Help me get rid of my nightly visitors!!!!!

[McChooky]

Also watch JOSEPH CARTER THE MINK MAN. Terriers are the way to go!!

I borrowed a Terrier from a friend back in the 70's to kill rats and in a couple days they were all gone. It was simply unbelievable!

 

[McChooky]

.If you lock your food and garbage up where they don't have anything to eat the predators will kill them off for you .The rest will leave in search for food. Rats eat their young if they get hungry enough.They also attack and kill each other for food.Owls,hawks,coyotes,foxes and snakes eat rats just to name a few.

I urge you NOT to use poison!!! Should an owl eat a dying rat (or WORSE) carry it back to the nest, the secondary poisoning is WAY more severe than the rats...

 

[MClean417]

Follow Ted's Holdover queue for dealing with pests. Kill them with lead, not poison, and distribute to cats who like a little fresh meat. Make sure your cats are vaccinated.

 

[raingarden]

Shooting them is more fun.... if you have the time. It takes a lot of watching and waiting when you could be mucking out the coop.

 

[Miniflock]

I certainly never indicated we were dealing with hundreds of rats. We shot one and trapped one that we were having trouble getting otherwise.
No public health hazard. Hundreds of acres of bush/ forest around the hydro field that is loaded with large predators.

 

[Hamannshens]

I am at my wits end. We tried to figure out what was getting into the chicken run and coops. Bought a trail cam and it’s rats!!!! And OMG there are quite a few!! Please tell me there is hope to get rid of them. The neighbors cats are trying but I think there’s too many. I know the exterminator is gonna cost me a fortune. Any suggestions to try first? You cannot imagine the horrible painful death I’m wishing on every one of them

We had a similar problem. Tried poison but worried about other animals eating the rat carcasses, including my chickens when they are out free ranging. Even with killing several, we still had problems, so decided to put the feeder in a large sealed bucket at night. It does mean a little extra work getting it out to the girls in the morning and putting it up at night, but we've reduced the amount of feed we're going through by about 75%!! Amazing how much those vermin were eating at our expense!

 

[Grannysfuturefarm]

Poison, traps, shooting them, dancing around the coop clockwise naked while chanting or speaking in tongues and splashing peppermint and plaster mixed with flour and peanut butter... all of it might work for some for a while. What does work every time is to buy a treadle feeder with a spring loaded door. You stop feeding the rats and they leave or they starve to the point where there are only the few that their territory will support with natural food.

Bringing your feeder in at night just teaches the rats to eat during the day once you have an infestation. Get a treadle feeder. Done, go on vacation, be lazy on Sunday morning, not worrying about having to set out the feeder and bring it back inside is worth what to you?

Starve em out. Do a forum search for Howard E 's excellent posts on rat control. Clean up the pathways to and from the coop so the rats are exposed to predators as they travel too and from the coop. Bulk feed in metal barrels with good lids, coop feed in spring loaded door treadle feeders and when you shop pay close attention to the negative reviews, those are the customers that actually had a vermin problem, the rest needed a chicken feeder. Compost piles can be a draw too but to support a large population you need a steady supply of animal feed.

Good luck!

What kind of treadle feeders Did you get?? I looked for them online and it seems there are several different ones. Also I have a couple of VERY SMALL bantams. Will they be able to use the feeders? Since my spoiled band of pampered Poultry has only used the gravity feeders, how hard will it be to get them trained to use the treadle type??? Keep in mind, I have a few very smart chickens and of course a few that are NOT smarter than a 5th grader!!!!
Thank you for your advice

 

[Al Gerhart]

What kind of treadle feeders Did you get?? I looked for them online and it seems there are several different ones. Also I have a couple of VERY SMALL bantams. Will they be able to use the feeders? Since my spoiled band of pampered Poultry has only used the gravity feeders, how hard will it be to get them trained to use the treadle type??? Keep in mind, I have a few very smart chickens and of course a few that are NOT smarter than a 5th grader!!!!
Thank you for your advice

Look for the ratproof chicken feeder, there is only one sold under that name. Plenty that claim to be ratproof that are not. Bantams, you need a few full size birds as a bantam won't have enough reach or weight to use a properly designed treadle feeder with a narrow and distant treadle step. Training is easy if you follow the directions. Secure the feeder to a post or wall, make sure the treadle bottoms out on the ground so it is not wobbling around, remove ALL other feed sources and coop up the birds for the day. And follow the instructions to the very letter. Nothing else, nothing less.

The intelligence of the chickens isn't the problem. Once hungry they are fearless in a few hours. Where we sometimes see problems is when people refuse to follow the directions. They will mount a feeder a foot off the ground. Not fasten it to a wall. Not coop up the birds so the birds fill up on grass instead of trying the newfangled contraption in their coop. It ain't the chicken that is the problem in these cases....

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

innocent chipmunks

Nothing innocent about them! Destructive little beasts