Yeah, it is easily preventable. Your post makes that clear, when you have turkeys, the rats appear, they are eating the turkey's food. Rats and mice will eat droppings if they are starving but given a choice, would you eat poop or would you find a better food source.
You didn't have a good...
Plastic totes just give them more to chew on. And a mouse or rat can make that 12" jump. Get rid of their food source, get rid of the rats and mice. Make them scatter and scrounge hard for a living in the wild where the predators will make short work of them.
All this trouble over an easily prevented problem.
Some basic facts that will never change.
Rats and mice will live within a few dozen feet of their food source.
Natural environments will not be able to support more than one mouse or rat per a few thousand square yards.
Which is why most...