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On Mar 16, 11:20 am, Catherine Bouzide <casba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Martha and all,
> This is all excellent information.
>
> When I included our urban hens in an art installation/corn maze at the
> South Union Arts Center, we (Bill Friedman and I) had tested the soil
> for growing first. It is directly in the shadow of the Dan Ryan.
> Very small amounts of lead were found and I could include "The Girls"
> with no worry.
>
> Having peace of mind is important. Collect soil samples from a
> variety of spots.
>
> Cathi
> c.a. schwalbe-bouzide
> casba...@gmail.com
>
> www.casbah3d.comwww.flickr.com/photos/casbah3d/www.lillstreetstudios.com
> > agricultural and leadership skills. To find out more, visitwww.learngrowconnect.org
> > .
>
> > --
Hi,
I had some mice during the winter but they seemed to disappear after awhile. I think the chickens either would eat them os chase them out of the coop.
M
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I know that chickens can die from eating celery. Anything stringy can get caught in their gullet and choke them.
Mila
I just bought a very small piece of land in Michigan and was surprised to see for the first time in years a garter snake. It would be great to get them back in our gardens
M
From:
chicago-chick...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:chicago-chick...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Martha
Boyd
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:15 AM
To: chicago-chick...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [chickens] My chickens ate a dead mouse
Cool. Ecosystems thinking. I still think garter snakes are a good answer to the rodent "problem" -- have been requesting someone conduct research of garter snakes for controlling rat nests.
-----Original Message-----
From: mi...@precisionchicago.com
Sent: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:05:08 -0500
To: chicago-chick...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [chickens] My chickens ate a dead mouse
-----Original Message-----
From: j.b....@gmail.com
Sent: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:33:37 -0500
To: chicago-chick...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [chickens] My chickens ate a dead mouse
I've had mice living in the detached garage ever since moving into my
house and well before I started composting and keeping chickens. I
have no idea what they were eating, but I guess they use the garage
simply for nesting. The neighborhood crows used to eat them (I saw
evidence of this one day: a fresh mouse carcass in the driveway, then
gone 10 minutes later when I walked back to it), but then West Nile
virus knocked out the crows and they haven't returned. :-(
I love the idea of encouraging natural predators for rodents. The
sticky part about garter snakes is that they need a safe place to
hibernate in winter and to nest. Snake nesting/hiding areas aren't
that much different than the ones used by rodents (piles of "stuff" in
the yard, etc.), so it's a dicey situation: do you create (or leave)
stuff out hoping the snakes grab it before the rodents do?
We do have garter snakes in my neighborhood (yay!), but my dogs rarely
allow them in the yard. :-( If you have dogs, you may have the same
problem. And believe me, if a dog eats a garter snake those little
bones cause all sorts of intestinal upset you don't want to deal with!
But back to the rodent issue.
Yeah, the only way to get them to go away and stay away is to
eliminate food sources. If your coop cannot be completely rodent
proofed, then you have to remove and secure any uneaten food at night.
I don't think these rodents are out much during the day, but if they
were, the chickens would keep them away from the food.
Rodent proofing means using hardware cloth on your entire run/coop
perimeter. Use 1/2-inch hardware cloth to keep rats out or 1/4-inch
hardware cloth to keep mice AND rats out. You're hopefully using
hardware cloth on your run/coop anyway to keep the ladies safe from
raccoons who can reach through openings to grab and severely injure
chickens.
Now, if I can only figure out how to trap the mouse that made it's way
into the HOUSE this winter, I'd be set. I found the hole where it
entered and plugged it with steel wool (a small hole in the screened
opening for the cold cellar). Since the house is brick I doubt it's
found a way out, but I can't seem the catch the bugger in the mouse
traps! Anyone have ideas? ALL food sources are now secured (I had
forgotten to lock up the chicken feed I keep in the house. Doh! I
remedied that quickly.), but I haven't caught the thing. How long can
they survive without food? Or what could it be eating that I'm not
thinking about? I know roaches can survive on strange stuff we don't
think of as food (like wallpaper paste), but what about mice? Or would
it have just starved rather than get killed in a trap baited with
yummy peanut butter?
Linda
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On Mar 17, 2:00 pm, Martha Boyd <mar...@learngrowconnect.org> wrote:
> The story of rats around people, and our cities, is LOOONNGGG - this
> book was good:
>
> Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most
> Unwanted Inhabitants
> Robert Sullivan / Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
>
> On Mar 17, 2010, at 11:31 AM, Alice Hollowed wrote:
>
>
>
> > We have rats in the winter but once we uncover the coop in the
> > spring they seem to go away. This year we put hardware cloth
> > underneath the coop but I must have left a gap because we had rat
> > holes in there again. I also set out some traps (glue ones in
> > boxes). The hardware guy suggested using poison placed inside a
> > metal tube so only the rats can get at it. We always put away our
> > food at night but my girls are pigs! They spread chicken feed all
> > over the ground. I'm using the eglu feeder is there a better one
> > out there or are my girls just pigs? I did also move our chicken
> > coop to the back of our lot next to the alley (easier for the rats
> > to get to but farther away from my house).
>
> > Alice
>
We learned from the exterminator to stuff a couple wads of newspaper
into the tunnel, feed the poison down with a hose and the stuff lots
of wads of newspaper into the hole. They eat their way out through the
newspaper and eat the poison in the process. It worked like a charm
and none have returned in two years.