Mice are visiting

[Christine12]

I am fairly new to chicken raising and have 9 beautiful silkies 8 weeks old in a coop and an attached run. Every night I clean the run of any left over food and bedding and there is no way a mouse can get in the coop or run. Today I saw 2 field mice running around outside the run. I believe you can use some essential oils that deter mice from visiting. However I have 3 small dogs and some essential oils are posionous to dogs and of course I don't want my chicken babies to get any essential oils near them that may harm them. I have ensured food is stored in bins so I can only assume the mice are picking up bits that may have blew out the run?
Any tips would be so helpful. I don't want to kill the mice just get them to go back to the fields.

 

[sloanbychoice]

So, first of all, there’s a huge difference between mice and field mice. Are you sure of which one you have? Keeping them out depends on which one.
Second, if they’re staying outside the run for now, count your blessings. It is almost impossible to keep actual mice from being around chickens. Field mice, on the other hand, won’t climb, so keeping them out is as simple as having hardware cloth six inches up from the ground all the way around the run. (Field mice are also known as voles.)
I don’t use essential oils, so someone else will have to chime in about what can be used safely around your different animals.

 

[aart]

Planting mint all the way around the run might help.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Out side the coop, why worry? Inside, different matter. Are the hens raking or spilling any feed that might be drawing the mice into the coop?

 

[dawg53]

I guarantee you that a mouse will find its way into a chicken pen. Field mice will climb hardware cloth in a heartbeat.
I killed one early yesterday morning climbing up 1/4" hardware cloth trying to get up and through chicken wire to escape.
Sprinkle cayenne pepper in the pens after birds go to roost inside the coop for the evenings. It works deterring mice and wont harm birds. As a matter of fact, you can add it to their feed to kick start them into laying eggs. It'll also deter mice eating feed from feeders.
If you see a dime size hole in the ground, in or around the perimeter of your pen, it's mice.
Stuff a cylinder of Tom Cat poison down the hole and cover it with a brick. Bye bye mice.
Here's the one I killed yesterday morning.

 

[cmom]

I haven't had any issues with mice but I have with rats. I put bait boxes in my barn with poison baits. I had discovered holes/tunnels around my coops. I didn't find any dead rats laying around from the poison bait so I assume they went into their tunnels and died. The baits haven't been touched in awhile.

 

[dawg53]

@cmom I got rid of my rat problem and it took about 2 weeks. All the rain we've had flooded their nests and tunnels. They headed to higher ground, my chicken pens.
It took combinations of Tom Cat with bait boxes, Ramik, rat traps, cayenne pepper and ammonia to get rid of them. The poisons work slowly over several days and they go off and die. The rats eventually became bait shy, and they never bothered with the rat traps. The cayenne pepper worked well, but the ammonia worked the best. No rat signs for a week now.

Now I'm dealing with mice. The ammonia doesnt have much of an effect on the mice it seems, not like it did with the rats. They arnt going anywhere near the bait boxes neither nor the tubes containing Ramik that I put outside the pens. They arnt going for the cheese nor peanut butter on the mouse traps neither.
However the mice cant handle the cayenne pepper and it works great. I've sprinkled it in all the pens as before like I did with the rats.
All my pens have been mice free the past two mornings. No droppings, no footprints in the sand, nada! I know the war isnt won yet and it's raining again. I have plenty of cayenne pepper, and ammonia if the rats return.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Rats for me here but have a cat that keeps them in check. It would probably be a good idea to find a feeder the chicken can not bill food out of. My dogs destroyed the last good one by running through it after a season of south Texas sun. I am now thinking I need to make a 1/2 inch HC top for the pans to prevent chicken from billing out their feed. Plus that would help keeping two of my miscreant dogs out of the chicken feed. We lift food nightly as well @Christine12. It took two years for the cat to get those rats under control.

 

[dawg53]

I remove the feeders and waterers every evening and put them out just before daybreak. It's a little extra work, but worth it. It was actually good timing though, I wormed my birds with Levamisole which requires about 5 or 6 days course of treatment in a waterer.
I thought about cats but decided against it.

 

[cmom]

@cmom I got rid of my rat problem and it took about 2 weeks. All the rain we've had flooded their nests and tunnels. They headed to higher ground, my chicken pens.
It took combinations of Tom Cat with bait boxes, Ramik, rat traps, cayenne pepper and ammonia to get rid of them. The poisons work slowly over several days and they go off and die. The rats eventually became bait shy, and they never bothered with the rat traps. The cayenne pepper worked well, but the ammonia worked the best. No rat signs for a week now.

Now I'm dealing with mice. The ammonia doesnt have much of an effect on the mice it seems, not like it did with the rats. They arnt going anywhere near the bait boxes neither nor the tubes containing Ramik that I put outside the pens. They arnt going for the cheese nor peanut butter on the mouse traps neither.
However the mice cant handle the cayenne pepper and it works great. I've sprinkled it in all the pens as before like I did with the rats.
All my pens have been mice free the past two mornings. No droppings, no footprints in the sand, nada! I know the war isnt won yet and it's raining again. I have plenty of cayenne pepper, and ammonia if the rats return.

We've been having rain too. I had a coop that was infested. I had a ceiling in it which the rats had built nests and walls on the inside where rats had nests. I renovated it taking the ceiling out and the walls. Dozens of rats poured out of all sizes. The barn is behind the coops and I had seen some rats so I put the bait stations in the barn.The Tom Cat bait didn't work well for me so I used the same bait they used at the feed store down the road and the rats seemed to love it. I put it in the bait stations. The baits haven't been touched in quite awhile and I haven't seen any evidence of any rats...

Here is the coop I had to renovate.