MICE

Especially with keeping hens I class poisons as the last option, if they catch a dying mouse or eat a dead one it could poison the hen.
Maybe think about where you are setting traps? think about where the mice run along. I put blocks of wood so the mouse can only get to the trap from the 'danger end', I also found springling the bait point with fine dust from the bottom of the layers pellets seemed to draw them in to the trap.

Be careful with poison, we've lost 2 cats from mouse/rat poison and had one very poorly dog as well.  The poison isnt selective as to which animals it attracts and dogs and cats do like the stuff.

Our blessed moggies keep catching mice in the bracken which they then bring into the house to play with... then the mouse escapes under the settee and after a few minutes waiting they just go off and get another one.

Ours keep doing that too.  One escaped into the oven one day - that was a surprise when I went to light it ready for the roast.  The mouse was just sitting up looking at me quizzically.

Eli xx

I had a horrid rat problem year before last. Since then, I have permanent bait stations strategically placed around the place. I have a 'customer' who is a ratman, so he does all my pest control in exchange for his chook requirements. He baits the boxes with sort of blocks of poison, that are FIXED inside the bait boxes, so the rats and mice have to sit inside the box and nibble, and cannot take the poison and leave it around.  It makes them ill and then they go back to their home (beside the brook) and I never see them again.  He says ALL chookie keepers would do well to have a bait station or 2, and it prevents the rats becoming established. I havent seen a rat or a mouse or their droppings, for a very long time. (I have not had my chooks, dog, or puppies affected by this either.  Wish the crows and foxes were so easy to deal with. 

thank you all for your comments.  our dogs are a boxer and beagles- none would know how to catch a mouse and they are in a separate area of our land to keep them away from our hens and rabbits.  I havent seen a mouse (just the droppings) in a shed where we keep the hen and rabbit food so sure that is what is attracting them.  Still nothing in the WILCO traps, but more droppings.  Will go buy traps we can bait when it thaws!