Advice on rats and building a new coop?

[Anime2lover]

Those are rat predators?

Yes. Having a barn cat may also help control the population if you can.

 

[Lizzy733]

With treadle feeders, you shouldn't be seeing much food wastage. Are they on a pelleted, or mixed grain? If the latter, they may sift through for the good bits and scatter any they don't like, so switching to pelleted may reduce food scatter.

Have you noticed the rats actively raiding the feeders? They are clever and may be able to figure it out - especially if you trained by leaving the feeder open and they had a chance to identify it as a food source.

With our birds, switching to treadle immediately stopped the rats from frequenting the run, but I trained them hungry and did not leave the feeder open.

Rats hate metal, so when plugging rat holes, use steel wool, just make sure your chickens can't dig it up. Place a sheet of aviary wire under any compost bins and monitor for attempts to damage the bin itself. All feed should be stored in bins. I use plastic rubbish bins, but you may want to go straight for metal if they are already actively chewing through plastic.

Traps should be set up along rat 'highways' - like fence borders etc, where rats can commonly be seen commuting and should not be competing with any nearby food sources. Rats are phobic of new things in their environment, so if you build a trap box, it's best done with materials you already have on hand. We've had great success using bacon drippings as bait. Seems to last ages, and doesn't attract an ant colony to your feeder.

They're clever... It can be an uphill battle, but they won't stick around if there's no food.

 

[1chip2chicks3cheeks]

With treadle feeders, you shouldn't be seeing much food wastage. Are they on a pelleted, or mixed grain? If the latter, they may sift through for the good bits and scatter any they don't like, so switching to pelleted may reduce food scatter.

Have you noticed the rats actively raiding the feeders? They are clever and may be able to figure it out - especially if you trained by leaving the feeder open and they had a chance to identify it as a food source.

With our birds, switching to treadle immediately stopped the rats from frequenting the run, but I trained them hungry and did not leave the feeder open.

Rats hate metal, so when plugging rat holes, use steel wool, just make sure your chickens can't dig it up. Place a sheet of aviary wire under any compost bins and monitor for attempts to damage the bin itself. All feed should be stored in bins. I use plastic rubbish bins, but you may want to go straight for metal if they are already actively chewing through plastic.

Traps should be set up along rat 'highways' - like fence borders etc, where rats can commonly be seen commuting and should not be competing with any nearby food sources. Rats are phobic of new things in their environment, so if you build a trap box, it's best done with materials you already have on hand. We've had great success using bacon drippings as bait. Seems to last ages, and doesn't attract an ant colony to your feeder.

They're clever... It can be an uphill battle, but they won't stick around if there's no food.

We just recently switched to the treadle feeders and we did train by leaving them open. It took some of our roosters a lot longer to get the idea of it than the rest of the flock. I think they would have starved to death because it took them so long to figure it out we have for a long time been sweeping up all food every evening though, and still do though it’s a lot less with the new feeders. The only feeder that’s open now is the trough for our one blind rooster, and I don’t think there’s too much we could do about that. He needs a large open space to eat out of and he’s already accustomed to it. We put blocks on the feeders every night so the rats can’t open it and we haven’t noticed any signs of them trying to break into it so far.

 

[Lizzy733]

We just recently switched to the treadle feeders and we did train by leaving them open. It took some of our roosters a lot longer to get the idea of it than the rest of the flock. I think they would have starved to death because it took them so long to figure it out we have for a long time been sweeping up all food every evening though, and still do though it’s a lot less with the new feeders. The only feeder that’s open now is the trough for our one blind rooster, and I don’t think there’s too much we could do about that. He needs a large open space to eat out of and he’s already accustomed to it. We put blocks on the feeders every night so the rats can’t open it and we haven’t noticed any signs of them trying to break into it so far.

Good stuff and I can understand the need to keep one open feeder for your poor man.

When we did have rats, they were day raiders and would brazenly walk up to the feeders midday, sometime while we were sitting in the run.

They can be pretty audacious things.

It was really due to the neighbor's horse barn which sat on the border to our property that it got so outta hand.

We've moved from that location and so far, no rats in the run here and they've quickly learned the preexisting feed store is no longer a source of food now that everything is sealed up.

Had one 'harvesting' coffee for us for a while and leaving the beans behind! Wouldn't have minded that one sticking around , but looks like it's moved on too.

