Dead Mole in Coop.......

[Chick Chick McGee]

So this morning I went out to take care of my chicken's and I found a lovely surprise, a dead mole or vole. I couldn't tell exactly which one it was because the chickens had completely tore it apart. My question is should I do something in my coop to prevent dieses? I did clean out my coop after.
Thanks!

 

[Pork Pie]

It's not something I would concern myself with, personally. I used to free range my flock and they would eat dried up, manky lizards / frogs. It never seemed to do them any observable harm.

 

[ChickNanny13]

Keep an eye on your chickens ... Do you set poison out? That would be my concern.
I'm sure they'll be fine, mine cornered a rat in their Chicken House, it had climbed high enough they couldn't get it. They couldn't but I got them out & I took care of it. Chickens eat alot of "nasty" stuff, your coop should be fine but I would have cleaned mine out too, yuck.

 

[aart]

So this morning I went out to take care of my chicken's and I found a lovely surprise, a dead mole or vole. I couldn't tell exactly which one it was because the chickens had completely tore it apart. My question is should I do something in my coop to prevent dieses? I did clean out my coop after.
Thanks!

Sure it wasn't a mouse?
Was it in the coop or out in the run?

It's getting cold and the rodents are looking for warmer shelters.
Might want to set some traps.

 

[Chick Chick McGee]

Thank you! This makes me feel a lot better. No I don't use poison and don't plan to.

 

[Chick Chick McGee]

No it was not a mouse, to big. And it wasn't a rat the tail was to short. Something did chew a hole threw my run door that I intend to fix today, I am sure that's how he got in.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll add to what they said. Chickens will eat practically anything as long as it doesn't eat them first. I've seen them use their beaks to rip a mouse apart, let alone easy things like frogs. I don't know what it was in Minnesota this time of the year but something made the fatal error of entering the domain of the miniature velociraptors we call chickens.

As far as worrying about diseases or parasites, very few of those pass from mammals to birds, they are almost always not compatible. Besides, they have probably already been exposed to anything that critter may have had by catching and eating things you haven't seen and it hasn't hurt them yet. When I catch something like that I often cut them open to make it easy for the chickens and toss that into the run for them to eat. When I trap mice they usually get them whole. You can enjoy some fun games of keep-away by giving them a dead mouse.

 

[aart]

No it was not a mouse, to big. And it wasn't a rat the tail was to short. Something did chew a hole threw my run door that I intend to fix today, I am sure that's how he got in.

Probably a mole then, voles are usually smaller than the mice around here...
...but there's several different kinds of mice, moles, voles,
can be hard to differentiate especially after they've been beaten and beaked by a bird.

Had a few rats this spring/summer due to nearby land clearing, rat trap in coop shed was set off this morning<aaack> but was a tiny mouse in there...whew.

 

[Folly's place]

It appears that you've already addressed my concern; how did it get in? Rodents will chew through wood, so consider adding hardware cloth to your door fix, maybe as a sandwiched layer?
Mary

 

[Chickassan]

Shouldn't be a problem with them eating it. Mole or Vole, moles quickly suffer cardiac arrest once out of their burrows and voles starve to death if they don't eat very often I forget how long but it is very fast same with shrews. They aren't as dirty as rats or mice so it should have been good eating. Just find and patch the hole,anything the size of a dime is a suspect.