Problems I created by not following good advice with our chickens.. Part 1

[PoppasGrill]

Will start with the most costly, and harder to solve problem…
Mice.
We have been raising chickens for about 4 years. Had a small issue with mice last year in our barn. Was advised at that time, by Al G. Among others, to control feed and access. Of course, we thought it was under control, put out a few bucket traps, and after renovation of the barn to allow more chickens, all was well, as in we didn’t see any mice for a while. Got lazy and haven’t been cleaning up the feed that was scratched out by the Ladies and leaving feed in the troughs at night if they didn’t eat it all.
Then we noticed mice in the outer coops, buckets didn’t catch anything, and never noticed them during the day.
Went out later than usual to lock up the coops and saw that the pied piper must have walked through our coop and stopped playing right in the middle.
There are burrows in the ground, open air, floorless coops. Also nests in the roof , since I used material that has gaps for roofing.
There are so many that we are building new coops so we can tear down the old and salt the earth, so to speak, to get rid of the mice.
This will cost us a lot, but there aren’t any solutions to this without endangering the chickens or chasing the mice to the house or barn.
New coops will be better built, not thrown together as needed, along with buried wire under sand and new feeders that cannot be scratched out and can be closed up, also , no more extra feed, if they dont eat it -remove it.
Drastic, yes. We don’t want our Ladies getting sick or eggs being effected by droppings in feed trough and in nest boxes.
To be continued… we have made quite a few mistakes, some from bad advice, some by not taking good advice, and some by not asking for advice.

 

[dearmeghann]

Are you able to incorporate some barn cats on your property?

 

[Altairsky]

Consider using treadle feeders. They really works against mice. I had mice in the coop, switched to treadle feeder and an automatic chicken door, solved the problem.
Floor of my coop is entirely sealed with hardware cloth, though. Tunnels are not an option.

 

[Al Gerhart]

You really do not need to tear down the existing coops. A treadle feeder, bulk feed in metal drums with tight lids, and cleaning up the pathways so natural predators can get to the mice will work.

Once you have the feed in a treadle feeder, the mice will get hungry and start taking the baited traps and poison bait if you are doing that. And pay close attention to the negative reviews because the majority of treadle feeders do not always stop mice or rats. Stay off Amazon, not a single one of their treadle feeders are actually rodent proof.

As long as there is feed out in the open you will have mice. Taking the feed in at dark does little but teach the rodents to eat during the day.

And while I appreciate the shout out on the previous advice, may I ask why you didn't follow it? With respects, it seems you are trying to build a fort knox coop instead of following the much cheaper sanitation method that works every time.

 

[FrostRanger]

I second getting a few barn cats, they pretty much solved my mouse issue (although 2 of them promoted themselves to house cats lol)

 

[PoppasGrill]

Are you able to incorporate some barn cats on your property?

We have a herd of cats, or is it a gaggle?, only 2 go out to the coops. We will get 1-2 mice on the doorstep in the morning, or find it after a week if it crawls under something before it dies.
Part of the problem is the cats can’t get in the coops after dark, when the mice are more active, due to shutting the ladies up for the night to keep the safe from other nocturnal predators .

 

[FrostRanger]

We have a herd of cats, or is it a gaggle?, only 2 go out to the coops. We will get 1-2 mice on the doorstep in the morning, or find it after a week if it crawls under something before it dies.
Part of the problem is the cats can’t get in the coops after dark, when the mice are more active, due to shutting the ladies up for the night to keep the safe from other nocturnal predators .

A group of cats is called a clowder

 

[PoppasGrill]

You really do not need to tear down the existing coops. A treadle feeder, bulk feed in metal drums with tight lids, and cleaning up the pathways so natural predators can get to the mice will work.

Once you have the feed in a treadle feeder, the mice will get hungry and start taking the baited traps and poison bait if you are doing that. And pay close attention to the negative reviews because the majority of treadle feeders do not always stop mice or rats. Stay off Amazon, not a single one of their treadle feeders are actually rodent proof.

As long as there is feed out in the open you will have mice. Taking the feed in at dark does little but teach the rodents to eat during the day.

And while I appreciate the shout out on the previous advice, may I ask why you didn't follow it? With respects, it seems you are trying to build a fort knox coop instead of following the much cheaper sanitation method that works every time.

As “the Math” kicked in we started building/adding on and the security of the coops was focused more on bigger predators ( opossums, owls, neighborhood dogs, etc). It really does need to be torn down and a better coop built properly.
Laziness on my part. Though the bulk feed is secured, the feed troughs were convenient. “All the Ladies can eat at the same time if we spread feed down this 6’ trough. “ “ so they scratched a little out, they’ll come back to it later..”
Procrastination let it get bad.
Don’t want to use poison, because of the chickens and cats.