 

[1chip2chicks3cheeks]

Update on the rat situation:

We’ve trimmed back the gigantic palm fronds, so they don’t have all that cover to hide in, as well as going to trim the others that are outside of the run but still close enough. I’ve tried to draw up ideas on how I could cut out the palms and still provide adequate room and a good setup for the chickens, but it’s just such a big area to take out and it wouldn’t be as nice for them or us trying to tend to them. So I don’t really want to do this. Hopefully just by trimming them down so they can’t hide, it will help. Picked up all the miscellaneous things laying around the run and going to dump all the waters every evening (used to do this, then quit because the poison the pest control company put out was only activated once the rats drank water).

My brother has also taken up shooting the rats with his pellet rifle, I’ve concluded this is more humane than poison or traps so long as he can get them in one shot! Unfortunately though, he hurt his hand pretty badly on one of the pinch points on the gun the other night. So, probably will resume shooting rats once he’s healed.

 

[seminolewind]

Sounds like your making progress! You can't get rid of rats. It's an ongoing maintenance. I have 4 bait stations. And I lock up every speck of food at night. Shooting rats may be fun but shooting one for every hundred you don't see. Really.

 

[Dakota8472]

sounds like me and my yearly invasion of ants and spiders into my camper.... ive seen a couple already... and im waiting for the battle to begin. as far as rats and stuff with the chickens I have a large mice population in and out of the buildings the chickens will be near. My intention so far is to have the chickens coop raised. that way all i have to do is inspect underneath and around it once in a while to make sure no openings are forming for little critters.

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

A

Rats aren't just something to put up with. They carry diseases, parasites, and cause a tremendous amount of damage! Honestly, I'd talk to the neighbor and have a pest control company come out and go to both places. There are different types of rats that live in very different places. Once the company knows what type of rat it is, they can go through both places and find where they are breeding. I'm willing to bet there's a huge colony on one or both properties. I'm not a big fan of poisons because the same poisons are VERY attractive to dogs, cats, and other wildlife, but if they found the colony and can limit the use to areas that pets can't get into, you might have to do it.

There's another option and maybe somebody here knows more about it. I hope I get this right. Here's an article on one group: https://thebark.com/content/modern-day-rat-catchers There are groups of people with Jack Russel Terriers and Rat Terriers that go for fun to "barn hunts" where rats are in tubes to protect them. Some clubs have started going to properties that need rat control and they compete by seeing how many rats each dog can kill. I assume the dogs bring the rats to them. I remember they do it at night or in the evening. Or I suppose you could get yourself 1-2 Jack Russel Terriers, if it's going to be a long term problem, and let them kill them nightly LOL Since I love dogs and LOATHE mice/rats, that's probably what I'd do. Or advertise on Craigslist for people with terriers who might want to let them hunt for an hour each evening. You would have to be careful not to get too many dogs together because terriers are known for fighting, although if they are all happily doing what comes best to them, maybe only the rats will suffer. In any case, the owners of terriers all know about the breed's tendency to fight, so they are probably prepared.

This is BRILLIANT!!! Jack Russell terriers! What a wonderful and ecologically sound, idea, bravo

 

[McChooky]

Nothing wipes out rats faster than starving them out. Predator proof coops and aprons are necessary if you want to keep rats and snakes out of your coops and runs. Rats carry disease that are hard to treat and can spread disease to the chickens .Put hardware cloth all around your coop and runs and top it off with gravel and pack it down.

 

[McChooky]

With treadle feeders, you shouldn't be seeing much food wastage. Are they on a pelleted, or mixed grain? If the latter, they may sift through for the good bits and scatter any they don't like, so switching to pelleted may reduce food scatter.

Have you noticed the rats actively raiding the feeders? They are clever and may be able to figure it out - especially if you trained by leaving the feeder open and they had a chance to identify it as a food source.

With our birds, switching to treadle immediately stopped the rats from frequenting the run, but I trained them hungry and did not leave the feeder open.

Rats hate metal, so when plugging rat holes, use steel wool, just make sure your chickens can't dig it up. Place a sheet of aviary wire under any compost bins and monitor for attempts to damage the bin itself. All feed should be stored in bins. I use plastic rubbish bins, but you may want to go straight for metal if they are already actively chewing through plastic.

Traps should be set up along rat 'highways' - like fence borders etc, where rats can commonly be seen commuting and should not be competing with any nearby food sources. Rats are phobic of new things in their environment, so if you build a trap box, it's best done with materials you already have on hand. We've had great success using bacon drippings as bait. Seems to last ages, and doesn't attract an ant colony to your feeder.

They're clever... It can be an uphill battle, but they won't stick around if there's no food.

You're right! "they won't stick around if there's no food."!!!!