DIY Thread - Let's see your "Inventions".

[perchie.girl]

Pulley system cord goes to outside of pen and set to raise and lower by moving the cord loop from the "down" nail to the "up" nail. Rat proof at night

Love your coop. So I take it the orange bucket drops down to cover the bowl on the ground? And it keeps the rats out... Awesome.

Sigh Last rat I killed in my house was the size of that ceramic feed bowl. You must have NORMAL sized rats

. I also had to resort to poison because they were threatening to carry me and my son off... I soooo hate those kind.

For what its worth My rats were Norwegian House rats. I was in the city too.
http://www.victorpest.com/advice/rodent-library/norway-rats and yes they do grow up to 16 inches long.

deb

 

[1000yearoldeggs]

NIce...

Bumping isnt really necessary we get on a roll and take a break now and then. Cuz were out doin Stuff... LOL.

deb

Ok, I didn't want to cause any problems. Haha, makes a lot of sense that everyone's out doing stuff.

 

[PrimroseMom1]

Love your coop. So I take it the orange bucket drops down to cover the bowl on the ground?  And it keeps the rats out...  Awesome. 

Sigh   Last rat I killed in my house was the size of that ceramic feed bowl.  You must have NORMAL sized rats     .  I also had to resort to poison because they were threatening to carry me and my son off...  I soooo hate those kind. 

For what its worth My rats were Norwegian House rats. I was in the city too.
http://www.victorpest.com/advice/rodent-library/norway-rats  and yes they do grow up to 16 inches long.

deb

Holy moley, that's one bad mamma jammer.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
Wow. In your house??? How awful can it get! Did you move?
I have ended my rat problem (it never ends) with bait stations and locking the food up. The bait keeps getting eaten.
This particular "coop" is a Florida open air "coop". Tarp on top and dog house for laying eggs. Right now it's 4 pens and 4 dog houses and 4 pulley buckets. Yes, the pulley lets the bucket down over the bowl on a cement patio block. No problems. I may configure a lid in the future that has a weight on it, but raises and lowers on top of the bowl. I'm out of buckets, LOL

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Wow. In your house??? How awful can it get! Did you move?
I have ended my rat problem (it never ends) with bait stations and locking the food up. The bait keeps getting eaten.
This particular "coop" is a Florida open air "coop". Tarp on top and dog house for laying eggs. Right now it's 4 pens and 4 dog houses and 4 pulley buckets. Yes, the pulley lets the bucket down over the bowl on a cement patio block. No problems. I may configure a lid in the future that has a weight on it, but raises and lowers on top of the bowl. I'm out of buckets, LOL
I had them in the eves and in the crawlspace inside the roof. it was a low pitch roof so if you wanted to go up there you could barely squatwalk along the ridge if you were a small person. I put out Warfarin in a pellet form made my own bait stations out of five gallon buckets. 1.5 inch holes cut out with a hole saw... about three or four. I filled the bottoms with bait and hung them from the patio eves where I could see the nasty foot print trail where they could climb the wall.

Funny thing is they didnt live in the roof they lived in my planter bed under the front window. I moved the dog couch from there and about three juviniles ran out which my Dog killed with one shake of her head... Rosie was a Ratter to the extreme. She dug the whole nest out killing each juvinile as they ran out. Then she dug up three nests There were about nine pinkies in each nest. She was sooo good the moment I told her to stop she would and let me gather up the "bodies" She was a one in a million dogs... I miss her so much.

The bait did its job eventually. I sold the house during the housing boom here in San Diego and moved to the desert

Believe me those wild mousies and rats dont bother me at all.

deb

 

[Leahs Mom]

Someone showed this on one of the threads and I got one. It's not for outside but works well in the attic like you describe. If you use it in a place like an attic where you can't see it, you can get a "rat tale" with it that plugs in and has an extension so that you can place it where it can be seen if the trap is in an obscure place.

I DID use it outside but I put it in a rubbermade type container and cut an entry. Worked well and caught mice in the run during the winter. Also caught chipmunks in the garage while I was separating a bird out in there. So far I've never had any in the chicken house. Expensive (you can find them cheaper than this link) but no poison or snap traps around the chickens or other pets made it worth it to me. In the winter I was catching mice in the run EVERY time I set it.

http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Zapper-Ul...TF8&qid=1400980481&sr=8-2&keywords=rat+zapper

I was hoping it might handle a weasel if we had any but so far I haven't seen one.

