Will mice be a problem?

[mrsbos]

I often hear that one of the reasons that backyard chickens are outlawed is that they (or I guess their coop & food) attract rodents. I've seen many of video of chicken eating mice. If I have 3 pullets and a small Eglu coop, should I expect all the neighborhood mice to make a beeline to my house or something? Would the girls eat them, or do the mice only come at night while the girls are sleeping? Do mice even bother chickens---or is it that they just eat their food? There is no way a mouse would be able to nest in my coop---it is way too small in the enclosed sleeping quarters so that there would be no place for them to hide. I did have mice get into my rubbermaid storage shed last winter where they found my 3 lb bag of wild birdseed and ripped up bags of fertilizer and made their nest. It was a disgusting mess once I discovered it late in the season.

 

[Judy]

I have found them underneath the galvanized garbage can.

I think it mostly depends on how the chickens react to them. If they are just mice, not a larger rat, the chicken is likely to kill and eat the mouse.

I used to use the type of poison that is not passed to whoever eats the dead mouse, though I only had to do it a few times. Now my dogs happily kill and eat mice and rats -- it is a game for them to hunt the mice down, wait at their doorsteps and grab them when they peek out.

Tell your neighbors a chicken is a good mouse repellent, not a mouse attractor.

 

[geebs]

yep to the galvanized can and also real peppermint oil.... Rodents are allergic.

 

[True Grit]

Gee I hope the chickens attract the mice away from my house! I get em every fall. I caught 3 already today. Maybe I should put a chicken in my laundry room.

 

[nnbreeder]

I have had mice chew off the tail feathers of our birds while on the roost to line their nests with.

Make a tea out of crushed Jalapenos or Habinero peppers and put it in a sprayer to use around the feed area and the coops. The Cin. zoo was having a rodent problem in their avieries and took this approach to stop it. They even treat the seeds that they feed the birds. Birds do not have the receptors for "hot" so it doesn't bother them but it will repel the rodents.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Great idea! I've read on here many times of adding cayenne to their feed as a wormer -- probably pretty ineffective, but never heard of its bothering the chickens. Mice certainly like chicken feed.

 

[theFox]

They will only be a problem if you let them be.

All foodstuff, human as well as chicken needs to be properly stored.

Mice are all around us they live anyplace where there is a food supply for them and a hiding spot.

This means that gardens, both vegetable and flower provide both food and shelter.

One of the primary hiding spots for rodents is in debris piles on your property, under outbuildings, or even in the soil in your yard.

It is likely you already have them, having chickens just makes another possible food source (chicken feed) available to them.

So properly store your feed, get rid of debris piles, and see what you can do about closing off areas under outbuildings (this is a never ending task in most cases).

 

[deerman]

Crazy laws pass about keeping chicken because their food attract mice. Same thing could be said about feeding wild birds' Chicken will kill mice .but not at night when most mice are out.

Predators of mice need to be night hunters, cats, owls and etc.


Friend raise mice for pet trade, and feeders. Few facts he remove a batch ever 21 days each female produce avg of 7. So 1 male and 7 females produce 49 mice each 3 weeks. Those were ready to breed at 6 weeks. So mice # can get out of hand just in a few weeks.

He sold 5,000 every two weeks.