Houdini found BABY mice - How do I get rid of them.

[cluckcluckluke]

Houdini ( my dog ) was tunneling into the earth of my chicken pen this morning so I went to investigate, and what do I find...BABY MICE. Most where already dead. The hole that Houdini had dug revealed bits of straw and dry leaves. I can only assume that there are a system of tunnels running through my chicken run.
I have a sectioned off area in the run( trying to grow some vegetation ) which is now rather overgrown which I think is where the tunnels would mostly be. The hole my dog found is right near the sectioned off area.

Ok, how do I get rid of the little buggers???
We have some ratsak ( rat poison ) which I was going to put in the sectioned of area and I also have some sump oil ( old engine oil ) that I was going to poor down the hole. Will any of this work in sending them on their way?
What about a fire??

Any help appreciated

.

 

[GD91]

Rat poison in a sectioned off area of a coop... not a good idea. The poison will stay there & poison everything that comes in contact with it. Most people use poison as a very last resort for a reason.... its lethal & it spreads into the local ecosystem & pets.
The mice you poison won't just stay in the area where the poison is. They will also die outside of it where other animals could eat them & in turn be poisoned.
Also you won't be able to guarantee the area safe for a long while after you have put the poison down since the chemicals from it will sit in the soil etc.

Your dog weeded out a nest & killed the babies.... you will never completely get rid of mice they are everywhere. We have them in our garden & the cat kills them.

If you haven't noticed them before now, I would just leave them.

The babies make interesting pets

Your other suggestions will just make a mess & damage the soil badly. As for a fire.... you want to try that, go ahead, but the mice will just move out until the smoke clears. Then they will be back.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

You could flood or smoke them out and have people positioned at the exit holes waiting to stomp or shoot them.

I second not using poison just for the fact if the mouse makes it into the chicken section and gets eaten by the chicken, your chicken will die too.

Or if you don't have help, just sit in the coop with a BB gun and pop the little rodents as you see them come and go.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

So there really is not a lot to be done about this problem.

I have had them in the past, they come into the nest shed and deposit their excrement everywhere. I just spray detergent around and have mint in their which help keep them at bay. They don't get any feed at all so I'm not sure why they are even here.
I just thought that now I had found the hole that something could be done.
I'm in Australia so I don't have guns.

I am not having them as pets.lol. They are horrible. I think they could be rats anyway!

 

[GD91]

Lol, I was joking, but I have heard of people keeping them as pets... Some OP's father kept a baby rat, theres a thread on here somewhere

Shame you can't shoot them... what about getting a cat or two?
Our is great, kills 2-5 mice a night, and there's loads of them begging for homes.

Ours sleeps in the feed shed, never get any mice going in there

 

[cluckcluckluke]

LOL.
I have 2 cats but one is old and the other is a bird killer, which he just proved about 10 minutes ago by getting one of our quails

!!!
Luckily we grabbed him early and death was prevented.

 

[GD91]

LOL.
I have 2 cats but one is old and the other is a bird killer, which he just proved about 10 minutes ago by getting one of our quails

!!!
Luckily we grabbed him early and death was prevented.

Ours goes after our birds to

he'll kill anything that moves including large chickens & rabbits. He even attacks strange dogs & foxes

 

[cluckcluckluke]

What a crazy cat!
Ours are to well fed to kill everything.lol.

 

[aart]

Flooding the hole would be interesting, might show you other entrances, your dog could help clean up the escapees...chickens will eat mice too.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Why are the mice there? Because momma mouse has found it a good place to raise a family. They can find shelter about anywhere but there is food there. Even if you store chicken feed in a mouse-proof container like a metal garbage can and take the feeders up every night, they are still finding food there. Chickens will eat mice so they have to be careful, but they will come out and eat during the day. Plus when your chickens are feeding, they spill some feed on the coop or run floor. That will attract mice. It is extremely difficult to get rid of mice or keep them away.

I also consider poison the last resort, but you have been given some bad information. A chicken will not die from eating one poisoned mouse. It’s about dosage. A mouse weights somewhere around one ounce. A chicken big enough to eat a mouse weighs a few pounds, many times bigger than a mouse. The amount of poison that kills one mouse won’t kill a healthy chicken. I still don’t like poison. It’s possible a chicken can eat more than one poisoned mouse and the effects can be cumulative. Poison is an indiscriminate killer. It’s possible your chickens or other pets can get to it. A rat might carry it out of the secure area to an open area. I had a rat move the block of poison once, but that was far from my chickens and still secure from my pets. Still, it can happen. I don’t recommend poison unless you are really desperate, and I don’t see anything in your post that sounds desperate.

Without using poison I don’t think you will ever totally get rid of them, plus even if you do, more will just move in. It’s not about totally absolutely getting rid of every mouse forever but you should try to keep the numbers under control. They are nasty creatures, pooping everywhere they go. They can spread some diseases, especially when the numbers get out of control. They can do a lot of damage with their tunneling and chewing. Mice will attract snakes. Some of us don’t mind snakes around, especially non-poisonous ones, but some people do. Snakes can also eat eggs and small chickens, how small depends on the size of the snake. I think there are lots of good reasons to not want mice around.

So what can you do? Try to keep the area cleaned up, don’t pile up trash and keep weeds cleared. That will reduce the number of safe places for them but they can still hide a lot of places. Still it will help. Cats or some dogs can possibly be real good at reducing the mouse population.

I recommend you start a trapping program. There are a lot of different traps out there designed with mice in mind, sticky traps, live traps, snap traps, and some homemade ones. Which one works best for you depends on your unique circumstances. You don’t want your chickens to get to them. Pets could be another problem. You don’t want them injured or for them to spring the trap. If I use a snap trap, I wire it to something solid so a raccoon, possum, or cat can’t carry it away and I try to put it where a larger animal can’t get to it anyway, for example. How are you going to dispose of the mice you catch? I like to feed mine to the chickens. The mice need to be dead for that and not poisoned.

I don’t know the best way for you to approach it, that will depend on what you are willing to do and your unique circumstances, but I do recommend you try to keep the mice numbers down. Good luck!