I found baby mice!!! What should I do??

[ChickenClaire]

I was digging in the backyard looking for worms for my chickens, and I came apon a little cavern in the ground. I looked inside and there were naked newborn mice inside. I've been hearing scrabbling and squeaking when watering my garden and I can hear scrabbling now. I can only see one right now, I hope I didn't bury the others. Should I just leave it there or what?
Thank you!!

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[1muttsfan]

Reptile folks call them pinkies. My chickens love mice, in a culinary sense.

 

[drumstick diva]

If you let them grow up, you'll find that they and their relatives can wreck havoc in the coop, stealing chicken feed, leaving droppings all over & maybe spreading disease. They really aren't welcome in a coop anymore than they would be in your house. If the chickens can find them, they will dispose of them for you.

 

[Becki78]

I would feed them to the chickens or my husbands snake right away! Either way i would make sure they don't grow up to keep reproducing around my or my chickens house!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I was digging in the backyard ...and I came apon a little cavern... I looked... and there were naked newborn mice inside.... I hope I didn't bury the others. Should I just leave it there or what?...

Your chickens would appreciate the tender baby mice much more than the tough stringy worms. Mice are also better for chickens than worms because Earth worms can and do harbor a multitude of parasite eggs. Parasite eggs that they've picked up from recent chicken droppings or from chicken manure spread on the garden and that are now ready to be recycled through your chickens' gut.

If you haven't already done something with or about the mice it is likely too late now because either the mama mouse has moved her young or if she is feeling stressed from all that digging she has more than likely already cannibalized them to avoid wasting the precious food resources she has invested in them.

 

[old1953]

I lived through a plague of mice in West Ky about 30 years ago. They were everywhere. If you left a cap outside overnight, there was a nest in it by morning. If you laid down a tool, you'd likely pick it up and see mice run away. They were building nests in tobacco plants, in barns, in grass; they were everywhere.

After that experience, I was totally over the whole notion of "cute" mice. A cute mouse is one that's very dead. I would not save a mouse.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

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I lived through a plague of mice in West Ky about 30 years ago.  They were everywhere.  If you left a cap outside overnight, there was a nest in it by morning.  If you laid down a tool, you'd likely pick it up and see mice run away.  They were building nests in tobacco plants, in barns, in grass; they were everywhere.

After that experience, I was totally over the whole notion of "cute" mice.  A cute mouse is one that's very dead.  I would not save a mouse.

I once found a nest of them outside i scooped them up and gave them to my chickens as i hate mice.

 

[PioneerPrincess]

My brother found a nest of six baby rats. It was hard to do it, but we gave them as food to our corn snakes. We just can't be overrun with them. : / They are cute, but it's not cute when they crawl into and leave waste in your feed and water buckets and in your coops and barns for your producing livestock to get sick from.