The Quest for the Mouse-proof Chicken Coop: Chapter 1

When I first started keeping chickens I did lots of reading. Most everything I read was for people who raised chickens by the barrel full. A small flock was 50 chickens. I am thinking more like 3 so all the house plans I found were way too big. However, in my reading I came across Chicken Tractors. They were smaller and they were movable. Cool! I decided that they would be perfect to fit in my garden. I have 4x12 foot raised beds so I decided to build a 4x4 foot house with a 4x8 run. I would then move it from one bed to the next throughout the year. I still couldn't find a plan like I needed so I created my own. I ended up with a 4x4 foot chicken house that was about right for 3 to 6 chickens. It was grand! It had little widows that opened to let in cool air in summer. It was insulated to keep the little darlings warm in the winter. There was nest box and food and water. Everything a chicken needed to be happy. The whole thing came apart with a few spins of a wing nut and I could set it up on another bed. I didn't even need to clean it out much. I just tilled the bed and planted something like corn that liked lots of fertilizer. It was wonderful and we were all happy until the mice arrived.

The mice were not invited but they thought it was a nice house too. There was food and water and nice dark corners. However, there was a lack of mouse type housing so they improvised. They chewed little holes in the wall and found that the inside of the nicely insulated walls was a perfect mouse abode once the insulation had been removed and dumped all over the garden. They then invited all their friends and family as well as voles (big mice), rats (bigger mice) and a pack rat or two (mice that bounce) to join them.

Before long my cat, Ali, had developed a serious interest in feeding the chickens. The minute I went to the garden shed and started rattling the feed can he would come running. I would open the chicken house door and bang on it a time or two. Immediately several mice would come charging out of holes in the door right into Ali paws. We had a mouse vending machine. This was good for the cat food bill but bad for the chicken house. This went on for several years until my beautiful chicken tractor had started to look like a sieve.

Finally I faced the fact that I was going to have to build a new coop. I stood in the garden and shouted to the heavens. "As God is my witness I will never have mice in my chicken house again." Thus began the Quest for the Mouse-proof Chicken Coop.

(To be continued)