Egg killer

[maryellen21]

Also, only 1 tetra has been laying eggs and this week i got no eggs at all but the one on the dirt floor. I check for eggs twice before work then numerous times before 10pm every workday, weekends are constantly.

 

[maryellen21]

I have 9 chickens which includes 1 rooster.
Feed is kept in shed in its own bag but we will go out and buy metal container at tsc this weekend

 

[lazy gardener]

I wish you the best of luck. Years ago, I had a rat problem and was not aware of it until the day I saw one in broad day light. My feeding practices encouraged the problem, bags of feed not kept in metal cans, feed left out for the flock 24/7. I didn't put 2 + 2 together until I saw the rat, then realized that i had been buying A LOT of feed. We must have killed about a dozen rats that summer. And those were the ones that we saw. We also put out poison. They had even moved into the garage in our raised ranch, and had dug under the concrete footing, and up through the concrete at that end of the house. Search out the options for rat traps and poison (if you choose to go that route) There are some electrified traps on the market as well. If you use a standard trap, be sure you tie it to a sturdy location as a rat in a trap is capable of running/flopping a fair distance with the trap attached before succumbing to the trap.

 

[maryellen21]

Oh lovely. Thank you everyone for all the great advise! I cant use poison due to the dogs and cats that roam around the neighborhood so I'm going to have to use traps and my own dogs

 

[maryellen21]

Well yesterday we poured 2 bags of rocks on the outside of the pen where the critter was digging to get in and out. This morning i woke up to see the critter had dug OUT of the pen in the same spot- it must have climbed in by the door top where there is a small gap and then dug out once it ate the feed as some feed was missing. Traps are ready to be set tonight and heavy wire was buried where it kept getting in and i am fixing all spots i see. Put up motion camera for tonight . No poop on sight of whatever it is

 

[chooks4life]

Oh lovely. Thank you everyone for all the great advise! I cant use poison due to the dogs and cats that roam around the neighborhood so I'm going to have to use traps and my own dogs

Good on you, always good to avoid collateral damage when possible. As for traps, please be careful with them too, chooks and dogs etc can also hurt themselves in them so if they're not no-harm/live trap sorts, (and even sometimes if they are) they can be dangerous to have in easily accessible areas.

For baiting rats too smart to get into normal traps, chocolate (especially dark chocolate i.e. just cheap cooking chocolate) will work wonders as it's highly addictive; I let them have little bits free choice/non-trap (where the dogs/chooks etc can't get it) for about a week, and once they're addicted, no matter how smart they are they will put themselves into danger, not once but multiple times, just to get their fix. It's very addictive to rodents. I used to sticky tape the chocolate to the trap and they'd still wrestle with it, lol. Even though they were too smart to risk their lives for any other bait, and I'd tried lots of normally irresistible things without luck before the chocolate.

Well yesterday we poured 2 bags of rocks on the outside of the pen where the critter was digging to get in and out. This morning i woke up to see the critter had dug OUT of the pen in the same spot- it must have climbed in by the door top where there is a small gap and then dug out once it ate the feed as some feed was missing. Traps are ready to be set tonight and heavy wire was buried where it kept getting in and i am fixing all spots i see. Put up motion camera for tonight . No poop on sight of whatever it is

And therein lies the problem, even if you aviary-mesh the cage from top to bottom they can and will still find ways in. Bigger rats aren't averse to chewing through concrete and aviary mesh if they have to or just want to badly enough. They can also shift a lot of weight so small rocks won't do anything unless they're cemented together.

Best wishes.

 

[maryellen21]

I cant give my chocolate to a rat lol... That is terrible to waste it on a rat lol... I have traps where no animals can get them right now. Chicks will be locked in coop tonight when i put trap in pen, and dogs cant get to other one either . All are locked up as a precaution.
Worse case is we will pour concrete mix down hole by shed and concrete rats underground.

Hopefully we catch whatever it is so that then we can figure how to deal with it. No poop makes it harder to figure out what it is...

I only have dark chocolate here, i will put a small piece in each trap.

 

[lazy gardener]

If you don't want to waste good chocolate on a rat, how bout Ex-Lax? I understand your devotion to good chocolate. Just remember, If you have one rat, you probably have a dozen rats!!! Don't forget to tie those traps down, or you'll loose them down the holes!!

 

[maryellen21]

Oh i was joking about the chocolate- i dont mind using it to catch a rat..
The holes the critter is digging are small, the traps i have are large and the rats cant drag them down the holes. I have surveillance cameras up too so we can see what is there.

 

[maryellen21]

The only thing is the critter isnt leaving any poop..