Mice Mice Mice!

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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
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Owner/electrical contractor
Building was run on a portable generator. They had three number 10’s in black plastic back to the generator 100’ away. So most of the time the building was dead except for a weekend or two a month.
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Coppersmith said:
How did they not get zapped? There should some roasted mice in there.
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They seldom do. Seen many 277/480 conductors that you know were likely live when chewed on and no dead rodents around. If I find a dead mouse they are usually laying across the main lugs or something like that where they likely contacted with their feet.

The teeth must be good insulators. They don't eat the conductor insulation, they chew it off and once have collected what they want or can, take it back to nesting area and spit it back out to use as nesting material. Even hamsters do this. My wife one time wondered what happened to the paper in our hamster cage, said the little guy's cheeks were all puffed up, then suddenly - "poof" he spit it all out all shredded up in the area he wanted to nest in.
 
Fred B

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
kwired said:
They seldom do. Seen many 277/480 conductors that you know were likely live when chewed on and no dead rodents around. If I find a dead mouse they are usually laying across the main lugs or something like that where they likely contacted with their feet.

The teeth must be good insulators. They don't eat the conductor insulation, they chew it off and once have collected what they want or can, take it back to nesting area and spit it back out to use as nesting material. Even hamsters do this. My wife one time wondered what happened to the paper in our hamster cage, said the little guy's cheeks were all puffed up, then suddenly - "poof" he spit it all out all shredded up in the area he wanted to nest in.
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I open a wall space once and found attached onto an old romex cable a squirrel skeleton with the jaw around the cable that was half chewed. It died that way.
 
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Hv&Lv

Senior Member
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Occupation
Engineer/Technician
kwired said:
They seldom do. Seen many 277/480 conductors that you know were likely live when chewed on and no dead rodents around. If I find a dead mouse they are usually laying across the main lugs or something like that where they likely contacted with their feet.

The teeth must be good insulators. They don't eat the conductor insulation, they chew it off and once have collected what they want or can, take it back to nesting area and spit it back out to use as nesting material. Even hamsters do this. My wife one time wondered what happened to the paper in our hamster cage, said the little guy's cheeks were all puffed up, then suddenly - "poof" he spit it all out all shredded up in the area he wanted to nest in.
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We have an issue with squirrels chewing the bare wire on overhead service wire.
Its always the old wire. Never new wire.
 
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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
Hv&Lv said:
We have an issue with squirrels chewing the bare wire on overhead service wire.
Its always the old wire. Never new wire.
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I heard they started adding a chemical to the insulation that tasted bad to rodents, but then that was thhn about 10 years old, so that must not be true.
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Fred B said:
I open a wall space once and found attached onto an old romex cable a squirrel skeleton with the jaw around the cable that was half chewed. It died that way.
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I did say seldom.

I have repaired many direct bury conductors that were rodent damaged. Many were even 480 volt circuits, can't recall ever finding a dead rodent when uncovering the conductors. Many instances were in situations where it was service or feeder conductor and seldom not energized as well. I still think if they only make contact with teeth they must be fairly well insulated.

When mice are inside enclosures and chew insulation of wires in there, I seldom find dead ones there either and I find a lot of this on the farms. Some this equipment may not be energized, but there has also been significant amount you know likely was. Still mostly only dead mice, or remaining skeletons I have ever found were laying across main lugs of a panel, input lugs of a contactor or similar where they apparently contacted something with more than just their teeth.
 
Fred B

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
kwired said:
I did say seldom.

I have repaired many direct bury conductors that were rodent damaged. Many were even 480 volt circuits, can't recall ever finding a dead rodent when uncovering the conductors. Many instances were in situations where it was service or feeder conductor and seldom not energized as well. I still think if they only make contact with teeth they must be fairly well insulated.

When mice are inside enclosures and chew insulation of wires in there, I seldom find dead ones there either and I find a lot of this on the farms. Some this equipment may not be energized, but there has also been significant amount you know likely was. Still mostly only dead mice, or remaining skeletons I have ever found were laying across main lugs of a panel, input lugs of a contactor or similar where they apparently contacted something with more than just their teeth.
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Have to say I find way more chewed wire than dead rodents. Wonder what it is related to the rodents that seemingly allows them to survive pound for pound way more shock current than we can? For the most part they seem no more affected by it than we would from a 9V battery. Seen plenty of wires with chewing to the point of having bare conductors on both hot and neutral side by side, no tripping of breaker but open enough that if I was to make contact would get hit hard.
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Fred B said:
Have to say I find way more chewed wire than dead rodents. Wonder what it is related to the rodents that seemingly allows them to survive pound for pound way more shock current than we can? For the most part they seem no more affected by it than we would from a 9V battery. Seen plenty of wires with chewing to the point of having bare conductors on both hot and neutral side by side, no tripping of breaker but open enough that if I was to make contact would get hit hard.
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I still think their teeth are good insulators, and maybe not saliva covered like ours might be.

Dead mice I have found across live components are always via foot contact on those components and never the mouthparts.
 
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