Continuing Rat Problem

[Acre4Me]

Have you tried poison yet?

still curious @Shanti Permaculture Farm if you have tried poison? If so, any success? If not, why not?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Also curious about that.

Also, yeah, plastic won't stop them at all. Even wood wont stop them. Only metal will.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Hi Shanti permaculture farm. It looks like you bought one of my feeders off Ebay. Next time find our website and save some money. Ebay is expensive to sell on.

Howard has already asked if you followed the directions, exactly.... Good man. And it is key if you want the feeder to work.

First thing is to have it secured to a wall or post so that it doesn't move, we provide a rough wood block for that, screw the block to the wall, slip the feeder over the block and run a couple of screws in from the side to secure the feeder.

Next, that treadle HAS to bottom out on something. The ground, a block of wood buried in the ground, patio block, anything, so that the bird can stand on one leg and keep the treadle pushed down with the other leg and not be all wobbly.

Next, remove ALL feed. No free range, no snacks, clean out any deep litter if there is a ton of feed buried in the litter. You have to get the birds hungry, a few hours will do it, and one of them will figure it out if you follow our instructions to the very letter, nothing left out, nothing added. Once one bird knows how to use the feeder it will teach the others.

And most importantly, email me if you are having problems getting the birds to use the feeder. After selling many thousands of these things I know a bit about them. [email protected]. Send pictures from three sides so I can check your installation and see if the spring is installed correctly.

 

[Shanti Permaculture Farm]

Have you tried poison yet?

No I have been advised against it because the poison gets in the rats which get eaten by our barn owls and other predators and the poison then becomes systemic. I also have four mousing cats. Do you think its OK to use it?

 

[Shanti Permaculture Farm]

Hi Shanti permaculture farm. It looks like you bought one of my feeders off Ebay. Next time find our website and save some money. Ebay is expensive to sell on.

Howard has already asked if you followed the directions, exactly.... Good man. And it is key if you want the feeder to work.

First thing is to have it secured to a wall or post so that it doesn't move, we provide a rough wood block for that, screw the block to the wall, slip the feeder over the block and run a couple of screws in from the side to secure the feeder.

Next, that treadle HAS to bottom out on something. The ground, a block of wood buried in the ground, patio block, anything, so that the bird can stand on one leg and keep the treadle pushed down with the other leg and not be all wobbly.

Next, remove ALL feed. No free range, no snacks, clean out any deep litter if there is a ton of feed buried in the litter. You have to get the birds hungry, a few hours will do it, and one of them will figure it out if you follow our instructions to the very letter, nothing left out, nothing added. Once one bird knows how to use the feeder it will teach the others.

And most importantly, email me if you are having problems getting the birds to use the feeder. After selling many thousands of these things I know a bit about them. [email protected]. Send pictures from three sides so I can check your installation and see if the spring is installed correctly.

Hi I didn't install it but I will try my best to fix anything. Thank you.

 

[kamav]

We have tons of rats, tried poison, they don't eat it. We have 2 ratinator traps; they are like a maze. Put bait in the center and the rats go in, can;t get back out. Record so far, 54 between the 2 traps 2 weeks ago, but you have to drown them in a tray. This reduced the population some but still keep coming. Our local feed store recommended putting honey on the bait, will be trying that soon.

 

[Acre4Me]

No I have been advised against it because the poison gets in the rats which get eaten by our barn owls and other predators and the poison then becomes systemic. I also have four mousing cats. Do you think its OK to use it?

generally it is understood that the vast majority of poisoned mice/rats will die in their hole, so inaccessible to other animals/owls/etc.

In addition, as I’ve read, a mouse/rat eats the poison (a small amount), metabolizes it to whatever extent, then suffers the effect. So, an animal that eats the poisoned mouse/rat is getting a very small amount of metabolized poison, however, since the vast majority will die in their holes, it isn’t a huge concern.

