Chicken-safe rat poison sought

[maui chicks]

Any advice on eradicating rats who sneak into our girls' coop and eat the feed at night?

Any effective poisons / traps that won't hurt the hens?

My husband was trying to do it old-school and set clamp traps with bait (peanut butter, bacon, etc.) out in the field and near coop at night when girls are safe inside. We caught about five that way, over the course of two weeks. We would like to be more effective and efficient, though. And we don't have many local options so we'd likely have to order something online.

We're scared, too, because there have been news reports that the rats are carrying lungworm; increased incidents have been noted in Hawaii. We have a garden, and we just want to get rid of these pests -- for the chickens' sake and for our own health.

 

[lazy gardener]

I didn't wait the 3 nights as suggested and went ahead and set the trap last night. I caught 17!! I put the trap in the plastic tray/box it came with and took them out to a field on my way to work 5 miles from the house. It is really cold and wet outside and we are picking up all feeders at dusk so hopefully I can catch a good amount of them before spring and they find other food sources. I wired the rat removal door shut as others suggested and they did not figure out how to pull down the little one way entry door that pivots open when they step on it. I have a lot of cats but I have not ever had a cat that catches an adult rat. I don't really blame them, rats can really put up a fight and bite.

I am glad you don't live near me. Why would you release rats into some person's field so they can become an infestation on someone's farm or in their yard? Please do the responsible thing, and kill any rats you catch. If you're not going to do that, perhaps you can set up feed stations so the rats can live happily in your yard.

 

[Judy]

Here's some info on bromadiolone, which is supposed to be low risk to any chicken, dog, etc. that might eat a dead rat:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=606272#p606272

I've used it in my coop without harm to the chickens. I used Just One Bite in the past, and will be using some of the Tomcat Hawk as soon as it gets here.

No one should state outright that it will never harm a chicken, IMO, but from what I've read and my own experience, I'm more worried about what rats and mice carry than I am about using this particular poison. When I used it before, I had fairly good sized rat holes in the coop floor, and I stuck part of a stick down the hole then covered the hole with a concrete block. I'll have a bait station this time, which I'll secure better than just snapping it shut as it's designed to do, probably with duct tape.

Rat traps of various sorts are great -- if the rat isn't "trap smart." I never had much luck with that.

 

[justtoni44]

Hi,
This a good thread for me.We were over run with field rats and ground squirrles.
Not onlyl caused the obvious problems but killed some of my chicks..good sized, 6 weeks........
Got into my broody's nest and it was a daily race for the eggs.
My husband used one bite.............He put a wire through a plactic milk crate............Threaded one bite through the wire before connecting it to the other side of the crate, then placed this in various areas outside the barn. He put heavy metal on top to keep it from being tipped over..
I cannot even guess how much we used, lots of trips to Home Depot.
Everytime he put it out.it was totally gone the next morning.
Along with this..We came home one day to find about 6 chickens eating a dead rat.I freaked fearing secondary poisoning.
Came directly to BYC and it was explained about bromadiolone.....didn't make me feel better until I saw they were fine the next day.
We had not intended to kill the ground squirrles but they love the one bite also.
We have a nearly rat free barn ( I am sure they are around somewhere) and the squirrles have moved on.
Worked great for us.I wish you good Luck..................It was worth every cent we spent on the product.
One more thing,I learned on here to try to do a heavy hit........ They do take it back to thier nest so it is better not to allow time for the young ones to start reproducing.
Good Luck.....
What would we do without BYC
toni

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

Quote:
While this is logically true it is also practically not true. The reason is dosage. Even water in sufficient quantity is fatal.

The reason flea poison, rat poison, or human medicine work is that they are scaled to the body weight of the target creature. A small amount of benadryl will stop your sniffles. A larger amount will make you sleepy. A lot more will make you dead.

A better way to look at the problem is to ask how many poisoned rats would the chickens have to eat to have a serious negative impact on their health. If that number is greater than a small fraction of a poisoned rat, then there is a basis for considering the poison "safe" for use around chickens. Obviously the best solution is for the chickens to eat no dead rats, but that is a sensible goal, not a useful risk analysis.

By the way, there is another category of falseness to the original statement. Some critters can metabolize toxins that others cannot tolerate. Think about this puzzle: how to arrow poison frogs mate? Hint: it requires contact.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

ANY poison is deadly to any animals, I have no idea what vet would say otherwise , that's crazy

What is it about Katy's post that you don't understand? The chickens can't get to the rat bait to eat it but the rats can gobble it up to their little hearts content and there is no real danger of SECONDARY poisoning because the rats metabolize the active ingredient (bromethalin) then the good lord calls the rats home. By your logic the DDT treated mosquito nets are dangerous to the people sleeping beneath them even though the active ingredient is unable to harm the human users, unless maybe they try to eat the nylon net. Which reminds me, does anyone have a good recipe for nylon mosquito netting? I am still using my mother's old recipe but I am unable to get the nylon netting tender enough to chew.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

That's weird, we don't have rats and don't use hardware cloth around the run. Odd as it may sound- poison works. How you keep the poison to rodents only is to use chunx style bait and tamper proof bait boxes. We keep a tamper proof box right in the run 24/7 and another in the shed where feed dispensers are stored at night. Bag feed is put in metal can in same shed.

Never had an accidental poisoning. For animals to be poisoned they A) have to be small enough to get into bait box and B) be attracted to the bait. What this results in is mice, rats, chipmunks and squirrels are targeted. Squirrels not so much as they create cache of food stores all over the place then forget where it's buried but the other rodents bring all food back to burrow where it's eaten and they die. I'm 4 to 5 years using this system and have only found one dead chipmunk and on the lawn in all that time. Everything else died in burrows. No accidental non target species was affected.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Rat's don't get in my coop. I don't have any around the house, run and large surrounding area. It's effectively a rat free zone as none house up anywhere near. They can make it to bait stations but would die back in last burrow. None ever get to make housing in this area. That's amazingly effective for little cost and minor upkeep of replacing chunx bait. A 4lbs pail last almost two years after the initial extermination of rodents. Most is consumed Spring and Fall during migrations pre/post winter.

It's not realistic to suggest a hardware cloth enclosed run, that's ceiling and floor, for anyone with runs larger than the toy coop/run combo's you see at Tractor Supply.

 

[Vicki B.]

I bought a Ratinator multi rat -rat trap on suggestion from others here. I put it out last night with the door in the open position and I poured in a healthy amount of chick mash. They went in last night and cleaned up every speck of food they must've licked the concrete to get the floor under the trap that clean.I am hoping this solution will work maybe to at least keep the population in check. It is suggested to leave open access for 3 nights before setting the one way door. I was skeptical about my smart rats even going in at all and I am pleased they went in the first night. Fingers crossed!

 

[Below frigid]

Been dealing with rodents a long time. Used every trap known to man. The trap called JAWZ by the JT Eaton company is hands down the best trap made. Safe and easy to set, rats can't steal the bait without tripping the trap. Use sticky granola bars for bait. If you have mice get the mouse size rats get the rat size. Their bait stations are made to hold a trap inside so your birds don't get wacked .