Rats

So found rat tunnels into the run and a nest right outside of the run this morning. Saw the rat when I moved the bricks. This is recent within the last two days. I have a new feeder coming because of the chickens tossing feed onto the ground. I will also be removing it at night now. Had a issue with this area once before months ago and thought I fixed it with bricks. Now I'm thinking cement to fill these tunnels in.

I would forget about the tunnels and focus on getting rid of the rats.

Once the rats are gone, the tunnels will be also.

Bioshark said:

Galvanised hardware cloth on the bottom of coop, than cover it with sand and or dirt. I just did my coop because I had same problem. Also went to smaller chicken wire so they cant crawl in from any sidewall either. Its the only reasonable answer. Material should last 15 years. I stitched my seems with galvanised wire, cheap from lowes hardware.

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We have this and the little buttheads chewed through. My neighbor is a hoarder and they come from his yard. My dogs kill a few but the rats have learned to just come out later. This hurricane has made it horrible, I just had a small rat or mouse in my garage. We've never had this problem in the past just this summer. I can't use any poison due to my dogs, owls and hawks. We had a huge one get in the roost last week and kill 2 chickens, it couldn't get back out so I was able to exact my revenge.

Anyone have a recommendation on how to kill rats that will NOT go in any sort of trap? I haven't seen any, but all signs point to them: tunneling into run, tunneling under duck house, tunneling under water basin and base of ramp, half eaten tomatoes on ground in garden (abuts coop area). Digging at base of run. Coop is against 12' very old stone retaining wall- so I have noticed areas of dirt pushed out in various spots. All activity seems to happen between 11pm and 6am.

Tried bucket trap: nothing
Set 4 rat snap traps in various locations with different baits- only 1 was set off and 1 fat field mouse was caught. Nothing since.
Electric trap: nothing
Was going to try the sugar-baking soda "poison" tonite but having my doubts.

What else can I do? Although the digging at the edge of the run at times seems to be because of the PVC feeder, otherwise they have no interest in bait and just tunnel and dig. Contemplating ripping out my tomato plants despite still harvesting in case they are using that as food....

Any ideas? Bait boxes I doubt will work because these rats seem uninterested in bait or crawling into anything foreign.

Help!!

All of this expense and trouble and time spent when all you really need to do is what several posters have said: stop feeding the rats and they will go away.

Get the bulk feed in galvanized cans with tight fitting lids, trash cans are fine. If you feed scraps do it early in the day and only feed what the birds will eat so it is gone quickly. Freeze the rest if needed for those days when you have less scraps. And ditch that PVC feeder which is the biggest reason you have rats. If you think you can't afford the $80.00 to $100.00 for a decent 100% metal treadle feeder you are wrong because you have been paying that much a year in stolen chicken feed, plus the constant cost of poisons, the cost of attempting the impossible task of fencing out a rat or mouse, plus your own time and worry. A single small rat will eat a half sack of feed per year, the big rats will eat a full sack. Do the math and if you see one rat then you have ten.

I had a rat problem too. Someone on this site suggested a fix that worked for me- although it sounds heartless. I mixed dry chicken feed with dry ready mix concrete. I put in in a flat container and put it under a covered stack of wooden pallets. No chickens, wild birds, squirrels could get to it, only devious rats and mice. In a very short time, no rats.