The Great Mice Infestation....help!!!!!!!!!!

having mice will always be a factor when you have the chickens with food dropping and always available. The Feed store I use has these little green balls that are deadly. they will eat it and you will find them days later. The only thing is they breed like crazy so if you have lots now, chances are you will have lots for a while. I hope another byc member can give you a better answer.

 

My chickens eat the mice and play football with it.
They catch it and you see everyone is running after the one that has the mice. very funny

 

I'm really surprised the chickens haven't taken care of that mouse problem! Over the summer I moved a doghouse, under it I found a mama mouse with several babies. Before I knew it, there were about 6 chickens fighting over those mice...they were gone in just a few seconds!

Whatever you do, DO NOT use poison. The mice will eat it, start dying, then your chickens (or a cat or dog) will eat the dead/dying mice and will also die from the poison. I've seen this happen and it's so sad.

 

If it's infested, you're going to have a lot of work ahead of you. You need to clean up VERY thoroughly. Keep all food tightly secured in metal containers, clean the coop and yard, clean up any hay or straw piles/bales, underbrush, trash, or woodpiles that the mice could be nesting in. Mice don't stray far from their nests, and nest when conditions for food, nesting material, and hiding spaces are right. Fix ALL holes you find in the coop. Mice can squeeze through holes the size of a DIME.

Eliminate the resources, they will have nowhere to keep making baby mice.

As for the current population, start setting traps. I recommend bucket traps and snap traps. Avoid poisons because chickens eat mice quite happily and they will eat an easy meal of a dying, poisoned mouse.

For a bucket trap, get a large bucket, fill it up about halfway with water and spread sunflower seeds on the top of the water to float. The mice will jump in and drown.

 

Sticky traps worked best for me outside the coop and in my house. Put ithem against the walls.

 

there is a a posion that contains a coagulant that clots the blood and kills them, it is in such a small dose it that it takes a few days to even kill the mouse, but it is harmless if anything finds the dead mouse on occasion,

 

I tried for a few months to battle my rodent infestation with old fashioned traps and sticky traps(which are horribly cruel). Finally I gave up and used DCon. It took care of the problem in about two weeks. It's important to not let the chickens have access to the dcon. It comes in pellets or blocks and they will eat it if they get at it. The second issue for me was the smell of all the dead rats under the barn. It took a while to clear out.

Rats and mice are the prime carriers of Salmonella and will contaminate eggs and egg boxes.

 

Do a complete cleanup and until you are rid of all of them, keep food put up every night. Not a speck of it anywhere. Set up a death bucket and leave it. You will have to pull drowned mice out of it for days and days if you are infested. They never learn, but keep falling into it and drowning.

Does your coop sit on the ground? Or is it on legs? If on legs, how high? A low coop just off of the ground is the worst thing you can have because it becomes a home to every rodent or snake around.

 

Here's a link to the Multi mouse trap.

http://www.amazon.com/Kness-Pro-Ketch-104-0-002-Multiple-Catch/dp/B000FJTWH8