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

[MontanaChickDoc]

There are types of poisons in which there is no "relay toxicity" ie if a cat or chicken eats the dead body, they will not get poisoned. They are vitamin D based. I tried RatX which is supposed to work only on rats and mice - it causes them to lose their desire to drink so they just slowly dehydrate and die. It won't harm pets or chickens or kids if they eat it. I can't say it worked all that great though. They were getting into my quail enclosure and eating the quail eggs. Maybe a few fell for it. But the ones in my kitchen, coming from under the oven, are still pooping on the counter (eeeeew).

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

What is an electronic rat trap?

You can get them at Home Depot, online, etc. They electrocute the rodents instantly when their feet hit the metal plate on the bottom. Some also plug in so you don't have to buy batteries. Very humane. We had a packrat that kept chewing my drain hose on my washing machine in the garage. I was so happy to zap that sucker!

 

[cmom]

What is an electronic rat trap?

I just looked them up. You still need to use some kind of bait. It appears it will kill one rat at a time. The reviews weren't the greatest.

 

[addctd2plnts]

I don’t have pictures right now. I could take some later (it’s roughly 108 degrees here today!!!) we haven’t placed the wire down very far. But the rats are digging tunnels and the piles of dirt they are pushing up is about a foot or more deep in places!!! And they are tunneling from all the way across the back yard (several hundred feet). I’ve tried everything from putting ammonia into the tunnels, moth balls, gopher gassers. You name it I’ve tried it. The last 2 weeks I’m completely worn out. I find more holes where they tunnel out or in. And they tear up my fencing. We have an old dog out back but he’s completely blind and bless his poor old heart, he tries to find them when he can. Every day I’m coming in from outside in tears because I don’t know what to do. I even told my husband we need to sit out there as still as possible and pick them off one at a time with a firearm.

Be VERY CAREFUL if you poison and have pets. Rat poison is VERY attractive to dogs! It cost me $3,000 to save 2 of my dogs' lives when they got only a few granules of mouse poison our barn girl happened to blow out of the barn! In addition, the newer mouse/rat poisons have NO ANTIDOTE if a pet gets it! Another one of our dogs walked into the house with a bait block for inside the bait station, and we hadn't had baited the houses in 5 YEARS. Thank goodness we rushed him to emergency vet and they made him vomit. That bill was only $150. We have a farm and have to rotate methods to control mice, but it's much safer to bait snap traps than to use poison. Go to Youtube and they have a bunch of videos on how to place and set traps for best results. this is a better trap, but use the ATTRACTANT to get good results: https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/ez-snap-rat-station This company was very helpful.

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

I just looked them up. You still need to use some kind of bait. It appears it will kill one rat at a time. The reviews weren't the greatest.
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Just a little peanut butter or dog kibble. There are lots of different ones, and I have had great success with multiple versions. I don't really worry about the reviews, as disgruntled people tend to review more. The main drawback in my opinion is the price, and yes, 1 rat at a time. If I were the OP, I'd do the buckets with peanut butter on the spinning bar and the zapper for maintenance.

 

[cmom]

You can never completely get rid of rats. Eventually more will show up and they multiply quickly. They have to be kept under control. I check my bait stations regularly and now and then I do have to replace the baits but can go for quite awhile with little or no activity. I like the bait stations and if used responsibly do not have to be dangerous, like putting the bait station in a pet carrier where nothing but the rats can get to the baits. Most predators that may eat a dead poisoned rat will have no affects but if something eats the poison directly then that is a different story.

 

[seminolewind]

I had a coop that was infested with rats. When I started renovating the coop, dozens of rats of all sizes came pouring out of the ceiling and inner walls we put in that coop, which was the first coop we had built. I tried most everything to no avail. I did eventually get some poison. I'm not advocating poison but it worked for me. My personal choice. I used rat bait stations and placed them in pet carriers and put them on shelves. At first I put just the baits in places where I thought nothing but the rats could get to them and they kept disappearing night after night. That is when I bought the bait stations. Originally I left the bait stations on the floor in our barn which is behind the coops. Something demolished the bait stations so I put a camera up. It was a possum. I thought how can this creature still be alive after eating so much rat poison. After some research they have something in their system so they are immune to the poison. That is when I bought the rat bait stations which didn't last long. I bought some more bait and bait stations and put them in pet carriers on shelves in the barn and no more possums getting to the bait. I did expect to see a bunch of dead rats laying around from the poison but was surprised. I checked the bait daily as there is a little window above the bait so it can be checked often and as time went by the baits were hardly being touched then I went for quite awhile with no takers. There were tunnels around the barn and coops which I'm pretty sure the rats made so I assume they went into their tunnels and died and buried themselves and that is why I didn't find any dead rats laying around. There is a partition down the middle inside of the rat bait stations that the rats have to go around to get to the bait to help to keep them from getting any bait out. Good luck...

Hi cmom. Good advice! I know what you mean about all the ones you don't see. They multiply alot faster than I could kill once a day. I have also found that some bait works better than others. I have been using Tomcat (the dark green one) and have great results with that. If they can reach or eat chicken feed, nothing will work

 

[cmom]

If I was disgruntled I would probably not rate them very well either.

 

[cmom]

I have not had any issues with the rats getting in my feeders but all of my feeders are hanging feeders. Currently I have around 500 birds including my chicks so I can't just put the feed away. I have to control the rat population.

 

[aart]

If I were the OP, I'd do the buckets with peanut butter on the spinning bar and the zapper for maintenance.

5 gal bucket probably wouldn't work with rats, you'd need something much deeper.