Mouse question

[Mia Semler]

Chickens will eat mice

I have a 13' x 16' chicken pen and 7 chickens. The mice had a playground mostly after dark and they had dug tunnels, made nests under anything that would give them cover. I struggled with many ways to change this because they bring disease, mites, lice and eat the food meant for my chickens. My chickens were also hunting and eating them. What finally worked and is still working: an electrical "Ultrasonic Pest Reject" purchased through Amazon for about $32. I cleaned out their area, plugged tunnel holes with golf balls covered over with dirt, then plugged it in this small device. Within 2 weeks, there was no sign or sightings of mice. Everyday I check for them especially after dark. Once in a while I find a singular hole but haven't seen any mice. I plug the hole and keep checking. I still haven't seen the mice coming back where before they were over-running the pen. This plug-in also works on bugs and spiders. This ended my frustration and I don't have to deal with killing them.
No Longer Frustrated! Chickens are much healthier!

 

[SBFChickenGirl]

"Ultrasonic Pest Reject"

How does it work?

 

[Lathira]

Last year - 5:00 AM before work - I went to feed the girls something warm. As i put their warm corn out I thought Edna had kicked poop on me and that it had stuck to my sweater - yuk. I looked down to get it off and saw that a mouse had hurled itself out of the coop onto my top and was clinging to my sweater looking up at me. After screaming like a little girl, i flung it off and began all out war!

I tried just about everything without poison. (FYI: Steel wool only works as a hole blocker, for I had 9 mice sleeping on it as a stinky mattress.)

WHAT FINALLY WORKED: I cut mint plants this fall and put the cuttings under the nests and between the door and their nesting box. There hasn't been one single mouse in the coop all winter. Somewhere i read that mice hate mint - hope it helps.

 

[Dbendell]

This morning I discovered that a small mouse has built a really cute feather nest under our heated water bowl which is inside our enclosed chicken area. I am not going to hurt the mouse but I would like advice on whether or not this will become a problem and if it will, what non lethal methods should I use to keep mice out? It seems to me like the perfect mouse home--safe from predators (don't think chickens mind but I don't know), warm, easy access to water and grain. We have indoor but not outdoor cats and I'm not going to get an outdoor only cat as it's too cold around here and too many predators (coyotees).

 

[Dbendell]

I have mice in my coop and my pacifist chickens don't kill them. I used to use a hanging feeder but kept finding mouse droppings in it. So now I put out a bowl of feed each morning. If the chickens don't finish it during the day, I find mouse droppings in the bowl in the morning. In the summer I've found that putting a box of urine-soaked cat litter next to the coop is a reasonably effective deterrent, but that doesn't work when the weather is cold.
I clean the waste out of the coop every day, and when the weather is warm enough I discard the bedding and hose out the coop. This has done nothing to deter mice though.
I see the mice all the time, but I have not seen a nest so I guess they are frequent visitors but don't live in the coop.

 

[Kessel23]

If you want to get rid of them without killing them you could try a TIN cat mousetrap. I use them and they are self setting live traps so can catch several mice in one night. I usually just drop them in a water bucket afterwards but it is a live trap so I guess you could go chuck them in the woods and let the wild animals eat them.

I have also noticed they trap themselves very easily. I had a food bucket that had a crack in the lid and the mice would come in every night and eat out of it, without me knowing. As the food got lower the mice would have to drop down into the bucket and then jump out. One night it got too low for them to jump out and a bunch of them were stuck in there the next morning.

 

[iliamna]

The only good mouse is a dead one! You need to trap them and drown them or kill them however you like! My goodness, they are rodents that carry disease!

 

[Mia Semler]

How does it work?

It's called Ultrasonic Pet Reject and emits a continuous ultrasonic sound frequency which is not comfortable to the mice and bugs. They leave. There may still be some tunnels beneath the ground but they stay away from the sound above ground. I just know I have tried everything else and nothing else gave me such great results and within a couple of weeks. It does say requires an environmental temperature of 0-40 degrees centigrade but I live in Tucson and it has worked in the heat and the cold we've just had. It's also indoor/outdoor and waterproof. It is 5-6 Watts. I saw them for packages of 4 ranging $20-$30. I paid for the one about $30 so they have gone down now. I also tried some cheaper ones which didn't work. This one worked!

 

[SBFChickenGirl]

It's called Ultrasonic Pet Reject and emits a continuous ultrasonic sound frequency which is not comfortable to the mice and bugs. They leave. There may still be some tunnels beneath the ground but they stay away from the sound above ground. I just know I have tried everything else and nothing else gave me such great results and within a couple of weeks. It does say requires an environmental temperature of 0-40 degrees centigrade but I live in Tucson and it has worked in the heat and the cold we've just had. It's also indoor/outdoor and waterproof. It is 5-6 Watts. I saw them for packages of 4 ranging $20-$30. I paid for the one about $30 so they have gone down now. I also tried some cheaper ones which didn't work. This one worked!

Thanks for explaining that. I might have to try one out...

 

[The Lazy L]

...mouse has built a really cute feather nest under our heated water bowl which is inside our enclosed chicken area. ....

I'm guessing mice are like chickens and don't like drafts. Create a draft by raising the bottom of the water bowel as much as you can?