Ready for the horror story?

My boyfriend was new to raising chickens. Shortly after I met him he decided he wanted to try raising them for pets and eggs and pest control.
His daughter fell in love with them :)

Well we all know that chicken food brings animals that like chicken food. We have chipmunks that are brave little buggers. One ran right up next to me when I was weeding my flower bed last time I was there. Of course I was in his path to his home. I don't know who jumped more, him or me from the surprise. LOL
(Remind me to tell you the story of the shooting of a chipmunk at a later date)

Well chicken food also brings mice.
My boyfriend got the bright idea to put down some mouse poison in the area of the shed that the coops are built in, but the chickens can't get to. Kassy is smacking her hand to her forehead as he is telling her that he did this!

I don't know if anyone else has chickens like we have, but some of them are little scavengers!! And of course, those poisoned mice don't just die where they eat the poison. When we lost one of the girls, I said "Scott, you poisoned your own chicken!!!" :( Shuuush, you didn't hear that name from me. :- |

We got rid of all the sign of the poison that we could.

A couple of days later, I was walking past their pen, and there goes Ruby, one of his Americana hens, running around the pen playing keep away from the other chickens. I looked to see what she had, dropped everything and ran into the pen and wrestled her to the ground to get the dead mouse out of her beak. She wasn't too happy with me, but she is alive!!!
Horror story???

I hate poison! I had my dogs at work--in the head house of the greenhouses--when I see my border collie running with a block of Tom Cat rodenticide in his mouth. Being the mercurial creature he is, as soon as I yelled "NO!" he bolted the whole thing down in one gulp--I rushed his directly to the after hours ($$$$$$) vet and $800 later they had given him (and my husband's Boston Terrier who was with him) an injection to make him vomit. He did--but they wouldn't believe me when I told them he had not chewed it up and the whole block had not come up--just a lot of blue dye.

He threw up the rest in the back of the car with the other 4 dogs--fortunately none of them did the dog thing and eat it.

Hate. Hate. Hate. Poison.

I am so sorry you have had to go through this kassy_51.

I'm sorry Kassy.. The poultry learning curve is brutal. The rewards are plentiful, be them ever so small... the lessons are terribly painful... Thank you for sharing.. that helps the others who are considering doing the same thing!

We need more Shamos.. They are good mousers.. I haven't seen any of my other breeds goin after the mice.. I know there is one in the coop.. it's hog fat too.

I will build a box and set traps inside it.. no poison here.. I have a lil rat terrier who could find it I'm sure.

Yes, he learned the hard way to only use traps. We could use my cat, but he might eat the chickens too!!!!
Just kidding.
2 vets told me he is the biggest cat they have ever seen, in size. And I remember when he came in from mousing one time and threw up a hair ball that had 3 tails in it......Yuck

I wouldn't want to leave him out there though, because there are coyote's, fox, and hawks in that area. That's why the chickens are so penned in. especally at night. Only allowed to roam free when we can keep an eye on them.

Poison is terrible! It not only will kill chickens, but cats, dogs, barn owls, all who naturally control mice. Mice are bad, but poison is much, much, worse. There is no safe way to use poison. The mice don't die right away. They just get very sick and start staggering around, which makes them very easy prey even for old sick dogs. A metal trash can, for your chicken food, with a locking lid, should keep the mice out. Sorry about the loss of your chicken.

I've had lots of "mousers" among my chickens. Everything from Turkens to Golden Comets have hunted them down. Even one Silkie Roo. I was horrified the first time I saw it happen, especially because it was a "rescue" mouse. The mice lived in a cage that was in the chicken pen. 4X8 feet and 4 feet off the ground, so I figure they were safe from everything with a hardware cloth/wood cage and the pen fencing keeping out the bigger critters. Well, the mice found a corner to chew through, and one made a jump for it. Not a success. We re-inforced the wood, and no more escapes, but it made me watchful, and I saw more mouse drama among the Food Stealers :)

This message was edited Jun 26, 2009 7:52 AM

We had 4 leghorns that where chasing each other around the yard one time for something one of them had in their mouth. (My boyfriend refers to them doing that as playing football.......LOL)

He had to see what they had, so he managed to corner the one that had it at that time, and it ended up being a chipmunk leg......YUCK. No idea where they got it or if they are the ones that killed it.

My Rhode Island Reds use to catch & eat the mice on a regular biases here. When I checked the food bin each morning I'd have to take the poor mice to the front yard & let them go if I wanted them to survive. otherwise they were dead nearly before they hit the ground. They caught so many that my cats stopped bringing mice to the house to show us that they were working for their food.

