LifeSoup by Cherie Dawn Haas

Recently we noticed that mice were getting into our chicken coop. Who can blame them? It’s warm, dry, and there’s always a stash of food.

The first sign was the hole they chewed in our bag of pine shavings. We used to keep this bag in the coop, where we could easily reach in and grab handfuls of shavings to toss into the nesting boxes. Eventually, the mice made tunnels all through the bag, leaving their droppings along the way. I didn’t want to accidentally put mouse droppings into the boxes where our girls lay their eggs for our breakfast, so I tossed the shavings into their run and let them have a heyday.

Do Chickens Eat Mice?

Apparently that’s a common occurrence, but we don’t know if our chickens have been eating them. Maybe they are, but more mice are coming right back in? Either way, we knew we had to stop it somehow.

We prefer not to use poison, which we fear could harm our flock (and of course, using poison seems like a cruel thing to do, especially when this is just an inconvenience for us).

Our plan, which is officially in place, is to put a board around the main doorway into the coop, where we’ve seen evidence of the mice coming in (they’ve left droppings on the wood panels of the screen door). This has removed any chance of them squeezing in through small cracks.

But we think they were also coming in through the little door that the chickens use. They’ve even started chewing their way in through the wood, as you can see in the upper left corner of the door here:

This morning, I pet a few drops of peppermint essential oil along this entryway. My husband’s aunt has told us that this works at home, so we’re giving it a try outside. Wish us luck!

Just for fun, here’s a short video of Willamina, one of our Barred Rock hens, telling us about her highs and lows of 2019, and her expectations for 2020: