Neighbor hates my chickens- will she do them harm?

[TheSitcomGirls]

Got him! Mr. Rat is no more. He couldn't resist the peanut DH wired to the trigger on the trap. Unfortunately, it was not the same Mr. Rat I saw the other day. It was BIGGER. It was alarming in size, by far the biggest country rat I have ever seen. Anytime the rat's body is bigger than the snap trap it's a reason to be alarmed. And he was fat-chunky fat on hickory nuts and chicken feed!

"How does this rat compare to "The Big One"?" I asked DH.

He shook his head. "Not even in the same league."

When we first moved into our 200 year old house we knew we had a mouse problem. Our old Cape has a stone foundation and there are lots of ways in! As DH and my dad renovated and took down walls they discovered more and more mouse evidence. They ripped out the kitchen cabinets and discovered a mouse nest so big the easiest way to remove it was with a snow shovel! Behind the nest was a hole to the outside that a small woodchuck could fit through. That hole probably explains why the little old lady who owned the house up until the late 1990's, had a three foot long black snake living behind her refrigerator! DH emptied three cans of spray foam into that hole until he finally had a chance to cement it up after it got warm.

That first year we lost track of how many mice the cats killed. BIG MICE! Deer mice- the kind with the white bellies that look like they could tangle with a small rat and win. Our cats were indoor cats and all of a sudden they had this whole new dimension to their lives! They were in heaven. I was not. Especially when a mouse escaped the cat and ran under the fridge. DH moved the fridge out. No mouse there. This was until it started to stink in the kitchen a few days later. Upon closer examination he had run the mouse over with the back wheel of the fridge and it was stuck there. Then finally when DH took down the walls around the bathtub old rat infestation evidence appeared. An entire nightgown had been stashed in the wall along with an oven mitt and multiple pairs of socks. But we never saw any evidence of recent rat activity until "The Big One".

We used to keep the litter box in the basement and we also used "eco-friendly" corn based litter. DH's job was to the clean the box every night. One night when he was home late from work I wanted to help out so I ventured into the scary basement depths to check the litter box. I didn't like it down there. It was smelly and spooky. Strangely there were no poops in the litter box that night. And then Lyla went crazy whining telling me there was something in that basement. Back and forth she went in front of the boxes trying to find a way to get behind them. I was done. I ran upstairs and waited for DH.

"There's something in the basement," I said. Down the stairs he went to investigate. I heard some noise, banging, something hitting the cement floor. A few minutes later he came back upstairs carrying a garbage bag that the dogs were VERY interested in.

"What was it?" I asked.

"A rat," he replied, "A rat the size of a NY subway rat."

"No! How did you get it so fast?"

"I saw it jump out of the litter box and then I heard it BREATHING!" Oh the horror of a rat so big and fat you can hear him gasping for breath!

Lyla was right. I learned that day to always listen to my dog's nose. Behind the boxes was a mountain of cat poop the size of a small dog and big nest he had made from fiberglass insulation. Maybe that's why he had breathing troubles! We figured that maybe he had entered a small hole like a mouse and then had grown too big and fat on cat poop to leave the way he came in!

After that we cleaned the whole basement. There is now a 2 foot gap all along the whole outside wall and the litter box is upstairs. We never saw another rat but even now, 6 years after "The Big One", DH still sets rat traps in the basement every winter, just in case.

 

[missbecky]

Whoa ...that is creepy. The old house, rats building fortresses out of mountains of poop, and things they have scavenged which you didn't even realize were missing.

I love your stories! Even if they were "fake" (which they aren't) lol -I could care less. They are entertaining, and you write beautifully.

You should screen play this. Then you'd know that the Crazy Lady, the rats, neighbors, roosters, your talent, and all the tribulations existed to serve a purpose.

 

[HumbleHen207]

I know they say buckeyes are great mousers however I beg to differ. Mine are wimps! I even threw a mouse I killed at them, they freaked out and refused to touch it. Eventually one of my ducks ate it, my ducks are the ones that will eat just about anything. The cat used to keep the rat and mouse population down however she has grown old. I cant keep rat traps in my barn because of the homing pigeons, they will get into just about anything that has food on it. Look up bucket traps, they work very well and you can catch numerous rats/mice a night.

 

[Ashley80]

I have just ready this entire thread! Thank you for an evenings entertainment. It seems your in a much better place now both in dealing with Crazy Lady and processing your grief for your parents. Slowly seeing other stories creep into your posts and eventually overtake 'the crazy' was lovely, keep writing those stories, you do it well.

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

While DH and I were feeding the horses tonight fire truck after fire truck blasted by our house. I counted six. Our road has no outlet and I have a good friend that lives down that way. By the amount of vehicles flying down the road it was almost like the whole street was on fire! DH trotted down the road after the trucks and found a firefighter cutting through the ice on the little pond by the side of the road. His truck was a back-up and he was filling up with water just in case. The fireman told DH the house number was sixty three and so it wasn’t our friend. She called us a minute later and said it was a chimney fire a few doors down from her and every one was fine. Now why on earth did they need six fire trucks for a chimney fire? But who am I to judge?

Fire is a scary thing. I saw my first big fire when I was nine years old. The old barn two doors down from me and across the street from the farmer’s house burned down. Luckily it was a bank barn, with the downstairs being used as a run-in for a bunch of cows who had the sense to leave when the fire started. Then the upstairs two levels was full of hay that was on FIRE. I remember standing with my dad at the bottom of our next-door neighbor’s driveway some 200 feet from the fire and still feeling the waves of heat on my face. It was winter and my toes were numb but my face felt as hot as a summer day. Then as the fire burnt itself out and the firemen could finally pump enough water to put it out, there was that smell. Not the good smell of a camp fire when you throw a bucket of water on it, but a sick smell. Like the smoldering ruins gave off the odor of everything that had ever been in that barn. Hay, rats, cow poop, farm chemicals, electrical wire and diesel. It smelled for weeks.

We walked back to the house after the fire. Then I fed the cats. We had an indoor/outdoor kitty named Tiger and a kitty who lived just outside. His name was Smokey and he was grey like wood stove ash. Smokey had to live outside because he decided that my mother’s couch was his toilet. That didn’t fly. So my mother said that Smokey could no longer come in the house. I cried and cried. No more could he snuggle in my bed on a cold winter’s night or eat hot dogs that I snuck to him under the dinner table. I felt like his life was over. My dad made him an excellent cat house which he put out on the deck. It was insulated and had a little swinging door to keep the weather out. Smokey decorated the exterior of his house with splashes of urine. He seemed quite happy and now my mother was too. But I always felt like Smokey missed something by being an outside cat. He was part of our family and yet he had been shunned. Destined to be alone for always.

Smokey die at the ripe old age of ten, not bad for an outside cat. The summer after he died I was walking my dog down the road past the foundation of the burned-out barn. The farmer stopped his tractor just a few feet away.

“Hey,” he said, “What happened to that grey cat of yours?”

“Smokey?” I replied, “You knew Smokey?”

“Sure. All summer he used to ride around on the tractor with me. Best rat killer I ever saw. Missed seeing him this year."

And here I thought Smokey had spent his last years suffering and missing his old life. That he was just sitting in his little insulated house covered in urine and pining away. But he wasn’t! Smokey hadn’t missed a thing. He had a great life! I ran home as fast as I could. I couldn’t wait to tell my dad!

 

[WYNot]

It is much easier to respond with trucks that are there than to call and wait for more if they are needed. The call might have been a chimney fire but by the time the trucks roll on scene, who knows what it will be. In this case overkill is a good thing. Better to have too many trucks and not need them than to need them and have them be 15 minutes or more away still at the station.

 

[chixmaidservice]

Great eulogy of a simple farm cat... keep the stories coming!

 

[Mac14]

Yah, I know what you mean about that sick smell after a big fire. Our garage burnt down the summer before last, and it was connected to our house. That was the most terrifying experience of my life. There was countless tools, wood, paint, camping stuff, clothes, and whatever else was in there. The fire was so hot, that the firefighters couldn't get inside the house to see if the fire had gotten in there already. The fire chief asked if anyone was still inside, I started telling him my 2 goldfish were in the living room. I felt really silly after that. The fish turned out to be fine! I love the story about your cat by the way!

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

My sweet, cross beaked, chicken Sophie died today. I am going to miss her so much. She laid olive green eggs and she was almost 5 years old. The winters were very hard for her and it has been so cold. Her beak made it difficult for her to get enough food. The last few days I noticed that she was snuggling up with Janet. She never snuggled, she always wanted to be alone. Today at 5 when I locked up the chickens she was gone. I found her dead in the run with the same horrible damage to her neck as Chrissy. Rats!
My chickens are very upset. They are on edge and not making happy, content noises anymore. I hate seeing them scared. Since catching the big rat I have seen a single smaller one in the coop. No more nests since the tiny one I found. No more new holes. Finally tonight the small rat is hopefully history. DH removed the cabinet off the wall that I use to store chicken supplies. And there she was and away she went. She ran on the top beam next to the ceiling all the way around the coop. Then she vanished into the eave. So I went outside and finally found what I hope is the last entrance. It was between the window frame and the cinder block. I positioned the dogs outside the window just in case she jumped out. DH blocked the entrance from the eave into the coop with a big square of hardware cloth. Then he went outside and emptied 1/3 of a can of rat/mouse repellent expandable spray foam into the hole. 15 minutes later when he went to take out the trash he heard a loud noise coming from the coop. It was the sound of the rat throwing herself up against the hardware cloth trying to get back into the coop! The wet spray foam will stick like glue to her face if she tries to go out the way she came. I’m not sure what I’m going to find in the morning.
DH blocked up every crevice and crack we could find and entombed the one rat we saw. But then I started thinking. Why aren’t these things eating my chicken food? There are enough rats that they are bolding eating my poor dead Sophie in the middle of the day. Where are they living? And why when I fill my chicken’s water dish outside is all the water disappearing? They have a big heated dish inside so I didn’t really worry about it. I thought maybe it was the sparrows. But why am I finding sunflower seed shells all over the place when I’m not feeding any seeds? And why are the dogs dashing to the wood fence every morning when we go through the goat pasture? They seem to be hitting on something that is coming under the fence.
Then it hit me! The rats could be coming from Crazy Lady’s yard! She’s got a dozen birdfeeders over there. That’s the food source, not me! That’s why the rats are not chowing down all my chicken food. Sunflower seeds taste better. Her shed is right on the other side of the fence where the dogs are hitting. Those rats could all be living under that shed and coming over here to drink my chicken’s leftover outside water every night. Maybe the two rats I have seen were just branching out from the large colony and looking for a new home!
So here’s the plan. The chickens are staying in tomorrow. I’m going to fill their outside water and throw some cracked corn around. Then I’m going to set up the game cam so I can see if the rats are coming from our wood pile or from the direction of Crazy Lady’s house. Then if I can get any evidence of large amounts of rats coming from under her fence I’m calling the health department!

 

[aart]

OhMy!!!