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A Mouse!

 

Went to shut the eglu door last night and happened to catch a little brown mouse actually sitting inside the food peanut having dinner! I shooed it away, but i'm a bit worried about diseases etc that may be passed on to the girls.

 

I have never had to deal with vermin before...Any ideas?

 

I am reluctant to use poison in the garden because chickens and rabbit often free range, and feel that where one mouse comes from, there will be others in its teeny weeny footsteps, so unsure about the success of using a baited trap.

 

Has anyone experienced this before? What works best?

 

P.s the peanut is already really high up as we have found this the perfect soloution to mash being flicked everywhere by our girls- this is one mouse that would do a circus proud! :D

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Claire I have had my chickens for nearly a year now and have always had field mice helping themselves to the chicken food, the only way to stop it is by taking the food in doors at night when the girls are in bed and then putting it out again in the morning........I leave my food out at night because the chooks open the Eglu door in the morning and will need the food when they get up at 5am......I like to sleep in until about 7am.......

 

My chickens have always been fairly healthy and have not had any disease from the mice....

 

The only other thing I can think of is to use a humane trap and set the mice free but I think they will only return...My house backs on to open fields so I would be fighting a losing battle.... :D

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We also have mice coming from the other sides of the fences! There are definitely 2 who come and eat the girls spilt food - boy, is there a lot of spilt food - they don't teach them table manners at Omlet, do they :lol::lol: !! My girls are pretty healthy and I think the garden birds probably carry more parasites than the mice anyway - starlings in particular are pretty germy but you can't stop them from coming in and taking food either. We've tried humane mice traps but they take the food from them and run away laughing! The only thing we won't stand in the garden is rats. We've had one since we got the girls and we put down poison under the summerhouse where we saw it come from and we've not seen it since it polished off 4 trays of bait.

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I'm with you Kate. I quite like little field mice and once had one move in with a rabbit during the winter and share his food and then he moved out again with the spring. I swear he used to look through the wire hutch and laugh at the cats who sat waiting. I hate rats and keep the big bag of chicken feed in a plastic dustbin to make sure they don't come visiting.

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We too had a mouse around the eglu, I went out and brought a mouse trap (please don't hate me for it).

 

Anyway i set the trap and waited a few days. Then one day i went to see if i'd caught the pest....shock horror..the mouse trap had vanished with no sign of it whatsoever! We still have not found the trap and we've searched everywhere for it, under bushes etc.

 

The trap was in an area fenced off from the chooks.

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I think the only way to deter mice is a cat or two. We have never found signs of mice near the chooks, only in sheds etc, and generally well away form anywhere the cats go. My cats keep away the rats too. We back onto railway lines (about 100 yards away) and we know they are out there formthe odd one that gets brought home as a pressie, never any sign near the house though so the cats are definatley staying

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Humane traps would have to be released at least 3 miles away to be effective (further for circus mice?)...I wouldn't fancy a drive with mice in car! Plus, it would be a full time occupation! Its either kill or accept I think.

I agree with Kate, a few mice or birds maybe, but action required for rats! And I don't mean catch & release!

Also, as Kate says, wouldn't think mouse or 2 would be much of health problem. But beware guinea pigs....you do need to make sure they don't get in guinea pig food, that can give disease.

Steve has a point, if you don't want to get over run. I wonder if a cat took it for a present, complete with trap! You may have a shocked neighbour, Steve :shock::wink:

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Thanks guys for your advice, i think i will just leave the situation as it is for the time being, assuming it gets no worse.

 

I think Kate made a good point - garden birds probably carry more disease (and of the type chickens are more likely to catch), so really i should stop worrying!

 

 

xxx

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If we really start thinking about all the bugs and germs in our environment then I guess we'd just stop breathing. :roll: It's linked to some kids with allergies for whom a factor was a house that was too clean and no exposure to dirt, bugs and germs.

 

Re the hens - healthy hens with a good diet and a good environment (not crammed into a cage in a shed with 1000's of others) will be able to deal naturally with most of the nasties they are exposed to. The important thing is to be constantly aware of what is normal for our hens so we can quickly pick up when something is wrong. Also doing regular checks of the hens and their housing for bugs and mites etc. Then if anything is picked up it can be treated very quickly before it gets bad. The tiny number of problems that are fatal for hens (as a few people have sadly experienced) are usually those for which very little can be done - and this is extremely rare.

 

My birdtable is actually inside the henrun and there are always wild birds around the girls. I take comfort from the vaccinations they had as day olds (Mareks is the useful one to have) and just check them periodically for mites etc. If one of them does pick up something grim - well it is unlikely and sad though it is, that is life in the big wide world. Better a happy life than living in a sterile bubble :D

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We had mice completely cleaning out the peanuts and leaving droppings in there. We removed them at night, but then the mice just got brave and came in during the day. The chickens are my number one priority so I did the controversial thing and got an ‘instant’ trap. It’s quick. There was more than one and it took a couple of weeks, but the problem has gone and we have been clear for about three months now. Harsh, but effective. If you choose to go this route, and it’s your choice, may I recommend tahini as bait – very very effective.

 

Oh, and please don;t hate me either!

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Yes but I can't find a cat-trap :lol:

 

I don't like killing the rats or mice but when we need to we use the instant 'killer' traps. I can't bear the thought of using poison. We also had a big problem with a mole last year and used a 'friendly' trap and relesed him. He came back :twisted: He devastated our asparagus bed which had taken three years to be cropping and tunnelled under other veg as well so I'm afraid he received the same treatment eventually.

