Help, help, rats everywhere....

[PaulaJoAnne]

Look into some of the new poisons that do not kill on site. They are anticoagulants, so a rat takes it back to the nest and eats it, and over the course of time slowly kills itself. They keep the blood from clotting, and soon the rat bleeds to death internally. Be sure to put it inside a box that none of your animals or chickens can get into... the tighter the better. If the rats think they're pulling one over on you by sneaking into an almost completely secured area to steal the food, they'll jump at the chance. You should see the problem disappear in a few weeks.

 

[esthermgr]

Cat? Or three?

 

[Mrs. Green Thumbs]

Have you thought about adopting a cat? Even a feral (fixed please) cat would earn it's keep and keep the rest of your animals safe from accidental poisoning.

 

[katharinad]

Quote:
Elmers Glue!!! Glue the bait onto the mechanism. They have to rattle the bait and this will get them every time. I use sunflower seed on my traps.
Good luck,
Katharina

 

[fancbrd4me02]

Quote:
I always remove the food and water every night when I lock our hens in the coop. Are you suggesting removing the straw/hay that I have in the coop? They don't sleep in it, they just scratch around in it mixing it with the moss and poop. Should we not be using that then?

Sorry for all the questions.

If there is feed loose in the bedding, the rats may be going into it to find food. Also, try to figure out what areas the rats are using to travel/shelter themselves and if possible remove those things. For instance, overhanging tree branches near buildings, wood piles, heavy brush, etc., Most animals don't like clear clean areas without cover, especially rodents.

I have barn owls, they help with rodent control, so I am opposed to poison. Predators of rodents can fall victim to the poisons, thus reducing natural controls. You may want to consider putting up a barn owl house or two on your property.

 

[Knowing Happiness]

Rats are my least favorite thing about keeping chickens. I have found that hanging the feeders helps some, a concrete floor in the coop excludes many of them, and always storing the feed in tight containers is crucial. My friend was rodent free until the chickens moved in from his neighbors' places where the horses and cattle were just not as interesting to the rodents as the chickens and their food. I've not tried to make the entire run rodent proof because it would then be cat proof, and farmer proof. I did have luck with a coop that is on stilts with a retractable ramp. With the ramp up at night the rats can't climb the stilts to get to the good stuff. I suppose they are still out there but not in any great numbers. Also have to agree with the total numbers versus visible numbers ratio. When the rats got bad enough to get the cat's attention I found that entire sections of the run were catacomb-ed with rat tunnels. Yuck! Good luck!

 

[chicknmania]

Quote:
WEll, that's interesting but I don't think our rats have any of those tester ones.. WE didn't use poison, we used the plaster of paris and powdered sugar mix. After two or three big helpings of that over a period of days,, our rat population has significantly declined. I didn't see any for several days; did see one or two, and now there are some young ones, so I put out more of the mix yesterday. I think it will be a constant battle but I'm pretty sure we're winning it.

And......we do have cats. We have two of our own plus there are tons of feral cats, thanks to our neighbor's cat factory. But, they don't seem to make much of a dent.

 

[chicknmania]

Quote:
I will not use glue traps. Even for rats. Those things should be illegal. My concern about poison is not before the rats eat it, but that another animal or a chicken will find the dead rat that has ingested the poison, and either eat it or peck at it.

 

[chicknmania]

Quote:
Hmmmmm...no wonder so many horse people I know have em....!

 

[chicknmania]

This is interesting b/c people do have a lot of what seem to be good solutions for an obviously very common problem. But, we live in the country and actually learned from a professional trapper (we heard on tv) that if you live in that type of environment you will always be battling rats, and, he says actually the best thing is snap traps baited with cashews. Just another idea for someone.

We do not have a coop, our chickens and peas are free range. At night they roost in our barn and it is pretty much impossible to make that area free of possible rat housing. And, we live in the woods, so freeing the area of brush and trees is totally impractical. That's why we live here, anyway, we want the brush and trees. Our neighbors surrounding us are primarily farmers and actually we had rats visiting before we ever had any livestock, due to the surrounding farms.

We do pick up the food at night. Our rat problem was originally so bad that the rats were trying to steal the food while our chickens were eating. But as I said, the rat population seems to have decreased a lot since then. Let's hope it continues to. Also keeping feed in steel cans or heavy duty, rat-chew proof bins, is essential.

Just wanted to point this out to show what a terrible problem rats can be, there doesn't seem to be any easy answer, but certainly a lot of possible temporary solutions, especially combined.