Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[Millie-Annie]

I have just read that we need to keep wild birds and rodents out? Is that true? I don't stand a hope in hell of keeping the mice out?

[mullethunter]

Best endeavours I think Millie-Annie - as you say, unless you have a Perspex box to keep your hens in you'll be hard pushed to keep mice out!

[Luvachicken]

I guess the mice might bring stuff in on their feet.

[Valkyrie]

Defra says to keep putting rodent killer stuff down (any type - whichever you prefer) to keep them down - I've had to do it in my greenhouse which I'm not exactly thrilled about so I'll probably have to set more up nearer the chicken run. Don't want them getting other nasties from them! On the other hand I don't want them eating poisoned mice - although the remaining girls aren't mice hunters - the two that did have long gone.

[sjp]

Valkyrie are you having slugs and snails eating the bait at all? I've noticed that all through the blocks I'm using are no longer showing signs of gnoring they are showing signs of slug/snail damage plus I'm assuming the white ribbons of droppings are from slugs/snails their not rat or mouse dropping their the wrong shape plus there were a few black mouse dropping in the bait box the first time I refilled blocks

[Valkyrie]

My bait box is filled with lots of acorn shells! Just mouse droppings nothing bigger. In the run the slugs do rather love the chicken pellets. I have to say that it's probably how the girls got a taste for slugs in the first place - they wouldn't touch them and suddenly they are gourmet chicken food!

[JM]

We've noticed a number of holes near the chicken run - including in the small extra area I'd rigged up for the girls... so we had the rat man in last week as it looked like we had rat city under the end of the garden!!

 

He's put bait down for them which is now working - I found a dead rat on the path yesterday morning, and another one yesterday afternoon - in the run!! But this is a real puzzle: The cube and run is on paving stones (the paved area is larger than the cube run - there's quite an overlap) and the girls were locked in their run all day yesterday - I didn't open the door until I went in to retrieve the rat! The rat was quite portly - there was no way it could have got through the mesh of the run, or through any openings in the cube! So how on earth did it get there?

 

(I don't feel quite so horrified about rat city because apparently there are loads of rats around at the moment last few winters have been so mild!)

[sjp]

rats and mice can get through a smaller gap the people think as long as the gap is smaller than their head then they shouldn't be able to get in 1 inch by 1 inch weld mesh should keep rats out mice can get through it through

rat can chew through chicken mesh and some plastics

[gavclojak]

We had a nightmare with rats from next doors compost heap last year. In the end I took the front of my run off, took it back a few feet and replaced the front with 1x1 Weald mesh. I also have bait boxes everywhere