Hi everyone,
so we are overrun by mice in our run which is attached to the coop - coop door closed at night - but 6 of my new babies (now 7 months old) are housed in the run at the moment
had a copper head (venomous) snake and a few black snakes come in through the mouse holes in the summer - clogged the mouse holes with dirt and that lasted a while
now, winter, the mice are back with a vengeance and recently I saw holes and dirt thrown out that looked suspicious to me because it looked too big and too strong an effort for a little mouse - big pile of dirt thrown out in one night and such
also, I decided to deal with the mice by putting 5 humane traps out - have done this before and relocated them all in the same place across a creek - but strangely I caught none this time and then had one injured and dead one, one morning
when I found the second one with its head eaten off in another trap, another morning, I started to think there had to be a predator
weasel comes to mind - we are supposed to have long tailed weasel in VA - never seen one, but we never had mice like this before either
anyway, I got very alarmed tonight after looking into weasel a bit and started to remember weasel stories from Guinea Fowl friends - so I took the birds inside - they are not happy but safe in 6 cages in my bathroom now
my plan is to get everything out of the run tomorrow (big job, since we have several sub-divisions that are home-made with doors etc.) and lay down 1/4" openings (1/2" by 1/2") hard wire cloth 19 gauge and cement it in at the edges (where I already have cement at the walls) and at the seams
our run is 11' by 16', so I will have three rows of 3' hard wire cloth, 16' long, to cover the 11' wall to wall with some overlap
this will be an enourmous amount of work and cost a bit for the materials and re-building the sub-divisions - all the while the birds will have to wait in their cages inside
I hope to get it done in 2-3 days
do you think this plan will work to keep the mice and weasels out?
would the weasels be able to chew through the 19 gauge wire from below?
I don't want to do all this and stress the birds if it won't help anyway, but I need to do something to keep the weasel from attacking the birds - I think we were very lucky that that has not happened so far because there were plenty of mice and some early eggs that the critter was content with so far - would like to evict her/him now and not invite more of them here - is my plan good? to make a wire floor and cover it with dirt? cemented in at the edges and at the seams?
do you see problems with such a floor?
what would you do?
please help!
so we are overrun by mice in our run which is attached to the coop - coop door closed at night - but 6 of my new babies (now 7 months old) are housed in the run at the moment
had a copper head (venomous) snake and a few black snakes come in through the mouse holes in the summer - clogged the mouse holes with dirt and that lasted a while
now, winter, the mice are back with a vengeance and recently I saw holes and dirt thrown out that looked suspicious to me because it looked too big and too strong an effort for a little mouse - big pile of dirt thrown out in one night and such
also, I decided to deal with the mice by putting 5 humane traps out - have done this before and relocated them all in the same place across a creek - but strangely I caught none this time and then had one injured and dead one, one morning
when I found the second one with its head eaten off in another trap, another morning, I started to think there had to be a predator
weasel comes to mind - we are supposed to have long tailed weasel in VA - never seen one, but we never had mice like this before either
anyway, I got very alarmed tonight after looking into weasel a bit and started to remember weasel stories from Guinea Fowl friends - so I took the birds inside - they are not happy but safe in 6 cages in my bathroom now
my plan is to get everything out of the run tomorrow (big job, since we have several sub-divisions that are home-made with doors etc.) and lay down 1/4" openings (1/2" by 1/2") hard wire cloth 19 gauge and cement it in at the edges (where I already have cement at the walls) and at the seams
our run is 11' by 16', so I will have three rows of 3' hard wire cloth, 16' long, to cover the 11' wall to wall with some overlap
this will be an enourmous amount of work and cost a bit for the materials and re-building the sub-divisions - all the while the birds will have to wait in their cages inside
I hope to get it done in 2-3 days
do you think this plan will work to keep the mice and weasels out?
would the weasels be able to chew through the 19 gauge wire from below?
I don't want to do all this and stress the birds if it won't help anyway, but I need to do something to keep the weasel from attacking the birds - I think we were very lucky that that has not happened so far because there were plenty of mice and some early eggs that the critter was content with so far - would like to evict her/him now and not invite more of them here - is my plan good? to make a wire floor and cover it with dirt? cemented in at the edges and at the seams?
do you see problems with such a floor?
what would you do?
please help!
Last edited:
