Mostly OT: Critters in the shop, should I care?

Our first summer in this shop, and the critters are amazing. Started off when it started getting warm, the roaches. Out here you don't have to be dirty to have roaches, kick over a log somewhere moist, miles from people, and there are roaches. About 3 of those walking over your face while sleeping (yes I sleep at the shop sometimes) and you get a little freaked out.

Then came the centipedes, I had a 4 inch one go flying up my leg one day, not fun, thank god it was a small one. Then came the big bugs, big huge black things, about 4" long, they just wander along real slow. Bring in the exterminator. Bye bye roaches, all centipedes now seen are almost dead.

Then came the rains, and the toads. I must have put 50 toads back outside at this point. Their pretty cool, one hung out and watched TV with me the other night(all night from 10p to 6a, he really seemed to like the ShamWow commercials), and ate every bug that came in the room. And then the moths, big ones. Sitting on the throne the other day reading Cutting tool engineering, threw the magazine back up on the windowsill to clean the posterior and thought somebody started a Harley. The magazine landed on a moth with about a 6" wingspan and a body diameter bigger than a nickel.

Then there was the tarantula that came wandering in the other night, he got gassed. In the past week there have been a couple of vinegaroons(whip tail scorpions). http://www.baronservices.us/pestsolutions/images/vinegaroon.jpg
I just play with them, let them posture up, they try to shoot you, and then they go back under the lathe to eat bugs.

Then a couple of days ago, apparently the toads gave birth and there were hundreds of tiny little toads that could comfortably take a nap on a dime all over the shop. The yard was literally hopping with tiny little toads everywhere thousands and thousand and thousands of them. They have subsided a bit, but I've probably seen 30 today in the shop.

Then there is the big toad living in the wall by the bathroom that I discovered last night. About the size of a baseball, and then there is his buddy that I discovered a few hours ago, more frog like and about as big as any bull frog I've ever seen, and we are no where near water. Huge long legs, but skinny, and a lot more skitish than the toads.

And then there are the lizards, similar to salamanders but up to 8+ inches nose to tail. They eat bugs, so they don't bother me. Its funny as hell watching them in the offices trying to run on linoleum.

Ran into a couple of horny toads the other morning.
http://allaboutfrogs.org/weird/strange/hrnytoad.html
Not a big deal, also ran into a few other bigger lizards with heads the size of a quarter.

This is just weird, what do I do?? I've just been hanging with the critters I like and killing the ones I don't. The giant dead bugs in the machine add to the scrap weight, so I can't complain about that too much.

I almost feel like a little bit of a creep sitting in our shop living/break room with a lizard on my right and 3 toads on my left watching a ball game.

It gets worse when you start talking to them. "hey big toad, watcha doing"? I don't expect a reply, so I think I'm still sane, maybe??

Let us know when the critters start talking back

Sounds like you have a regular wild life sanctuary going there.

Maybe you can get them to work tegether to run machines and earn their keep.

Not clear. Is it a petting zoo or a shop?

Bob,
At least you're talking to live animals and critters. I used to work in a shop where a guy would walk around talking to himself all day.
Here in MN we don't have quite so many big creepy crawlies like scorpions, roaches, big centipedes, and tarantulas. What we do have are mosquitoes(our unofficial state bird). You can't do much in the shop at night with the doors open without having most of you blood sucked out.

Sounds like fun.
Only thought is, go easy on the spray! the residues won't be doing much for the beneficial critters you've got.

I don't trust centipedes, but they are carnivores so should make short work of your roaches, also they all tend to avoid light.

Tarantulas are pretty none agressive to us, although they can shed irritating hairs into the air if they are disturbed. I don't think any tarantulas have particularly strong venom, about wasp sting strength seems to be the limit, and even then they're reluctant to waste it. Their hollywood horror image seems to be based on them being easy and safe to handle on set rather than any agressive tendencies (you don't see scorpions in that roll so often). They live for about 8 years, so you've time to get well aquainted.

Just watch your hands if you're reaching into dark corners where you can't see to check first

I used to think lizards were dumb, but I've been assured that some will come to be petted and almost all will learn to come for treats.

Well Bob, it sounds like you're not too disturbed by them, and you have a friendly and humane attitude. I'd go with it.

I'll personally never watch a ShamWow commercial in the same way now... I think that's funny as hell.

Sean

I don't know about the roaches you have there, but the ones we have seem to like getting in to electrical enclosures and chewing on the wires and stuff, it has caused me all sorts of problems.