 

I'm not worried about vermin that stay outside and moles that make molehills in the lawn but we are self-sufficient in veg for at least 6 months of the year and can't afford to let them ruin all the hard work.

 

We are getting new neighbours today with two cats - they will just need a bit of training to persuade them that our veg plots are not cat litter trays. Just off to refill the water pistols :lol:

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:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

Actually you can get cat traps I have used one :shock: They are humane ones though Lesley. When I first movewd to my house there was a local stray who used to come in for food and shelter. He wasn't friendly but i am the sort that can't see an animal go hungry and he came in ate and left and that was fine. In the winter he decided to start sleeping on my couch. He was an uneutered male and he stank. I pondered the problem and decide to get him 'done' I have a friend who is a vet (knows nowt about chooks!!) and he agreed to do the op so I borrowed a trap from the cats protection league and caught him the first night he was one p***ed of cat. Got him done released him the next day ...............................and haven't seen him since :lol::lol::lol:

 

Shame because I had given him a name I called him Pirate :shock:

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Louise,

 

So let me get this straight...you let "Pirate" kip on your couch, lured him into a cat-trap, got your friendly vet to de-nadger him and now "Pirate" has done a runner...some cats just don't know how to show gratitude.

 

Our cat, Murphy, is very protective towards LaVern & Mabel. He sits on guard outside the run and was in his element the other night when a mouse decided to visit!

 

The cat will even chase the fox cubs away but tends to shy away from taking on the adult fox.

 

I hope "Pirate" doesn't return with all his mates and ask for his balls back!!!!

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Yes Tim thats what happened funny thing is as ugly as Pirate was I would have taken him in I now have a 3 legged cat that visits but it has a home so I don't feed it :lol:

 

You could try the method lesley it worked a treat for me :shock: Might upset the new neighbours though :lol:

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:lol::lol::lol:

 

Wonder if I could use that method to make the new cats run away? (as I obviously can't get a non-humane trap :wink: )

 

You can keep cats off by filling those tall pop bottles (labels removed) with water and setting them around - it works, cats don't like them, but you must keep them clean. My neighbour has one cat, we have 2, and these things have definitely kept his veg beds cleaner than normal this year.

 

We, as said, have cats, so fieldmice or any other rodent just ends up under the dining room table or left outside the catflap for later consumption (euch), but I've discovered snails living in my Eglu - they must get in through the holes!

 

Do hens like snails? One of the hens had a bit of a runny dropping or three yesterday, and the snail's gone, so I was wondering ...

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My girls are extremely effiicient terminators of slugs and snails :D:D

I believe in making them work for their board and lodging.

A lot of snails may cause temporary diarrhoea but no problems for the hen. Mine are so used to snails now that they never get diarrhoea. The small ones get crunched up and eaten whole (think of all that extra calcium) while Sybil is an expert at spearing the larger ones so they come out of the shell enough for her to gobble them up.

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I was wondering about the chickens attracting mice and rats yesterday. I can't see the neighbours being overly happy if we cause an infestation!

 

The plan at the moment is to have a big bag of feed in a plastic bin in the shed, and a smaller tub of feed in the conservatory that I can use to fill the peanuts on a morning (in the warm and dry!). Then I can keep filling the smaller tub of feed from the bigger one when needed at a more sensible time of day, and bringing the peanuts in at night.

 

We do have the odd vole in the garden anyway and occasionally we see a feral cat running past the window with a little mouse as it is.

 

I saw a gadget yesterday that claims to deter rodents in a 50x70ft arc with a little sensor on the front. It runs on batteries as well so doesn't require an outdoor power source. I can't seem to find anything solar powered.

 

This is all a really longwinded way of asking if anyone has tried anything like these ultrasonicy deterrents before? Are they any good? This one claims to have different settings for different pests and says that it has no effect on birds.

 

P.S. How do I go about getting a Proper ID? I clicked register the other day and filled the form in for the username 'sydneytheduck' but I didn't get the validation email.

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We have mice in the run! :shock::(

 

A few weeks ago I realised our plastic dustbin containing the food had a hole at the bottom. There were clearly mice inside - I could see droppings and OH actually saw a tail! :shock: We have bravely dealt with that problem and thrown away the bin and the food.

 

Now we have a new metal bin and it is no longer in the run.

 

I thought the problem had gone but this afternoon I actually saw a mouse running around the run. I have read this thread and I'm pleased to see that people aren't generally bothered about any risk to the chickens. But won't we just get infested with mice if we don't do anything? I am going to start taking in the feeders overnight. Fortunately, the mornings are darker now, so this shouldn't be a problem for the chickens.

 

Has anyone got any more thoughts on this subject?

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I'm not sure that there is much you can do, short of getting a cat. We have various periods of being plagued with mice since we moved into this house (when we first moved in, we caught 10 mice in one night). We live next door to a farmers field, so there isn;t much we can do. We have big fat Tigger, who is a great mouser, and have just got a new kitten over the weekend. We store the chicken food inside, and bring in the glug and grub at night. We have spoken to the enviromental health officer, and he was sure that, aside from laying traps, we were doing all we could to minimise the risk of becoming over-run.

 

One point he did make thought, was that, if you have an active mouse population around your garden, then you can be reassured that rat activity in your vicintiy will be at a minimum, as rats and mice will not live in the same areas.

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