Our reporters were off to Germany in November to check out the latest in farm machinery at Agritechnica 2025. See all the news, video and more at the Western Producer’s Agritechnica landing page.
Pretty much anyone who owns a combine has had a run in with a rat. Or a mouse, or a squirrel.
Damage can show up as mysterious wiring problems, chewed cab and seat components and strong smells in the springtime after a winter of rodent infestation.
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WHY IT MATTERS: Mice and rodents are difficult-to-avoid problems on a farm that can punch far above their weight in damage when they get into expensive machinery.
Padraic George is convinced he has a solution for farmers to protect their largest machinery investment — an electric fence for combine storage.
He was walking around at Agritechnica 2025 in Germany, engaging with farmers and combine-connected people about his idea.
George, from Ireland, has created a board, about a foot high, that is electrified in several strands. The board comes in metre-long sections and is connected by wingnuts. It has feet that slide onto each section to keep it off the ground. Another board, which isn’t electrified, can be put on top of the electrified board to provide more deterrence for larger rodents.
The boards run along the floor to encircle the combine. It’s connected to an energizer, large enough to cover 100 acres, so the smallest rodents will die and larger ones will deterred from coming around.
“Right on the snout, it kills them, it kills the mice,” he says. They won’t die instantly, but his tests show that they will go away and die.
George knows his electric fences, as his family’s business is Cheetah Electric Fencing — an electric fencing company that serves Ireland.
He says he had a farmer ask him if he could fence out rats and mice and he thought that request a little strange.
A second farmer asked him the same thing, but included that he wanted to keep them out of his combine.
“That was a very different conversation, because it was the value” of the combine that made the system make sense.
After a few years of work, he had a product he started to sell this past summer, the Rodent Shield System.
He’s interested in Canada, as he says he’s heard there are lots of combines across the country — and there are rodents.
The system works well for concrete floors, where the rodents can’t bury under the fence, but George says he’s heard from farmers who plan to put down timbers, or tile, or in the case of a farmer from Ontario, plywood sheets.
The Rodent Shield is sold online for now, but George is interested in partnerships in Canada. He says there’s also interest in the United States, but with a 15 per cent tariff, he’s looking to Canada first.
