Are moles a threat to my Chickens?

Here is a story from Jeremy Smith about his concern with moles around his chickens.

I live in a rural area and have lots of predators always coming around, but I feel I should take more action in protecting my chickens. Right now the local coyotes  are busy with the dense rabbit population and the mink busy fishing out in the creek during these summer months. The biggest problem I have is an invasion of moles and I’m worried that they might harm my chickens. The moles are not very close to my coop, so I’m considering myself lucky.

I invested over $40.00 in moles traps and I even bought a book about them. The book let me know right off that if I have moles its a good indicator that I have healthy soil.  I was relieved to hear that but I still wanted to try and get rid of them in case if my girls ever got too close to one.

After a couple days of trapping I realized how small moles actually are. Literally the size of a computer mouse or smaller. By spending all this time out with the girls I saw one of them digging up the ground. I went on setting my traps when one of the chickens went running right by me playing keep away from the others with what she had just caught. It was a mole!

I invested so much time, money, and pretty much creating a new hobby for myself only to find out that my chickens were not at harm at all! In fact the moles were the ones in danger. My chickens were already trapping for me so I didn’t have to (I guess this is why the moles had not moved close to the coop in the first place). I was curious so I began setting up wildlife cams to see what all my girls catch and dig up during the day. I was surprised to find that our chickens indulge themselves on nests of field mice, small gardner snakes, even baby rabbits… The list goes on and on. Needless to say I found that my chickens fend for themselves and didn’t need my help in the first place.

Click here for more information about protecting your chickens from your local predators.

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