Mice in the coop! How do you deal with them?

Just wondering how people keep the little critters down to a minimum in their coops?

Traps? Poison? Ultrasonic waves? Who has some clever ideas?

Sue I've found 'live traps' to be the best. Place them against the walls as they like to travel along the perimeter of the inside of the building. Once caught, I leave them in for 24 hours and they die within that time-frame. Terrible thought but it does work hands down. No poison, no snap traps.

The mice around our coops can only get in through the pop holes at dusk, so I've never had a serious problem but the ones that do come in inevitably enter the live traps.

Schipperkesue wrote:Just wondering how people keep the little critters down to a minimum in their coops?

Traps? Poison? Ultrasonic waves? Who has some clever ideas?

CATS!

I agree, cats! We have a cat that lives most of her time in our coop, she does an awesome job.
Also hanging feeders so mice cannot get in them for food helps a lot.

Doug would not allow his precious kitties to live in the chicken barn. I would like to use the live traps but I am tired of removing mangled mouse bodies from the flipping mechanism. Bring on more ideas!

Agreed, the cats do like to spend a lot of time around the coops.

I also only feed the birds what they can clean up during mealtime and feed them outside only. This is more to make sure everybody is foraging enough of their own food, but it certainly helps keep the mice in check too.

Weasels!

A good trap is a 5 gallon bucket along the wall, lid on, hold in lid small enough mouse can go in but not chickens. You can either live trap them there with some nice smelling bait like peanut butter, or put poison bait in the bottom so they die quickly inside the bucket.

Schipperkesue wrote:Doug would not allow his precious kitties to live in the chicken barn. I would like to use the live traps but I am tired of removing mangled mouse bodies from the flipping mechanism. Bring on more ideas!

Sue, these are the ones I use........not sure what you mean by mangled mice......these don't cause that: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

ChicoryFarm wrote:

Schipperkesue wrote:Doug would not allow his precious kitties to live in the chicken barn. I would like to use the live traps but I am tired of removing mangled mouse bodies from the flipping mechanism. Bring on more ideas!

Sue, these are the ones I use........not sure what you mean by mangled mice......these don't cause that: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Hmm, I have one of those. It doesn't work. The mouse mangler has a little hole the mouse runs thru. He steps on a treadle and is flipped into a holding cell for me to release later.

DWD, I would LOVE it if my weasels would take care of all the mice, but if they did, they would probably start on the chickens next!

Dark Wing Duck wrote:Weasels!

Now this would work well - you wouldn't even have to buy any more chicken feed LOL

Well, just leave Hubby's white collar cats in the house and get yourself a blue collar cat that can do the heavy lifting outside. Make sure you let Hubby know that he is not to TOUCH your new, hard working cat.
We just have one fellow. He does double duty luckily. He loves hanging out with the chickens and we never have mice down there or in the house.
I also have my feed hanging so it is tougher for vermin to get at.

I would love a Blue collar cat. I could even buy him a blue collar! I tried this before and had my working cat kidnapped by Doug and turned into a pampered white collar boy.

The conversation went something like this...

"I think Chaucer has run away."
"Hmm?"
"I can't find him anywhere!"
"Hrumph"
"Do you know where he is?"
"Hmmmm?"
"I am worried that a coyote got him."
"Ohhhh!"
"Doug?"
"He is in the garage. I thought he was too cold and put him in there with the rest of the kitties."
"Doug! That is the second cat you have taken!"
"They don't like the barn. It is too cold. They need their comfort."
"Sigh!"

I suppose I could try again.

I will also try the 5 gallon bucket trick and when I clean out the old litter today I will also lift the feeders.

There should be plenty of mousie carnage today when I start lifting bedding. The Cornish have discovered that baby mouse nests are associated with shovels removing bedding.

If you are able to actually hang the feeders it works best. If they are just sitting on something the little evil thing seem to find a way to get into it.

.

HigginsRAT wrote:Didn't Pops have some herb mixture sachets....

CynthiaM gave me some of these and they do NOT work.

We use the mice sachets in our vehicles when we store them as well. And in the crawl space under our stairs that we do not use, and they work great! Not sure of the make of the ones you used but we really like ours. And they smell so nice.
I think for them to work well they need to be in an enclosed space, with limited air movement. SO in a coop would not work well at all. But in vehicles and small areas that are not used then yes they would work better.

farmchiq wrote:

HigginsRAT wrote:Didn't Pops have some herb mixture sachets....

CynthiaM gave me some of these and they do NOT work.

Me neither farmchiq (hi Les ) Neither did the ultrasonic wave gimmicks.

I keep one of my moms muscovy ducks in the coop.Good for her as she gets to keep more bos and i have no mice.

the five gallon bucket works great. smear some peanut butter on the inside walls of the bucket and put six inches of water in the bottom. make sure you leave a broom handle or something leaning against the bucket or someway for the mice to get to the top. they drop in the hole looking for some peanut butter and drown. works great. after a couple of days you have a nice little mouse slurry going on at the bottom of the bucket - smells really nice, oh wait, no it smells terrible but a little bit like the sweet smell of victory.

How many cats does Doug have in that garage anyway Sue? I have visions of hundreds...

...thousands maybe?

How many cats? Fewer than Chickencrack and more than I had when we married.

Mouse flurry? Sounds like a DQ treat!

We did like gamestaff with the bucket but found the chickens liked the peanut butter as well so found a way to perch on the bucket rim eat all the peanut butter off and then turn around and drop eggs down into the bucket worked amazing the first couple nights though

we also have a live trap but found it continually clogged with bedding and rarely worked because the mechanism would get blocked and they'd walk right out

Now we're building a new coop and hoping the cats will be able to get in there and keep the horrid creatures out. We haven't had much luck and I'm getting real grumpy with the nasty things in everything