Controlling mice in the aviary

05-04-2007, 02:58 PM

Since winter is almost upon me, I am busy engaging in my annual battle against mice and rats. They are not yet in my aviary but I dread the day I will find evidence. I found this useful info and I thought it should be shared. Anyone who is even thinking only of a daytime outside aviary should not forget the little beasties who come in search of bird food.

Controlling Mice

by Mike Anderson ©

Mice infestation represents a threat to your birds health and can be unsettling to birds at night. If you are serious about having healthy birds and getting good breeding results, you will need to take both preventative and controlling measures to limit these pests.

Three basic preventative measures can make the job of controlling mice much easier. They are:

1.Prevent or restrict entry to aviaries. Design new aviaries with this in mind and modify existing aviaries where practicable.

2. If you can't keep the mice out, limit their access to food. In walk-in aviaries this can be achieved by placing seed dishes on a platform, inaccessible to mice, e.g. a smooth pipe or drum with a large high sided seed catcher on top in which food dishes can be placed. The idea is to stop the mice from getting to the feed dishes and to prevent food from spilling to the floor with the use of a suitable catching tray.

3. Don't give mice anywhere to hide. Unless in plague proportions, mice are very timid creatures and do not like to venture into exposed areas. When moving about, mice dart from one hiding place to another and like to have the security of shelter near where they feed.

Ideally aviaries should be designed to prevent mice from living either inside ( in the case of some dirt floored aviaries ) or underneath in the case of concrete slabs without rat walls. As far as possible the aviary should be designed so it cannot be used to provide a home and permanent shelter for mice. If this can be achieved , the next step is to keep the aviary surrounds clear of shrubs and general clutter where mice can find shelter and feel protected. Once mice have to venture across open space to access food, they take a higher risk of falling prey to predators such as cats, hawks, butcher birds etc during the day and cats and owls at night.

Basically, the more you can restrict entry of mice to your aviaries, and limit their access to food and deny them shelter, the less mice you will have and the easier it will be to control those that persist.

If you are still troubled with mice after implementing what preventative measures you can, it is important to have a regular trapping and/or poisoning program to keep the numbers to a minimum. Mice breed extremely fast and if you neglect their control, the numbers can easily get out of hand.

Most of my own aviaries are of the free standing, suspended style and stand between 600-800mm off the ground. There is no shelter for mice to live inside these cages and whilst I don't doubt they could manage to run up the legs of the cages at night, they tend not to. I believe this is so because the grass underneath and around the cages is kept short ( well, most of the time !) and generally there is no close shelter to afford these pests a sense of security.

Let me give an example of how vulnerable they are to predators in open space:

Whilst doing some aviary construction, we left a wheelbarrow turned upside down on the lawn near the aviaries for several weeks. When we came to use it again, a mouse that had made it's home underneath, shot out and raced across the open spaces of yard to escape. He was in full flight and had covered about 15 metres before a butcher bird swooped and took him without even landing.

In summarising the main points, remember to:

1. Prevent or restrict entry to cages.

2. Limit access to food.

3. Limit areas around the cages where they can shelter and hide ; be persistent in eradicating mice and never give them an opportunity to build up their numbers.
Australian National Cockatiel Society Inc.