Scales and Rodents

[sme.misfit.farms]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, if it should be somewhere else please let me know!

We have the Tufner alleyway scale, but three years ago rodents went through and destroyed the wiring. We were leaving it outside, but apparently that's not the way to do it with neighbors that like their chickens and collecting junk and our own feed I'm going to replace them this year but want to avoid the same thing from happening again.

Is there any tips and tricks you guys recommend for keeping the animals out? I'm going to have the other half make some covers where the load cells are because that's the only access the animals could get in with. Do you have wire covers that the rats hate? Such annoying animals...

 

[Ebenezer]

conduit

 

[Dsth]

How big are the holes that you want to keep rodents out? our AC unit would always get mice in the relay control box and make a nest in the relay. had to clean out every year to get AC to work. someone suggested putting steel wool in the hole where the wiring ran through. never had a problem after that.

 

[greybeard]

but apparently that's not the way to do it with neighbors that like their chickens and collecting junk and our own feed I'm going to replace them this year

With different neighbors?

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I'll 2nd the conduit reccomendation.

 

[sme.misfit.farms]

With different neighbors?

We don't get to move to the farm quite yet but I wish

Thanks all for the conduit. I did find some people recommending the braided sleeve covers as well that seem to correlate with the steel wool theory.
Might just do all three and really irritate the rats

 

[4hfarms]

I once used the steel wool trick to keep mice out of the laundry room at the last house. They eventually chewed the wire then pulled the steel wool through the hole. It smelled enough to know what happened when we came home. Lucky for us it tripped the breaker.

 

[SDgrampa]

Go on rat patrol and get that problem cleaned up I absolutely hate rats