Illinois...

[Justso]

Dumb question: what do you all do about mice and voles? A bunch have recently moved into my shed (or recently became more obvious anyway) so I put some of those Tomkat baits around the shed and garage. Well it never occurred to me that if a mouse eats the poison and my chickens or dogs eat the mouse before it dies, they could get secondary poisoning. Is that true? Better option? I usually just let the mice be because my dogs will kill any of them they see before I see them. I think it was worse this year because they're trying to get at all my chicken feed/treats (which are in plastic sealed canisters) so they mess with my gardening stuff now instead and they never bothered it much before.

This year the mice were so destructive in my garage I resorted to bait as well. Check what kind of poison your bait has, not all are the Coumadin type and I recently read that it's very rare that an animal would catch secondary poison from a mouse. Too small a dose.

 

[cavemanrich]

Friday lost my last Polish hen. She went MIA without a trace. Just Could not find her at lock-down, and no trace of anything. She was 4 1/2 years old. Now I'm at 8 hens. DW and I both

 

[Molpet]

Friday lost my last Polish hen. She went MIA without a trace. Just Could not find her at lock-down, and no trace of anything. She was 4 1/2 years old. Now I'm at 8 hens. DW and I both

So sorry for your loss.
Do you have fox or coyotes around? Maybe she has a hidden nest

 

[cavemanrich]

Do you have fox or coyotes around? Maybe she has a hidden nest

We have both of those around, but I don't think it was them initially. She would wonder off in times before, and with that hairdoo, had trouble finding way home.
A possibility is she wondered off and some person figured they found themselves a free chicken. ,Couple times, I found her 1 block away from home.
ETA:
But now Mystery may be solved, As I was writing this, I went out to let chickens out. Went to get some scratch treats, and when I was coming back, witnessed a hawk attack on another chicken. Both DW and I were outside. Lil Ashley, (OEGH) did escape a close one. Hawk flew up to a tree branch and just parked there. Branch was too high for me to scare hawk off with anything, so I went inside and got a fire cracker. Blasted it, and hawk split the scene.
I did spot an area in backyard with some of my Polish hens feathers. She was molting heavy, so I assumed other day, it was molt feathers. Now I think the hawk was the predator, and came back for another meal 2 days later

 

[Molpet]

We have both of those around, but I don't think it was them initially. She would wonder off in times before, and with that hairdoo, had trouble finding way home.
A possibility is she wondered off and some person figured they found themselves a free chicken. ,Couple times, I found her 1 block away from home.
ETA:
But now Mystery may be solved, As I was writing this, I went out to let chickens out. Went to get some scratch treats, and when I was coming back, witnessed a hawk attack on another chicken. Both DW and I were outside. Lil Ashley, (OEGH) did escape a close one. Hawk flew up to a tree branch and just parked there. Branch was too high for me to scare hawk off with anything, so I went inside and got a fire cracker. Blasted it, and hawk split the scene.
I did spot an area in backyard with some of my Polish hens feathers. She was molting heavy, so I assumed other day, it was molt feathers. Now I think the hawk was the predator, and came back for another meal 2 days later

Sorry that she may be gone. It's hard

 

[SnootyHen]

We had a hawk sitting in the trees right next to my run this morning. I was trying to get my camera but one of my dogs set out to chase it off before I could.

 

[Faraday40]

We had a hawk sitting in the trees right next to my run this morning. I was trying to get my camera but one of my dogs set out to chase it off before I could.

Good dog!

 

[WhyDoILikeChickens]

Been a rough year for flocks all around. Looks like something tried to get into my run again but everyone is accounted for today. Whew. Need to repair the traps I guess.

 

[Justso]

We have both of those around, but I don't think it was them initially. She would wonder off in times before, and with that hairdoo, had trouble finding way home.
A possibility is she wondered off and some person figured they found themselves a free chicken. ,Couple times, I found her 1 block away from home.
ETA:
But now Mystery may be solved, As I was writing this, I went out to let chickens out. Went to get some scratch treats, and when I was coming back, witnessed a hawk attack on another chicken. Both DW and I were outside. Lil Ashley, (OEGH) did escape a close one. Hawk flew up to a tree branch and just parked there. Branch was too high for me to scare hawk off with anything, so I went inside and got a fire cracker. Blasted it, and hawk split the scene.
I did spot an area in backyard with some of my Polish hens feathers. She was molting heavy, so I assumed other day, it was molt feathers. Now I think the hawk was the predator, and came back for another meal 2 days later

Good idea with the firecrackers

 

[Molpet]

Does any quail raisers know if this is true? Would be good for ads.