I hate mouse poison. When i didn't have chickens mom used it but i always collected the mice & burnt them or put them in the large dumpster to be hauled away so nothing got them. It amazes me with 9 cats that I still have mice & chipmunks.

Hmmmmm, I thing we have to get some Rhode Island Reds!

It was a bit cruel but when i found out just how much the RIR girls thought the mice were a treat I let them kill the babies we'd find under the hay bales. They loved it. Evil little chickens they were but sweet. I could carry them around the yard on my shoulder to work. I'm surprised they didn't eat the raccoon that attacked them instead of getting themselves killed. Great mousers, great egg layers but awful at digging up every flower, weed & tree that was in the yard. Which is why i do not have them now. I want my flower beds.

OOPs thanks for that news greykyttyn. I told my boyfriend that the reds kill mice and told him maybe we should think about them.
OMG, I had to have a fence around every flower bed that I have with the leghorns. They would see me working in one and head right for it. The others would follow.

The digging is one thing I looked into on each breed of chicken i wanted. I had to forfeit some to keep my flower beds intact but there were still lots of beautiful birds out there to get. So far the buffs are the only ones to attempt to dig & they didn't start till I knocked a rock out of the flower bed & they found fresh damp dirt. Still they don't dig up everything, just under the hostas, the peony's & roses. Which all seem to like it very well. I had heard if you give them stuff to dust bath in they won't dig so badly.. idk that its true but i thought I'd try it. I was going to get a small kiddie pool to put peat moss in & dirt for them to dig in. Thought I might even plant them a grass or something in the middle of it so they feel like they have their own flower bed.

They will distory it in no time I have a feeling. When our chickens where young and my boyfriend started there pen, he planted rye in it. We can't get anything to grow in it now, they won't leave anything alone long enough. And we swear they eat a bushel of dirt too. He keeps adding dirt to areas, and it keeps dissapearing. I'll have to look for one of the pictures we have of them when it was a nice pen of rye. It didn't last long.

We have one rooster who tips the water dishes over for the hens, because he knows they like to scratch in the wet soil then and find bugs. We have had to use a rock in the water dish just to keep him from tipping it over and he still tries.

:) my one roo Sage will hunt for bugs them stand over it calling to his girls to come eat it. He's so sweet to them & such a pain to me. Lil snot did his I'm bigger than you dance today then pecked my foot!

Mine are free range so I don't have to worry about the grass disappearing. As for dirt disappearing I have noticed that before.. found out by watching that mine made such a fine dust that the air would catch it & float the dirt away... leaving a hole. idk if all of them do that or if i just had weird chickens but that's what happened here.

What if you give them two dishes.. one to tip over & one for water with the rock. Unless of course you don't want them taking mud baths like lil pigs. Mine just lay in the water bowl lately with teh temps as hot as its been. I change the water 4 or 5 times a day & its ice cold well water. They seem to love it.

I solved the water tipping problem..just hang the feed and water dishes from the ceiling..it stays clean, and they can reach it..hang it about chest high on them..
i value my chickens, but i also value all the hard work i did on my flower beds and garden, so my girls are penned..they have quite a large area, and if they get too warm they head into their coop..works for all of us.

Thanks for the idea cndy, but out chickens eat and drink outside. They love it outside. (They even go out in the winter) About the only time they spend in their coop is bed time and going in to lay an egg. Other then that they love being outside.

my girls are outside, they just have a fenced run. that way my garden and flower beds are safe..my girls love being outside..they go inside when they want to eat or nap..i would never confine them to a closed coop..only in the dead of winter when its reallly cold..otherwise they play in the snow

Glad to know my chickens weren't the only ones that liked playing in the snow. I just thought my RIR's were odd. They'd dig in it like dirt & send it flying. Mine won't eat in the coop either unless I close them up with it. Otherwise they want to be outside to eat & drink. Which is probably my fault bc I change out the 5 water bowls every 2 hrs (roughly) with fresh cold well water when its this hot.

greykyttyn, we use to let ours free range at frist too all the time. Until on a dry summer they started distroying the lawn looking for bugs and worms. Sheeeesh! They even dug me a new flower bed! LOL They dug it up so bad in one area, I asked my boyfriend if I could put a flower bed there, and he said yes :)
Now ours only get to free range for a while in the evening and the veggie garden is fenced in. They don't do as much damage when we only let them free range for a short time.
My boyfriend wants to know where all the dirt goes in there run? He is constantly filling areas with dirt, and it keeps disapearing.....LOL

OH, and cndy, for some reason ours nap outside. They dig up an area and nap in the dirt.
I feel sorry for Footless though :( He can't dig in the dirt. So he lets one of the girls dig it up for him and then lays down next to her. I need to get a picture of that sometime if I can.