Chickens vs. mice

[Greensage45]

OMG girl,

What kind of bullsnakes do you have in Texas?

Well, I have a bullsnake living under my coop this year, it is nearly 5ft long. I have yet to see any problems with my bantams and I haven't seen or caught a mouse in months!

I take back what I said, but I don't take back the idealism of rat poison. I do hope you reconsider its use!

Ron

 

[ninny]

Do you have a rooster? Between my cats and my roosters mice do not live long at our place. Maybe you should get a new cat.

 

[dickiebird]

I do the same thing as Broke Down Ranch. Took a piece of PVC with 90's on each end. Put a piece of bar bait in the PVC, screw on the 90's. The mice can get in and eat the bait, but can't drag it out the 90 degree turn. All the bait is contained.

We have never had an ill or dead chicken, from eating a contaminated mouse, in all the time I've used this method.
Works for me.

THANX RICH

 

[4grandbabies]

My mouse story. I had a bucket of garden scraps, cantalope insides etc, setting in my garage. We were getting ready to go somewhere, and when we went out to the car, there was this little mouse sitting in the middle of the bucket of food scraps. Since we were headed to the country, we decided to just take the bucket of scraps mouse and all with us. I sat the bucket at my feet in the truck, and proceded to observe the little guy. He was a neat freak!! He washed his little feet-front and back, scrubbed his tiny ears, just groomed himself all over, just like a cat would. he was so cute-I would not have said that if it got in the house-. I of course, being the animal lover that I am, had to give it a name ANDY. We took him to an old abandoned house in the country and dropped him off. I wanted to hope he lived happily out in the grain fields, but most likely he became mr blacksnake dinner before night fall.
All this happened before we moved to the country, after that ,we had outdoor cats that were great mousers. They took care of business for us. I know I an just a silly tenderhearted woman.:/

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

LOL, I guess we just have aggressive snakes here. Also if the holes are too small for a snake to get in that may be why you haven't suffered any losses. I use 1" chicken wire and thanks to the mice burrowing in here and there, there are plenty of spots for a snake to get under stuff. The one I found in the coop a couple of months ago was barely over 2' long.

As for the poison - long ago when my 18 yr old son was just 2 he managed to get in the laundry hamper area (back when they were built into the wall, under the water heater) where I had put some rat poison. I found him there with green teeth and 90% of the poison gone I freaked out, called poison control because we lived WAAAYYYYY out in the sticks and my ex DH was gone with our only car. Poison control told me he would have had to eaten 4-5 full boxes of the stuff just to get an upset stomach. In truth a mouse will only eat a couple of teaspoons full before it goes off never to return. So a dog, cat, chicken, etc, would have to eat several dozen poisoned mice at one time to suffer an upset stomach.

If I had the money to buy a Tin Cat I probably would. But I don't so I have to go the cheap way and some times can't afford the poison either :/

And I don't take it as you bashing me, Ron. I know you are sharing what you know of things and that is what a message board is all about :rainbow-sun




**Edited to add**

As for the eggs. Only a few snakes eat eggs and of those I highly doubt one would be waiting for the egg to come out of the chicken and the chicken to not have a full blown 'freak-out'. Chickens will not get near a snake and if one came in at night it would definitely be the mouse hunting kind. A snake knows what it can swallow and if one is big enough to swallow a grown chicken then I would suggest a smaller wire on your coop! LOL

This totally made me laugh. It is the perpetuation that a snake is bad! Snakes are a gardener's friend, and yes! Even Rattlesnakes are beneficial and outweigh any risks (minimal as they are).

Apparently I didn't read the whole post....lol. I have found snakes curled up UNDERNEATH broody hens, eating the eggs. One year I found a snake under a broody guinea eating the eggs. I killed the snake, cut the eggs out (that weren't already crushed), then hatched them. I have even found dead, half-swallowed broody hens with the eggs completely gone. Which tells me the snake ate the eggs then tried to eat the hen. I have caught them up in the rabbit hutches (3' off the ground), eating baby buns and trying to eat the momma's. It has nothing to do with trying to make the snake sound bad. And I don't go out trying to hunt them or kill them. But if one has the misfortune to start messing with my livestock I will certainly kill it. And as for rattlesnakes, there is NO benefit that makes them worth the risk of them potentially biting one of my kids.

I'm not trying to be argumentative and I don't want you to think I am a blood-thirsty savage, it's just I have seen them do these things first-hand. So for me, snakes and mice are no-no's....