HELP! Would chickens cause rodents?

[Obrienm]

My neighbour is saying my chickens are causing rodents to come near her house. I like my neighbour and if this is true I will do something about it, but I just want to make sure that my chickens are the cause of these rodents. Any ideas?

 

[lilypad]

Rodents can be drawn to chickens if they can get to their food. If you keep your coop clean and pick up all food/waste at night rodents are unlikely to bother (as there is no food source).
Have you seen any evidence of rats around your coop/run? Any droppings or tunneling?
Keep an eye out, if you don't see any evidence they are around your chickens then it's unlikely they're there because of them, more like a bin/bird feeder or something they have managed to get into.

In our run we covered the flooring in concrete slabs and then covered it in soil and woodchip for the chickens so rats can't tunnel under

 

[jetdog]

Try building one of these. A 5 gallon bucket with two 90degree elbows. They can't fling the food out so it doesn't attract rodents. Cut the elbows so they are about 3/4 of an inch off the bottom of the bucket, I used 3inch pvc just put a little food on the edges mine were eating in less than 5 minutes.

 

[appps]

Absolutely. Any birds can, my neighbours have an aviary and we often see mice in our garden up near their fence.

Because spilt or uncovered chicken food is a ready source of food for mice it will definatly attract both them and rats.

Keep food covered at night and try not to leave unbeaten scraps around to attract them.

I've found mouse poo in our coop and am thinking of investing in a battery operated electric shock mouse trap. Nice and quick.
Just have to work out how to keep the chooks from accidentally zapping themselves lol

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Any food source can attract rodents. This includes dog/cat food, fruit on trees or veggies in a vegetable garden as well as chicken feed. Rats will also eat dog/cat poop and all sorts of other things that don't really seem like food.

A question to ask yourself is whether you are seeing rats in your yard, especially in areas near your birds. If they are in your neighbor's yard and not yours, something in her yard is attracting them.