 

[perchie.girl]

Someone showed this on one of the threads and I got one. It's not for outside but works well in the attic like you describe. If you use it in a place like an attic where you can't see it, you can get a "rat tale" with it that plugs in and has an extension so that you can place it where it can be seen if the trap is in an obscure place.

I DID use it outside but I put it in a rubbermade type container and cut an entry. Worked well and caught mice in the run during the winter. Also caught chipmunks in the garage while I was separating a bird out in there. So far I've never had any in the chicken house. Expensive (you can find them cheaper than this link) but no poison or snap traps around the chickens or other pets made it worth it to me. In the winter I was catching mice in the run EVERY time I set it.

http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Zapper-Ul...TF8&qid=1400980481&sr=8-2&keywords=rat+zapper

I was hoping it might handle a weasel if we had any but so far I haven't seen one.

Believe it or not its not big enough.... Thankfully I dont live in a place that has them.

deb

 

[bruceha2000]

Believe it or not its not big enough.... Thankfully I dont live in a place that has them.

If it is big enough for a Norway rat, it is big enough for an ermine. We had, thankfully only 1 year, Norway rats digging under the 3 level plastic compost bin at the soon to be renovated and rented 'city' house 5 or 6 years ago. The first time I saw the critter's head coming out of the hole, I thought it was a juvenile gray squirrel, until I saw the tail. Much bigger than your pet store variety rat. Not sure why they moved on but NOT complaining that they did!

I don't know about that specific trap with regard to humaneness, but since the mice in the 'farm' house wised up to the 'free trip to the back of the barn' 5 gallon bucket no kill trap, I broke down and got a couple of snap traps. No mess and they trip so fast, I doubt there is any suffering. I got 8 or 9 over a 2 month period, no blood, no guts and CHEAP. Bear with me here, background: My daughter and the 3 indoor cats moved back to the 'farm' house 2 weeks ago (LONG rehab). It was a necessity since she doesn't have a driver's license and my wife and I took a LONG hours in the car 6 day trip to southern Wisconsin to pick up our younger daughter from college. No one to watch the chickens while we were gone! So away went the snap traps, daughter wouldn't like them, DEFINITELY wouldn't have emptied and reset them and not safe for the cats. Early morning yesterday there was a LOT of commotion for a long time. I have no idea what time it was, still very dark out and the youngest cat (my daughter's) does sometimes play at night but this was different. I'm thinking he found a 'self motivated toy'. I heard one of the cats barfing at 5:30. Yep, dead mouse and barfed up mouse guts on the kitchen floor, daughter's cat walking away. Me? If I were a mouse, I would prefer the snap trap! Daughter? Never heard a thing and I am not mentioning it. She doesn't like any animal to be killed (not even spiders which she loathes) and she especially doesn't want her cat killing the mice. She just wants them to stay outside. That would suit me fine as well but the mice don't seem to understand.

Bruce

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm always afraid the snap traps will end up in the wrong place and break a chicken's leg. Supposedly the rat zapper is a pretty instant kill. I heard it go off once (reminded me of the electric chair movies) and it was very short and quick.

 

[bruceha2000]

I'm always afraid the snap traps will end up in the wrong place and break a chicken's leg. Supposedly the rat zapper is a pretty instant kill. I heard it go off once (reminded me of the electric chair movies) and it was very short and quick.

True, as with use in the house, they have to be kept away from the animals. But what I did find is that mice are smart (which makes me feel all the worse for killing them). At first I just put the traps along the wall. The mice went in from the side or maybe from the end where the wire is (I GUESS) and tripped it without getting caught. Maybe they stepped on the wire which could be enough pressure to trip it. No evidence of mouse other than the tripped trap and missing bait. So I put them in a corner with a box on one side so they HAD to go in from the trigger end. If you (or anyone

) wants to use them around other animals, they could be put in a human made 'tunnel' the desirable animals can not enter and no wider than the trap so they can't get to the bait without going over the proper end. Mice go in holes and tunnels all the time so they aren't suspicious. In fact, tunnels are where they go to hide from predators. Safe and smells like FOOD!

BTW, I don't know about peanut butter or other baits people use but I found they just love chicken fat. A blob of that on the trigger is fine. I stuck a sunflower seed on the blob for good measure. Works for many days since they never get the bait and the chicken fat (cooked, as in 'dripped into the pan while making dinner') sticks to the trigger. Not sure that would work in warmer weather though.

Bruce