The Poultry Keeper

EGirl · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 1277 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Well I'm just so proud of my baby bantam australorps, on Saturday they caught, killed and ate a mouse!! Laughing

There was a great commotion in the garden and I could see one of them had something in her beak, the others were frantically chasing her to get at it. I discovered she had an almost dead mouse and must have caught it herself as the cat was asleep on the windowsill. Rolling Eyes

(as ever, poor old boy!)

I've heard of this but never thought it would be one of the little ladies. I'm doubly pleased cos if I have mice, I'm unlikely to have any rats about!

Very Happy

Welsh Duck · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:12 am Post subject:

My chickens do that sometimes Very Happy

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 442 Location: Shetland

Not sure how the "if we've got mice, we're not likely to have rats" hypothesis works!

At both our houses south our chickens used to catch and kill mice... and occasionally ratlings as well. And every night I used to set the trapline for the rats - we had some monsters that visited under the cover of darkness!

Harvest-time was the worst - then our rat population used to explode overnight, and the garden would be crawling with them from dusk onwards. That was when I used my Heath Robinson (but very effective!) .22 air rifle / laser pointer combination to shoot the beasts from a seat atop a step ladder.

Shudders! One of the huge pluses of being on our island is the lack of rats here. Or foxes, badgers, and ferrets.

Attila

ps - ours used to catch and eat frogs down south too. They squeal terribly. Most upsetting.

Chris Kurzfeld · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 1649 Location: Carmarthenshire

Mine gang up on mice, play with them then kill and eat them Shocked

- killer chickens 'R' us!!!!!

The theory behind the "if you have mice then you haven't got rats" is that rats eat mice - was once told by the rat catcher that "as you've got rats you haven't got mice" Shocked

- know which I'd prefer Very Happy

.

Attila The Hen · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 442 Location: Shetland

EGirl · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 1277 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Oh well, I was happily deluded though! Still, the neighbours know even less so I'll keep telling them that!!!

Dusty · Joined: 07 Jan 2008 Posts: 935 Location: St. Asaph

Extra mice killers, that makes me very happy, no wonder the cat was fast asleep in the pen the other day when the girls were roaming Laughing

PaulF · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 16 Location: Nottinghamshire

no suprise, chickens are decended from Velocoraptors dinasaurs..jurassic park..

Teasal · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject:

I saw one of my hens dart into the track, then on to the ditch, and come back with a frog, which it devoured before the other hens could get there ....ugh. It must have been doing this reguarly and knew where the frogs were!!

tuzo2k · Joined: 09 Jun 2007 Posts: 209 Location: charente sw france

our shamos and asils used to kill rats and mice and allso wild birds if they come to their food allways used to find dead sparows and pigons in their pens