Mouse colony under the coop.

[Hatrick]

We have an entire colony of mice under our chicken coop and I'm just wondering how to get rid of the whole lot of them all at once, or in short order. I was going to just leave them because hey, at least they aren't in our house but then I remembered how fast those buggers multiply. I did set out the few snap traps we have to no avail. I even found one snapped with no mouse in it,

So, I don't know what to do, should I just stick the hose in the hole and let the water fly, or stick poison WAY down inside their holes?

 

[pacetruckguy]

I would be a little leary about poison so close to your birds. Put peanut butter in the snap traps, they cant resist it.

 

[panner123]

No poison>>>>>>>> If you must use anything other than a snap trap, use glue traps. You can get them at any hardware store. Actually once the chickens find them, they will be gone. And the chickens get extra free protien.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Tractor Supply has this black plastic locking box with holes cut in either side. On the inside are posts for poison blocks. The chickens can't get in to the poison and yet the mice can chomp away at it. I too had a small nest of mice under one coop. They have expanded exponentially and now I have thousands it seems. Nothing was working so I reluctantly started using the poison. It seems to be helping. At very least, I am seeing less mouse activity and have found a dozen dead mice in the runs.

I only put the box out in the runs at night once the chickens are locked up. I sweep up the bits of poison that the mice carry out. I dispose of the dead mice before I let the girls out into the runs. I am truthfully neurotic about the use of poison. I just ran out of other options. The box makes me feel a little more secure.

Good luck! Mice are a nasty problem.

 

[Hatrick]

I've already shoved the traps full of peanut butter and then crammed chicken food on top of it for good measure, considering that's what they've been eating. I'm thinking I should remove my girls food dish at night and just put out the traps, that way they have nothing else to go for. I was a bit worried that these were rats...they're pretty big mice.