Went camping last summer with my son and put our backpacks in the basement.  Monday i went to play around with the gear and discovered holes in  both packs.  Here i had a bag of sunflower seeds in my pack and my son had a snickers bar in the bottom of his and mice chewed through the packs multiple times to get to the goods.  They chewed through his sleeping bag too.

Im pretty mad at myself for this but sadly the mice will have to pay the price with their lives.

Lesson learned.

meh...backpacks are meant to be used, abused, torn, etc. Get some heavy ripstop nylon and sew it over the holes. It adds character the pack.

Those mice lived like kings for a bit. 

Sewing a patch on is the best way to fix the holes but I've used Kenyon K-Tape Taffeta Repair Tape with good success* and the last time I tried Gear Aid Tenacious Tape Repair Tape.  Try to put the patch on both sides if possible.  Fabric glue with a patch works but leaves the area stiff in my experience.  

Do not use duct tape or similar, they never seem to work well and they leave a gummy mess.  


* It's fabric so it will start to fray eventually and need to be replaced or recovered.  It does come in various colors which is nice although they never quite match.

I've had this happen in the past and it's a hard lesson to learn, especially if your pack was expensive!  We've done a lot of backpacking in black bear country, so keeping food out of packs gets to be a good habit, but it can still happen, especially when you get home and talk yourself out of empting and cleaning up your gear right away.  Sucks to hear what happened, but if it's not too bad, Tenacious tape does wonders and if it's in one area, a DIY or seamstress can sew on a cordura patch to reinforce the chow-holes.

ROCK6

If they are expensive packs I would fix them myself be hand sewing some patches in place.  Some thread and fabric glue will give it some character!  

If they are cheapos, upgrade and don't do it again.  

I used some iron on denim patches to repair a rucksack that got chewed on.  It is still holding after like 6 years, just looks silly