How do you keep Rats out of the Run?

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Love the dead rat picture!

I have a hardware cloth apron 3 feet wide around my pen. My other pen has most of the ground inside it covered with hardware cloth. If I notice some activity anywhere, I set traps. I keep the food locked up at night. It's maintenance, and eliminating food supply. Not much more you can do. I would have thought that rocks would stop it. I guess nothing works 100% of the time. : (
 
You got to get rid of them they multiply like crazy. A group of rats will kill a chicken, not to mention all of the diseases they carry. We fill any hole we find with alot of steel wool then cover them up. Rats can fit through 2x2 wire with no problem. We are trying to get a barn owl to come. They only weigh about a pound and are excellent rodent controllers. They generally leave adult chickens alone. (I Hope) Also Large river rock 1-2 feet deep around the run will keep them out. They can't borrow through that, but can get under concrete no problem.
 
Rats can go through a hole the size of a quarter and mice, the size of a dime. They can jump and they climb. So, I don't bother trying to keep them out of the run. I close the coop up at night leaving nothing bigger than the 1/2" hardware cloth holes for access. Truly, I rely on the local predator population (which is thriving...) to keep them in check enough that they aren't a daytime problem. Our barn cat is definitely helping out as well.
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Highly recommending the Rat Trapper thru Amazon.com = there are 2 versions, get the best.

We used hardware cloth on the bottom of our entire run, no mice or rats or squirrels or chipmunks or moles or groundhogs (yes we have a groundhog in our yard, he's huge though) .. nobody is getting a free meal here. It is fastened with washers every 4 inches.

Before we buttoned up the bottom of the run, I placed poison under the shed. If they were to tunnel under the apron... that free meal is waiting
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