A much bigger concern with poisoning is accidental poisoning such as the poison bait blocks being left out for any animal to sniff/taste/eat, or the mouse/rat taking it away to stash it for later, and the poison is found by another animal. While a cat/dog might not eat a poison block, maybe they would taste it. However, a chicken certainly would peck it and ingest poison. So, there are bait stations that allow the rodent to access the bait (and leave the station), but nothing else can access it. They sell rat sized bait stations, along with mouse sized ones.

As for poison preference by the rodents, some like one type, others like another type. So, people with rodent problems find success with one or another or they switch out the bait every few weeks between types/brands.

We’ve been using Tomcat brand poison (in bait stations) around the barn. We started to have mouse activity in the chicken run...not surprisingly under the area we hang their feeder. While they don’t bill out much food, and we try to keep that area clean, undoubtedly there are some feed pellets in that area. We also had some mice entering the barn due to the colder weather. We bought more bait stations and the poison brand “Just One Bite” that I’ve read about on BYC. Apparently this is a well liked poison as we’ve had to replace some of the poison already in less than a week. We’ve had success with the Tomcat brand, but figured we could switch between the two.

If you do a search in BYC, you can find much about rat poisons and other poster problems with rats. Quite often you will find that in order to actually eradicate rats, you must use poison. @Howard E has posted much good info and threads on rats. Maybe he can post a link.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

No I have been advised against it because the poison gets in the rats which get eaten by our barn owls and other predators and the poison then becomes systemic. I also have four mousing cats. Do you think its OK to use it?

That is a risk, but it's a slight one. Typically the rats go underground and die in their burrows where it's hard for anything but other rats to get at. I would say 99% of them return to their nests to die.
Now, you're probably killing hundreds, if not thousands of rats, so that means some will still die above ground. But most birds of prey hunt through movement so it's an even more reduced risk. The most likely animals to find the rats are scavengers like other rats, raccoons, stray dogs or foxes and even then it's unlikely to cause a substantial dent in those populations. Most animals can smell something wrong with it or are big enough that the poison left won't matter.

Bait boxes secure for rats only or mice only are relatively safe and have relatively few non target deaths.

 

[Al Gerhart]

That is a risk, but it's a slight one. Typically the rats go underground and die in their burrows where it's hard for anything but other rats to get at. I would say 99% of them return to their nests to die.
Now, you're probably killing hundreds, if not thousands of rats, so that means some will still die above ground. But most birds of prey hunt through movement so it's an even more reduced risk. The most likely animals to find the rats are scavengers like other rats, raccoons, stray dogs or foxes and even then it's unlikely to cause a substantial dent in those populations. Most animals can smell something wrong with it or are big enough that the poison left won't matter.

Bait boxes secure for rats only or mice only are relatively safe and have relatively few non target deaths.

Actually, not really safe at all. Snakes will get the sick rats and the predators will eat the snakes.

And this is so easy to prevent. Keep your feed in metal containers. Purchase a metal treadle feeder of some sort. Problem solved 99% of the time. The rats cannot support a large population without a constant food supply and they will disperse to naturally forage which will expose them to predators that will keep their populations in check.

But people just have to make things difficult, like if they solved their rat problem what would they have to complain about.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Er, it's really not that easy to prevent. I have all my pellet feed in metal bins, but the rats still find food because there's wild areas out there, neighbors I can't control, etc. And then when they can't find food they dig deep in search of it, oftentimes attacking larger livestock (like my rabbits) or moving into houses. That's what happened here. Some people have had them attack adult chickens before on the roost, biting their feet and even killing them. Forget about having chicks or baby animals with rats around. You might as well kill them yourself the day they're born. And the rats being hungry doesn't fix that problem.
Not to mention if you have animals that require hay or straw you're boned. That's literally a food and nesting breeding ground for rats. And don;t even get me started on gardens and trying to grow your own food with rats around. Or how they eat eggs....

So, no it's not. As for snakes a majority of them don't touch the dead rats either because they're, well, dead and cold instead of alive and warm which is what most snakes look for. I've kept enough of them to know. And even studies show snakes are on the bottom of the list for percentages of animal deaths due to rodenticides.

https://www.pctonline.com/article/secondary-poisoning-concerns-with-rodent-baits/