Stewart Little Invaded The Squawk-Kelly Adds Live Traps for Mice

My ferocious indoor mousers, Jasper and Bessie, who wouldn't know what to do with a "real" mouse. The one on the right is terrifying, watch her roar!

I apologize in advance for readers who do not like mice, but this post is kind of like reality tv, except this is real life on a chicken farm. My week was focused on catching mice. This past winter I noticed that my Chicken Shed was starting to smell "mousey". Occasionally, I would see mouse droppings here and there all around the coop and inside the shed.

One day, I didn't completely close a metal trash bin where I keep all the chicken's treats, primarily black sunflower seeds, and I found a mouse trapped inside the bin the next day. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about the trapped mouse until I scooped a cup of the seeds to feed the hens (in the dark of a winter morning when I couldn't see very well) and Stewart Little decided to scamper on top of my hand. EEK! I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or the mouse! I flung the bucket of sunflower seeds (about 1/4 full) far away from me spreading the seeds all over the place. The mouse, bless its sweet little heart, was scared to death so he ran back towards the shed running over my muck boots. That pesky mouse invaded my human bubble not once, but TWICE, in less than 10 seconds. The chickens were in heaven that morning. They loved having way more sunflower seeds to snack on than their normal breakfast allotment. It was a fun way to find out (not really), that I might have a mouse infestation at The Squawk.

My first thought was to bring a barn cat inside the coop to be a mouser and scare away all the mice. When discussing this with my husband, he had three conditions for me to meet in order to get a barn cat:

Condition 1: The barn cat stays inside the coop, it does not come inside the house.

Condition 2: If it gets too cold outside or is raining, the barn cat stays inside the coop and does not come inside the house.

Condition 3: If the barn cat gets injured, it stays inside the coop and does not come inside the house.

Being the crazy cat lady I am, I couldn't agree to meet any of these conditions. So, no outside mousers for me yet...even though I've planted catnip all around the yard and I have mice running amuck, I'm hoping a feral cat will just "happen" to find their way here.

Since culling my first rooster last week, I've decided that killing unnessesary animals is a part of being a good caretaker of livestock. Mice brings disease for both the chickens and my family, plus they can cause so much damage to my house and my coop. Farm life is surrounded by constant birth and death, the birth part is fun. The death part is something I just need to accept.

Mouse poison is an absolute NO!!!! for me. Chickens sometimes eat mice, and if the poison is inside the mouse, it could also poison my flock. I decided to trap a bunch of mice at one time to fix to infestation.

I bought this handy dandy lid on Amazon. Once fitted on top of any five gallon bucket, creating a live trap for mice. The little creepy crawly rodents walk on top of the lid and fall inside the bucket. I added peanut butter and sunflower seeds inside the bucket for bait. The first night I set up this trap, I caught 10 mice. I "disposed" of the mice and reset my trap to see how many more mice I could capture on Day Two.

Shark Bite, the chicken, is checking out the mouse trap with me. She's got my back in case a mouse scampers up my arm, haha.

Today was Day Two. I walked out to my Chicken Shed and saw my chicken trap set up. As you can see, I haven't cleaned my shed out in awhile because I didn't want anymore mice crawling around my hands during the clean-up. I carefully flapped open the back flappy lid, hoping that one of those varmits wouldn't jump out at me...which would be quite impressive if a small mouse could jump that high in a five gallon bucket! How many mice did I see on Day Two?

Two Mice On Day Two

Yes, I stuck my hand holding the phone inside the trap to take a picture of these two cuties (as quickly as possible!). It makes me feel a little better that their last night in this world will be surrounded by peanut butter and sunflower seeds. There could be worse ways to go.

Since I caught only two last night, it gives me hope that my infestation might not be too bad, but I also think I should keep this trap going until I catch zero. Then I will clean out my Chicken Shed with as much bleach as possible!

I'm naming this hen, Mama Bear, because she won't let me anywhere near her new babies. She's being super protective right now being a first time Mama.

Since this post was a bit on the creepy side, I wanted to leave this post with some cute news. One of my broody mamas hatched two sweetie pies yesterday, and she has been teaching them how to eat today. Aren't they adorable?!?

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly