mouse eating chickens!!

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

My welsummer (when we had her) ate mice whole and frogs too

We always ate the eggs and they looked totally normal

 

[suburbanAZchick]

I must have the laziest chickens in the world!

I have never seen them try to chase a mouse, lizard, or any of the numerous birds who are eating their food. They won't even snap at a passing fly. They do avidly wait for my hubby to turn bricks over for them so they can eat the termites and worms they see. I guess they are too well fed and spoiled with veggie goodies from the kitchen.

 

[mackak]

Some of my hens will eat pinkie mice but none of them go after the full grown ones. We have been over run with mice here in WA state. My largest chickens are polish.....I would be very interested to know what breeds of chickens can gulp down adult mice.

 

[epeloquin]

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[NewbyJan]

Thanks to everyone for the comments posted here!! So our chickens are not weird then!!! The white Sussex had no trouble gobbling the mouse down whole but it was the bantam frizzle who tried and almost choked on it resulting in my husband having to extract a very elongated mouse from her mouth!!!

I will wait to see what else they try and catch - hopefully no sparrows but if they keep the field mice numbers down, least our neighbours can't complain about the chickens!!!

 

[carladababe]

I haven't seen any mice in the chicken coop, so I don't know if they eat them. My cats are always bringing in fresh mouse kill that my husband and I have to bury away from the house. Should I give them to my 17 week old pullets? They're dead, but gross none the less.

 

[melinda342]

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x2

 

[@FendiChick]

@FendiChick :

Quote:
The easiest way to control critters from eating your chicken food is to add crushed red peppers to the feed, rodents won't eat it because it's too hot for them but poultry can't tell at all if it's spicy or not. I learned about this from watching a show about a bird sanctuary that was being over run by mice eating the bird seed, once they put the crushed red pepper seeds with the feed and then mixed it all up they were rodent free. I do this to my feed now and all is great.

Thanks for the tip! Will start that right away.​

On Saturday morning, I mixed in some red pepper flakes with their food. It must not have been enough because there are still rats getting in the coop. I did put out some glue traps and have caught 2 already, hoping to catch more. But maybe I should put MORE red pepper flakes in the food?