At least you don't have rats. I had them the size of cats in my shop in Houston. When I came in at 5:30 every morning, I could hear them running on the top of the offices, sounded like a stampede of elephants. One even became bold and had an "I'm not afraid of you" attitude. He (she?) used to climb down the wall and stare me down. We had a doberman that killed them, but he could never get them all.

Well, Bobw, I can coach you a bit, having been a desert rat for a long time. You will see every critter and plant your imagination can concieve, but only for a short season, and only when conditions are ideal. In 10 years, this is the first "year of the roach" and we'll not likely see another one soon. Some of the toads will be around until it's too cold for them, but they'll diminish as the monsoons dry up. The bullfrogs will go away, too. You can catch the centipedes with mousetraps and peanut butter bait, but the big ones will drag the traps across the floor, making a loud enough noise to wake you up. Kill every one of them you see, because they can sting!

This so far does not seem to be much of a year for rattlesnakes, but you still have to be carefull when picking things up that they can be underneath. I do a kind of "flip it over and step back" before I pick anything up. Kill any rattler you see around the shop, 'cause the next time you may not see him before you step on him. In the fall, you may see them in pairs because they are breeding, so when you start to dispatch one of them, look for the second one before moving on the first. Their temperment and agility depends on temprature, so you can be alternately chased and ignored by the same snake on the same day, depending on how hot it is.

The only lizards you have to worry about are gila monsters. They can move very quickly over short distances, and if one gets a bite of you, he will chew the poison in instead of injecting it. The best thing you can do if bitten is grab him by the body and rip him free, because that mouthfull of you that he has in his jaws will be lost anyhow when the poison starts to work.

When working on old machinery that has been sitting around and has spider webs in it, the odds that the webs were made by black widow are nearly 100%. Shoot WD-40 into the machine and wait a bit. Mrs. widow will come out for fresh air and you can squash her. Google "brown recluse" and get to know what they look like. You won't see many, but they are there. Kill then on sight. Google "brown recluse bite" and you will kill then eagerly.

On the years that the small white moths show up, you can be assured that your tumbleweeds are being pollinated. You can kill all of them you like, but there will still be plenty to do the job. One day you'll think you are in an Alphred Hitchcock movie, a week later they'll be gone.

To paraphrase the Good Book, To every critter, there is a season, and a time for every insect under heaven. Many desert plants and animals wait several years for their season, and how they survive in the meantime is a mystery. We may go years at a time with a bland looking landscape and then when the winter rains come exactly at the right time and in the right quantity, the landscape will be covered with meadows of poppies. My stock tank dries up for years at a time, but when enough rain comes, I have frogs half the size of cats show up and start singing overnight.

The desert is never lifeless. It is teeming with life forms, each awaiting it's season. When it's season comes, it lives to the fullest. When it's over, it's over. A fine model for any lifeform to aspire to....Joe

Joe, that was quite poetic. Those are the reasons we moved to Albuquerque almost 21 years
ago from PA. Love the desert climate. (realy hate mosquitoes, chigers, and ticks) :-)
...lew...

Nobody mentioned bats. They fly around and pee on everything. If you see little (1/4 inch dia) spots of rust on your flat cast iron surfaces, the bats are probably there. Cover everything you have with old shower curtains or cheapo plastic tarps. If you don't, the bats will piss it back to red dust. WWQ

in my old warehouse I had lots of friends. Once I was quietly working on some machine and looked up and there was a racoon standing looking at me, I swear he had his hands on his hips, but at any rate he certainly had the attitude of Hey buddy, what are you doing here. We looked at each other for a few seconds and he ambled away, he may of given me the finger, not sure

Tarantulas won't bug you, I'd leave them alone so they can eat some of the bothersome insects. we used to have a bunch of them here in Albuquerque, we'd catch them and play with them. The bite isn't more than a bee sting and you have to really piss them off before you get that. Watch out for females, they'll carry the young and there's nothing like seeing a hundred of the little buggers running around.

I'm with Joe on the black widow spiders but would tend to spray with poison rather than anything else. We used to have loose stone as a retaining wall above our lawn and black widows would nest in the interstices, the string trimmer would bring them out (maybe by vibrating the web as a captured insect would?) and I'd pop 'em with it. There would be one or more per foot, and that was with fairly liberal spraying. A black widow bite can be pretty bad, not as bad as a brown recluse - it's hurts like an SOB but you don't end up with the necrosis.

We used to catch horny toads in our back yard. You don't see them anymore in Albuquerque.

