Building chicken coop

Mice are the least of your worries if you have bears around.

NCalHippie said:

Mice are the least of your worries if you have bears around.

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I don't have bears, but yeah for me mice are lower on the list of my worries. It's a tossup between raccoons, snakes, bobcats, and raptors. Snakes seem impossible to prevent, but I kept a rooster hoping it'll keep them at bay.

Using 1/2" wire mesh on any openings will work for rats. Mice are near impossible to keep out of anywhere. They can squeeze through the tiniest gap.

As others have said make sure they can't get at the feed. If there is nothing for them to eat they will go look elsewhere. If they can eat there they will stay and breed quickly.
It is a pain but make sure they can't feed and you won't have many problems.

As @RobertSWMissouri says, don't have places for them to hide. The chickens will eat mice if they can get at them!

Dogs and cats can help. They usually can't get all of them but they scare a lot away.

I like breakback traps for rats. Scaled up mousetraps. Bait them with peanut butter and put them where the chickens can't get to them.

I have heard that electric fence works well for bears.... we do have the occasional bear around here, have never seen one or sign of one on the place (electric fence all the way around).

Note: if you have 5 - strand perimeter electric fence on fiberglass posts, pretty cheap security. With a good charger, even if someone puts a log on the bottom strand to short it out, it will still have 6-7,000 volts and will keep people out. You can't use metal posts, as easy to short to metal.... you can cut with fiberglass bolt cutters, but those are rare.

Dogs and cats. We had them when we had chickens and never had a problem with mice or rats.

Black snakes eat the eggs.

Put a golf ball in each nesting box.

They eat one and can't pass them.

The end.....

Cornly2 said:

I don't have bears, but yeah for me mice are lower on the list of my worries. It's a tossup between raccoons, snakes, bobcats, and raptors. Snakes seem impossible to prevent, but I kept a rooster hoping it'll keep them at bay.

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Roosters won't keep predators away.
He will tell them all where he is every morning starting around 3 AM.
Snakes and mice can be stopped with 0.25" hardware cloth.
That's if your coop is built on a concrete slab.

We found the best way to keep the vermin away, is to feed the chickens only what they will eat in an hour. We feed them twice a day and they finnish their food. That is one way. Also keeping them on deep bedding helps, because as it composts the bedding becomes host to many bugs that chickens like and mice don't eat. We also have a second coop with free range chickens, those don't get food other than what they can find, donut doesn't attract mice. They get let out in the morning,and cage closed at night. In our experience it's the constant open food in the chicken coop which attracts the mice. The grain storage for the chickens, we keep in big heavy duty plastic garbage cans with tight fitting kids, and haven't had mice or eats get in.

We found the best way to keep the vermin away, is to feed the chickens only what they will eat in an hour. We feed them twice a day and they finnish their food. That is one way. Also keeping them on deep bedding helps, because as it composts the bedding becomes host to many bugs that chickens like and mice don't eat. We also have a second coop with free range chickens, those don't get food other than what they can find, donut doesn't attract mice. They get let out in the morning,and cage closed at night. In our experience it's the constant open food in the chicken coop which attracts the mice. The grain storage for the chickens, we keep in big heavy duty plastic garbage cans with tight fitting kids, and haven't had mice or rats get in.

I was going to use a Chevy Avalanche with a rusted out frame. The wife isn't so keen on my repurposing attempt.