OMGosh......A MOUSE

[texaschickmama]

Okay, so I am doing morning chicken duties and go to move the waterer, and what do you think goes scurrying away? A MOUSE. I know I live in the boonies and they are going to be there, but what do I do now? I don't have a problem killing them, I just couldn't catch it. My chickens were just standing there looking at me like, what the h*** was that. Gross, mom, please remove that beast from out castle.

Will it hurt my chickens as far as any diseases? I'm going to set traps on the outside of the coop. What else, or what should I do?

 

[Cuban Longtails]

Borrow CarrieBrown's Potpie and let her catch/kill/eat it?

 

[crazy4chicsinBC]

I have also seen a couple mice in the last few days, so I to would like to know the dangers to my chickens!

 

[silkiechicken]

Well, it is up to you what to do, but where there's one, there are bound to be families hiding out...

If you search rat or mouse, there are tons of threads about what people done and the controversy of traps vs poison.

 

[1acrefarm]

Set as many traps as you can. A dozen is a good number. Set them where your chickens can't get to them. Peanut butter is a good bait. I usually spike my peanut butter with a few pellets from the sweetfeed. They cannot resist it. Check the traps daily so your trap stays on the ready every night. If you saw one it has probably hundreds of friends around so stay after them. If you cannot safely set out snap traps you can get the live catch ones. Rats do carry diseases and eat up your feed. A galvanized trashcan or a food grade drum with snap on lid are excellent to keep rats out of your feed. If you do not protect your feed the population is gonna grow.

 

[Katy]

I'm surprised your chickens didn't go after it. When my ducks or chickens see a mouse they're on it like stink on
S--T!!

 

[texaschickmama]

It was hiding under the waterer. I only saw it because I picked up the waterer and away it went. I bet they would get a kick out of chasing that little thing.

 

[princessthelmared]

I agree, my chickens would gobble the mice right up. If I found a dead mouse in my horses bucket and threw it out back the chickens would fight over it.

 

[chickenannie]

My chickens would fight over and eat a mouse too. I read in an old-timey book that mice in chicken coops are not usually a problem for this reason (at least not for long). In winter I think mice are interested in nibbling on chicken feed.

Of course one day I discovered that a large ugly possum had tunnelled through 3 straw bales into the back of the egg nest in my chicken coop and was stealing eggs out of the nest. I only figured it out because my chickens suddenly stopped laying eggs. One of them must have had quite a fright! Here I thought I had invented a nice "natural" nest by arranging haybales to give them a deep dark comfy egg-nest. Anyways they loved it for 4 months before the possum incident.

Now I have metal boxes to prevent my little chickies from ever being scared again.

 

[picklespickles]

your chickens might eat it as they get more used to them. in the winter, they come out more for food. i tossed out one from a water bucket that was left in a closed shed and they were like mmmmmmmmm. eek. but true.