Mice

[Louman109]

Do mice harm chicks and chickens. There some mice going into the coop and I was wondering if they are bad for the chickens .

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mice are not good for chickens. They will eat a lot of the chicken feed, running your food costs up. Mice can attract snakes which can eat eggs and baby chicks. The frequency of this happening gets way overblown on here, but it’s possible the mice poop can spread some disease. You’ll see droppings in the feed and other places. It's a lot more risky when the numbers get out of hand.

Mice are going to be attracted to the chicken feed. Some people remove the feed at night and put it in a mouse-proof container but the chickens spill enough feed into the bedding during the day that it will still attract some mice. Still, it’s a strategy that helps.

It’s difficult or next to impossible to truly eliminate all mice but you do need to try to keep the numbers under control. Try to not let trash build up where they have good safe places to build nests. That’s really difficult to do since they can nest about anywhere. A good cat can help. I keep mouse traps set a lot. You have to be careful where you put the traps or you will get things you don’t want, but I use snap traps and a version of the Adirondack mouse trap.

I have used poison but only when the numbers really build up. You have to be really careful with how you offer poison or you will kill things you don’t want to. My other issue with poison is that the chickens will eat mice if they can catch them. A poisoned mouse will be slow and easy to catch or may die where a chicken can get to them. A chicken weighs a massive amount more than a mouse so the amount of poison required to kill a mouse won’t harm a chicken, but to me it’s just does not feel right for a chicken to eat a poisoned mouse and them me to eat the eggs. I do not use a continuous poison program either. The chicken’s immune system will clean its body of any poison after a while, but that can take a while. I don’t want poison to accumulate in a chicken. Poison is a last ditch desperate effort for me and I don’t use it that close to the coop in any case. I much prefer my snap traps and bucket trap to try to keep the numbers under control.

Some people will tell you that chickens will hunt and eat mice. That’s true to a certain point. But a lot of mouse activity is at night when the chickens are asleep and not hunting. Also, the mice can avoid being where the chickens can get to them during the daytime. Most of the time my chickens are out of the coop during the day anyway. It’s really nice when a chicken does catch and eat a mouse but for me they do not do that often enough to keep the numbers under control.

 

[iwiw60]

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/06/15-tips-to-control-rodents-around.html

 

[Louman109]

Thankyou great response