Dealing with rats

[Wickedchicken6]

I used to farm, raising lots of sheep, and you are right: if you farm, you'll have rats at some level. The box traps are a good idea. I do wonder if rats will get too wary, they are so smart.

In my experience, as long as it's a safe food they like...they do not become wary.
97 rats over the short period of time trapping during last winter and they were just as easy to catch as at the beginning. I have roosters in the building I'm trapping them. I only had to put the rooster feed out of reach each night.

 

[Manhen]

Not nearly as bad. If it were, I'd be eating the rats.
Apparently, they are quite delicious.

And then the movie line: "I was good to you Willard!"

 

[Ladies-Eight]

And then the movie line: "I was good to you Willard!"

Very good movie!

 

[CarpCharacin]

I have an update. I just checked the bait boxes today, and they have been barely eating the poison. There is stronger poison in some of the bait boxes, but there is still some anticoagulant poison in there. I'm still seeing rats in the yard, in fact I saw one run across the yard as I was going back to check the bait boxes. Any idea what caused them to stop eating the poison?

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I have an update. I just checked the bait boxes today, and they have been barely eating the poison. There is stronger poison in some of the bait boxes, but there is still some anticoagulant poison in there. I'm still seeing rats in the yard, in fact I saw one run across the yard as I was going back to check the bait boxes. Any idea what caused them to stop eating the poison?

When I was researching about rats, I believe I read that they can't vomit as some animals can. They are intelligent and wary about foods that make them sick. I don't remember where I read this and I don't see this mentioned in the sites I perused. This site has good information; the cholecalciferol (Vit D3) was a surprise. Interesting information.

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/rodenticides.html

 

[Al Gerhart]

Trapping and poisoning rats is like putting a screen door on a submarine, the water is gonna get in, you are barely slowing it down. It is the chicken feed buffet that you are offering up 24/7 or twice a day if you are hand feeding. Howard E. already posted his exhaustive post on controlling rodents and no one is wanting to do the work required or spend the money to fix the problem. Are you folks just needing a hobby that keeps you busy?

Lock up the feed in metal containers. Get a treadle feeder with a spring loaded and counterweighted door, there is only one available. In a week the rats will be gone unless you are putting out another massive feed source for the rodents. If you are willing to poison, securing the feeder will force the rats to try the poison out of desperation but rats are very smart. More likely will be the rats being forced out into the wild where predators will catch them as they forage.

Don't fall for the guillotine style feeders like Grandpa feeders that the rats can push the lid open on or the Chinese aluminum feeders. The plastic part feeders like feed o matic are also very easy to push open. No counterweight, no spring = rat buffet. Same with the plastic hanging feeders with the metal gate that slides up and down till it jams or till the mice eat through the plastic. Read the negative reviews and ask if you are willing to take a 35% chance that the feeder won't work for you. The other 65% of reviews are folks that didn't have a rat problem to begin with.

Lastly, and again it was Howard E. that first picked up on this by product of rodents in a coop, the rodent predators are drawn to your coop by the mice and rats and they will happily kill your chickens. Force the rodents back into the wild where the lack of food and depredation while foraging for food controls their numbers. The numbers of rodents fall drastically and the predators are forced to move on or expand and defend a larger territory.

This is an old issue that was solved years ago. Do a search on the Feeding and Watering your Flock forum pages and find the solutions rather than poison the predators in the area and deal with a larger population of rodents.

 

[aart]

Are you folks just needing a hobby that keeps you busy?

Are all your posts touting your feeder paying off in more sales?

 

[CarpCharacin]

I don't leave chicken food out overnight, and that is something which I've posted before.

 

[Al Gerhart]

You don't need to, the rats will happily feed during the day in a protected area like a coop or run. The surest way to know if you are feeding something other than chickens is to watch the feed consumption. More than 1/4 pound per day per laying hen means something else is sharing the feed. Roosters eat very little, don't even count them when computing the feed use.

 

[Jammerz]

What do you do with the rats once they are in the Havahart box? Presumably you kill them - what's the fastest, easiest way to do this please?

You might not like this but I let my dog have them. She delights in getting rodents. I do NOT relocate any animal I catch. IF the wind up in a my chicken coop, they go away. My dog does a pretty good job keeping the cats away. My previous dog (Jagd terrier) killed 4 or 5 on the back fence. A new generation of cats have arrived and my dog is keeping busy chasing them off the fences.