Having problems with a rat

[FrenchHen]

I had no luck with the buckets. I hope your rats are dumber than mine!
My sister just saw another one....off to make more peanut butter balls.

 

[BantyRooster]

Go to TSC. Buy some Victor rat traps. Use peanut butter on the pan of the trap and set it along the wall or in front of the hole if the rat is tunneling into your coop.

You will generally catch him that night if not the next.

It should go without saying but make sure the trap is set up so your chickens cant get into it.


In my experience, rats usually only eat the feed, but the have a bad habit of defecating where they eat and I dont want my birds exposed to the rat's germs.

I did catch a few in Victor #1 long springs and an exceptionally HUGE one, it was bigger than a fox squirrel, in a 220 conibear.

Good luck.

 

[tagra123]

A whack with a garden shovel works well for 1 rat.

We have a few cats and a dog so the mice and rats tend not to bother our home or animal.

 

[cmom]

I use Decon. I don't care if it is poison. I know there have been rats under my fire wood which is on pallets. I slide the decon under the pallets. The only things I have found so far are dead rats under the stacks of fire wood.

 

[Lady_Cluck]

I use a Rat Zapper:

http://www.ratzapper.com/

It works great: clean, quick, effective. I have two of them set up in the barn at all times. The one time I used poison the rats chewed off some pieces and spread it throughout the barn and some of the chickens and ducks found it. I lost a few birds along with the rats.

I am going to google "bucket trap" now...

 

[shelleyd2008]

Rats will definitely take chicks, I've lost 4 BTW jap babies and 3 white silkie babies. They were in a nest with 4 'black' chicks (each group had 4 whites and 4 blacks, luckily one of the silkies was saved). I would think if a grown chicken were small enough, the rats could at least do some serious damage.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
I lost squabs and their parents one year to them - IN CAGES. They were the cage latches that are springs - the rats squeezed in the doors. I was horrified.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I believe we have lost some young pigeons as well, though I don't think any of the adults have been victims yet. Rats are almost as bad as other predators...

 

[fordmommy]

I told you the T rex works! I just caught a large mouse in one! It cost me $3.99 for two.

 

[edb]

I keep poison stations out and never had a problem. Its only big enough for a rat to enter and squirrels never seem to bother it.

http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/SPEC/pick-protecta1.htm