to 90 days. That's it.
- 🌾 PROTECTS FEED, GRAIN, SEED & EQUIPMENT — No more contaminated feed. No more chewed wiring. No more ruined seed stock. No more droppings on every surface.
- 🌧️ WEATHER-RESISTANT — Designed for barn conditions. Dust. Heat. Cold. Humidity. The pouches keep working.
- 🎯 90-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE — If mice don't leave — every dollar back. Your exterminator charges $800 per visit and guarantees nothing. PestLab guarantees your money back.
With more than 140,000+ 5-star reviews
TrustScore 4.8 144,354 reviews
Mike and Sheila D. — Verified Purchase
★★★★★
$22,000 in Grain Loss Over 2 Seasons. Pouches Stopped It Cold. Every Farmer Needs to Know About This.
Mice contaminated our grain storage two years running. $22,000 in total losses. We couldn't sell it. Insurance wouldn't cover it. We tried traps caught hundreds. More came. Tried poison killed our best mouser cat. When we switched to PestLab pouches, the grain bins were clean within 10 days. We've stored two full harvests since with zero contamination. Zero. The pouches go in every building, including the ones with no electricity. A few pouches per season versus $22,000 in losses. Every farmer in this county should know about this.
143 people found this helpful
Janet B. — Verified Purchase
★★★★★
Poison Killed 2 of My Barn Cats. I'll Never Use It Again. Pouches Protect My Feed AND My Animals.
I lost two barn cats to secondary poisoning in one year. Both ate poisoned mice. Both died. I was devastated and furious at myself for using poison in a barn where cats work. PestLab pouches are plant-based no poison, no risk to cats, dogs, or livestock. I placed them in every barn and the feed room. Two weeks zero mice. My remaining barn cats walk right past the pouches without a care. The mice are gone. My cats are safe. That's all I ever wanted.
136 people found this helpful
Ed R. — Verified Purchase
★★★★★
Mice Chewed My Tractor Wiring. $3,800 Repair. A Pouch in the Engine Bay Prevented It From Happening Again.
Mice nested in my John Deere's engine bay over winter. Chewed through the ignition wiring and two sensor cables. $3,800 repair. The next winter I put a PestLab pouch in the engine bay and one in the cab. Spring came spotless. Not a chew. Not a nest. Not a dropping. Tractor started first try. I put pouches in every piece of equipment now tractor, combine, ATV, side-by-side. A few pouches versus $3,800. Easiest math I've ever done.
129 people found this helpful
The Math Every Rancher, Farmer, and Livestock Owner Needs to See
Contaminated feed per season: $5,000 to $30,000+ in losses.
Sick livestock from contaminated feed: $2,000 to $10,000+ in vet bills.
Equipment wiring damage: $1,500 to $5,000 per vehicle.
Secondary poisoning vet bill per animal: $300 to $500.
Dead barn cat or farm dog from poison: priceless loss. Irreplaceable.
Exterminator for a farm: $2,400 to $4,000 per year. Mice return every time.
PestLab pouches: a few dollars per pouch. One pouch every 8-10 feet. Replace every 60 to 90 days. An afternoon to cover an entire property.
One season of pouches across six barns: less than one vet visit for one sick horse.
🚨 Fall Is Coming. Mice Push Into Barns When Temperatures Drop. The Feed Room Is Their First Stop. Protect It NOW.
September through April. Every year. Temperatures drop. Mice flood into barns and feed rooms by the hundreds. Every night without protection is another night of contamination.
PestLab pouches sell out every fall. Ranchers and farmers buy in bulk. Feed suppliers recommend them. The people who know buy before the first frost.
If this page is live, they have stock. Don't wait until your vet calls with blood work results you don't want to hear.
Only Available at pestlab.co
Not at the feed store. Not at Tractor Supply. Not on Amazon the peppermint pouches on Amazon are diluted single-oil products that evaporate in days. They don't work.
Real PestLab Rodent Repellent Pouches: pestlab.co.
90-Day Guarantee. If Mice Don't Leave Every Dollar Back.
Place the pouches. Wait 90 days. If mice aren't gone full refund. No questions.
Email support@pestlab.co anytime.
The exterminator charges $800 per visit and guarantees an "ongoing process." PestLab charges a few dollars and guarantees your money back.
Clementine Almost Died From Contaminated Feed. Hank Died From Poison I Put Down to Protect Her. The Mice Cost Me $23,000 in Three Years. Thirty-Eight Pouches Fixed Everything.
You can keep setting traps you'll never catch up with. Keep running a daily trapline across six barns before the sun comes up. Keep putting down poison that kills the cats who are supposed to be killing the mice. Keep paying $800 every quarter for an exterminator who calls it an "ongoing process" because his treatments expire with the weather.
Or you can spend one afternoon walking your barns with a bag of pouches.
One every 8 to 10 feet. Near every entry. Behind every bin. On every shelf. In every building especially the ones without power, because those are the ones the mice have owned for years.
The scent concentrated peppermint, cinnamon, cedarwood, castor oil will do in two weeks what three years of traps, poison, and exterminators couldn't: make every building on your property somewhere mice refuse to enter.
No traps. No poison. No dead cats. No dead mice in the hay. No contaminated feed. No sick horses. No $3,800 tractor rewiring. No $800 quarterly invoices.
Just clean barns. Clean feed. Healthy animals. And a barn cat sleeping on the saddle blankets, alive and safe, because you chose the method that drives mice out without killing everything else.
Clementine is nineteen now. She still carries my youngest daughter around the arena on Sunday mornings. She eats clean feed from a clean bucket in a barn that hasn't had a mouse dropping in sixteen months.
Hank is buried behind the main barn. I still talk to him when I do the evening feed. I tell him I'm sorry. I tell him I fixed it. I tell him the cats are safe now.
He shouldn't have had to die for me to find the answer. But at least the answer exists. And now you know about it before you lose what I lost.
Tap the button. Order today. Walk your barns this weekend with the pouches in hand.
And if the mice don't leave every dollar back. But they'll leave. They left six barns on an 85-acre ranch. They'll leave yours.
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