Mice eating chickens ! And I eat their eggs ?

[chickensducks&agoose]

I don't think that MY chickens eat their poop... my Dog eats their poop though... so maybe there's just a lack of supply...

 

[columbiacritter]

Mine prefer snakes to mice. Occasionally they'll go after a mouse but no snake is safe anywhere the hens can get to! Yum, warm wriggly spaghetti!!

 

[OrpingtonManor]

Mine like anything that moves. I haven't seen them eat mice, but they love the salamanders after a rain...mmm, gummy lizards!

 

[govega]

Haha, yes our chickens rip mice to shreds! Usually my husband will give them a fresh kill from our cat. Then again they do like all kinds of food, and meat is a special treat for them. But we don't tell his work friends who buy the eggs --- I wonder if mice can be considered "organic"? Do most people even know that chickens are omnivores? LOL

 

[KattyKillFish]

i love my chickens. they can eat what they want and i still eat their eggs. I've seen my chickens eat many and odd thing (mice, small birds, sunflowers) it hasn't grossed me out at all... also, about the diseases spread and worms and such. I eat seagull eggs. we get more than 100 every year collecting them on traditional islands. it is part of the native Alaskan subsistence lifestyle, and it's legal for natives to collect eggs so long as we follow the set guidelines. here is my argument:

Seagulls eat alot of sticklebacks, a fish KNOWN to carry tapeworms. I've never heard of anyone getting tapeworms from seagull eggs.

Seagulls eat alot of other unknown substances. garbage, rotten fish, carrion, etc... I've never had any funny tasting ones, nor have i heard of anyone getting any odd disease or illness from seagull eggs.

I'm pretty sure the same would go for chickens.

edited to say: chickens are omnivores. meat is good for them. I often give mine moose and caribou scraps. yes, raw.... but actually that's not too odd for use because we eat some of it raw as well. oooooh, we are barbarian Alaskan natives

 

[MichiganWoods]

They eat mice??

Now I've got my cats eating them inside the house, and the chickens eating them outside the house!! God I hope I don't have to see another one scurrying around here. I don't like mice either.

 

[Superman11383]

As disturbing as it sounds my chickens love my baked chicken breast and so does my parrot. It kinda weirded me out at first but then I was like "oh well".

 

[MoodyChicken]

When I read the title I thought you meant the MICE were eating the CHICKENS. lol

A friend of a friend buys live pinkies at the pet store to train her birds for show. Best posing birds I've ever seen. I'm going to try that with this year's hatch of Modern Games.

Last last year the rats nested in my chicken coop. I found a momma on babies, she ran and I went to get a bucket to put the babies in. When I came back, all the babies were gone and there was a suspicious tail hanging out of my chicken's beak.

Mmm... protein.

Chickens LOVE rodents.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

I was tired of finding mice droppings in my chicken food so I thought I would trap the mice that invade the chicken house. I wanted to make sure that I didn't catch chicken feet in the trap so I set the trap and put it under an upside down milk crate and put a cinder block on top just for good measure (chickens are strong if they want something).

First day...mouse in trap.

I thought I would see if the chickens wanted it, well.....Blondie my BO grabbed it as I released it from the trap (it was dead) and she dashed it into the ground quite a few times (to tenderize it, no doubt) and then she swallowed it whole!!

I wish I had a camera to get a shot of her standing there with the mouse tail hanging out of her beak.

Next day, another mouse and she was waiting for me to release it...Yum!

Next day, another hen Red (NH red) jumped up, grabbed the mouse (still in the trap) and ran around happy with her prize

. I had to chase her down to retrieve the trap.

This has gone on about a week now and the girls wait very impatiently every morning for me to check if I have caught a mouse and release it for them.

I was glad to find this thread because I wasn't sure it was ok for them but they love their morning treat so much and now I see that others do the same thing.

I found a baby snake in the coop last night (bull snake I think) but it didn't stick around. I am eliminating his food source and now I know that if the chickens see him....he's toast too.

 

[pnuts]

Quote:
thats what i was thinking i know my neighbor poisons mice and they can run around for a while afterwards before the poison does them in. good thing i have never seen my chickens eat a mouse.. so far anyways.

also in relation to mice i made one of these yesterday i hope it works
http://marquardts.org/mindspring/mice/index.htm