Mice eating my grain at night!!!

[darkangels5]

I have a feeder for my layena and a flock block ( both are hanging from the celing) that I leave out all the time so my chickens always have something to eat. Lately I have been noticing that my feed has been eaten faster than normal and I found that my flock block is being hollowed out durning the night. How can I keep the mice out of my feed? My coop is an old alumanium shed that I converted so it dosent seal up very well. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can deter them away from the coop all together?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I remove all feed at night to the garage in a covered pail. The water stays in the run. I have a repeating mousetrap that catches them live, and have been drowning lots of mice.

This is how I deal with the HUGE field next to my house, which has thousands of mice.

All chicks 6 weeks and under have food and water available 24/7 in their coops.

 

[hallerlake]

Quote:
I bring in my feed at night, and store it in a covered container, too. It's not like they do much eating at night.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

I have a wacky schedule, and I don't think my birds would like to wait until 10 or 11 am to get fed, so I can't bring in my feed at night. I have a mouse problem too, so I'll be watching this thread. I did put brometheline down under the largest coop and in my other shed, it disappeared alright, but it made me too nervous to keep it around all the time.

 

[carrlr]

Nasty little creatures. Remove the food and store in a sealed container, or they will get to it. A repeating mousetrap is a must!!!

 

[swimmer]

Get a cat from the shelter, have it fixed and let the fun begin!

 

[thewobsers]

We use a repeating mousetrap too, we went on you tube and made one ourselves. works great and now i wish we new how to deal with sparrows getting into the coop and eating all of the feed. Any suggestions?

 

[hallerlake]

I remember seeing instructions somewhere for building a treadle feeder. The weight of the chicken on the lever dispenses the feed. A mouse would not be heavy enough. Maybe something like that would work. http://www.woodworkingcorner.com/feeder.php

 

[poltroon]

If they're locked in at night, hardware cloth or steel wool in any openings will help. I have the problem during the day, which is much more difficult to solve.

 

[poltroon]

Quote:
This looks very useful. There are commercial ones you can buy as well, but they were always more than I cared to spend.