I have been to New Mexico a couple of times to visit. It is quite a place, there is some kind of undescribeable feeling that I get when I am there. Something along the lines of what the license plates used to say, but anyway, I had a giant white owl living in one shop that I used to work in. When the cat had kittens, he systematically ate every one of them. Other than that, he was no bother and interesting to look at. In this shop, we have a batting cage on top of the machine shop. (Yes, I said batting cage.) Can I call the baseball players critters? Let's just say that the noise is annoying when you are trying to do something tedious.

By the title I guessed it was about pets!

My old Labrador Retrievers would sleep on the cool concrete floor and stay put
unless food was offered.
After 15 years or so, they passed away, and now we have Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

The very short fur and bred for an African climate is perfect for Florida, the heat/humidity don't bother them.

They also love the shop floor, especially when it is real hot outside.

BUT one of them has a taste for swarf. (The dumb one)

I heard this "crunch crunch" noise and he ate and swallowed
a 1/2" curled piece about 2" long! Then he went for another!

This was a few days after I saw him pick up an unfired .50 BMG primer and try to start chewing on it.
I got that out of his mouth before it blew his jaw off.

So now I have the shop vac and a broom always available and keep it clean so my critters stay healthy.

We have all the creepy crawling critters too, lots of different snakes (no rattlers so far, only one Coral, about 30 other species of non-poisonous seen over the last 20 years).

I leave them all alone except the Black Widows and the ground rats and the tree rats.

re

Funny, when I first started out, I was in my barn which had rough cut pine beams and sheathing. About 1 am the mice would start runninga round and they would crawl right upt he walls. They would run across the bench right in front of you, right under my little drill press while I was deburring parts on it. Made condos in my wood tool cabinet and I still sweep mouse poop out of it.

You know, somehow I'm always kind of glad to find critters in the shop. We have quite a few black widows, and they even don't bother me too much. Except when they have babies. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, tiny spiders floating on those incredibly strong and sticky widow webs is really annoying. I love the picture I get of you watching TV with the toads-thats just funny.

About the dogs liking scraps. My sister has a pit bull, and she(the dog, not my sister-though that would be funny) just LOVES to lick metal, espically aluminum. We have a pitbull-beagle mix(I chuckle every time I think of THAT conception happening!), and if the Peagle is wearing her collar, which has an aluminum city tag, the pitbull will find it and lick that tag, straped to the peagle, for a LONG time, much to the dismay of the peagle. A friend owns a aluminum fab shop and has two shop dogs, both pits, and both like to spend hours licking the aluminum. Have to be careful not to leave any hot stuff within their reach. Oh yeah, my sisters pit chases the sparks off a grinder and the spatter from the welder. Can't do any work when that dog comes to visit-'fraid she'll hurt her dumb self.

Sometimes kangaroo rats sneak into the shop, but I try to shoo them out, cause they have a habit of getting stranded and expiring in there-then stinking the place up. And they always die in some REALLY tough place to find and get too.

I had to chase a bunch of birds out, 'cause they started to crap on every thing in sight.

However, some of the strangest critters I get in the shop come in through the front door on two legs.

I'd have to say KILL anything harmful.

I've had to deal with mice in the garage, and they're SO destructive. I HATE them, they get into EVERYTHING, and poop/pee constantly. You DON'T want to be bit by one of the poisonous spiders, they cause MASSIVE tissue damage. Rattle snakes are a definite problem too. Never seen a gila monster. Toads are cool, they eat bugs. I'd kill the centipedes too, I hear the sting can be NASTY! I let them hang out in the garage when they wander in. Don't have any lizzards here, but if I leave the door open, coons and opossums wander in. Mainly because the garbage is stored in the corner until garbage day. I USED to have a cat to keep me company in the garage, but he died a while back. He was 18 years old and killed mice up until he died.

I have the frogs and toads too. I also have some birds nesting and a bunch of predatory wasps. The toads and frogs are cool, I love free bug control. Cats and snakes both eat mice.

Critters in the workshop

I've been cleaning out a house trailer I use for storage lately, and my almost constant companion has been a 5 foot long Black Snake ( officially a Black Rat Snake) . Usually, they're shy of humans, but this snake will sit ( I suppose he's sitting) about 6 feet away from me and watch me for hours. I see there have been plenty of mice in the trailer, so I suppose he hangs around for the food. I had a bat in my living room a while back , but the most unusual visitor was a possum I saw climbing down a window curtain , and then walking into the kitchen to help himself to the cat food. I caught him with a fishing net, and escorted him back outside .