Mice in the coop

[Svyetii]

Aside from a cat, what are your most effective chicken and dog safe mice extermination/eviction tactics/traps?

 

[AGeese]

electric, sticky, and catch & release traps FTW.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Ahhhh, do a forum search and you will find literally hundreds of threads with great advice on mice and raising chickens. Especially look for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control. It boils down to sanitation, then exclusion, then elimination if the first two steps fail.

The three steps in order. Do the first one, no need for the other two.

Treadle feeder, bulk feed in steel drums, clean up pathways so rodents are exposed to natural predators during travel. Probably cost you less than $200 for a feeder, a metal trash can or barrel with lid, and a few hours cleaning up the area.

Building a Fort Knox coop. No free range of course and very expensive.

Poison and trapping, a never ending expense that loses effectiveness quickly.

 

[AGeese]

I cover the food at night.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Rodents will eat during the day. Check your feed consumption, a quarter pound of feed per bird, ignore roosters unless you have many. That will tell you if you are losing feed to vermin.

 

[Svyetii]

Thanks everyone! Your advice has been very helpful. I do some of the recommendations already, but clearly there is more to be done. While my chickens are often cooped, they do free range occasionally, so there will be periods where the run and coop are open. I use the pvc tube feeders, which have worked great for years until now. I did pick up some bucket traps as well. Hopefully with some additional mitigations and tweaks to the set up, I can nip this in the bud.

Thanks again!