Help rats are eating my chickens!

[Judwah2000]

I've had chickens for 25 years and never had this problem before. Rats are living under my coop, we've been waging war on them for the last year...With the weather being so cold this winter we forgot to trap them and now they've decided to eat my chickens. In the last week I've lost four chickens.
We've got rat traps and RatX under the coop, today we're going to try smoking them out and then my dogs will be lying in wait. We keep our feed in metal containers and take the feed away at night. Every other day we find a new hole chewed into the coop. I feel so bad for my hens, I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks in advance,
Jude

 

[nuthatched]

Can you bring the birds in?

 

[Judwah2000]

Can you bring the birds in?

No, I have nowhere to keep 20 hens and a rooster. No garage. I have a barn but it's only 100' from the coop area and they wouldn't be safe there either.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

Open the door of the coop so the rats can't gang them at night. Get some tough gamefowl too. An Asil hen or rooster would go full t-rex on some rats

 

[SourRoses]

You need an emergency coop light on all night. Think night light level. You don't want it so bright that the chickens have trouble sleeping, but they need to be able to see where the predators are coming from so they can move away / peck back.

I once lost a 3 month old pullet to rat(s). The coop seemed very secure so I had trouble figuring out how it got inside until I hung around observing in the evening. I knew the things ran around outside, but after doing a few circuits outside the HW cloth, using it as a rat playground, one flung itself into a narrow gap between a corner post and wall panel. I marched over with my flashlight and tried to stick my fingers through, only one would fit. Truly it makes no sense how their bodies work, but I learned my lesson and eliminated every gap.

Couple years later, this summer, we lost a chick in our outdoor brooder to a pencil thin corn snake. That brooder was supposed to be Ft. Knox with HW Cloth over dog exercise panels for doors overlapping the frame. So I scoured that thing for an entry point and finally found by opening and closing the doors that there was a section of door with a thin gap from above due to a very slight warp in the dog panel. I couldn't imagine a creature getting through something so slight, but I guess that snake was determined. And the chick it went after (2 weeks) was way too big for it to consume.

 

[Judwah2000]

You need an emergency coop light on all night. Think night light level. You don't want it so bright that the chickens have trouble sleeping, but they need to be able to see where the predators are coming from so they can move away / peck back.

I once lost a 3 month old pullet to rat(s). The coop seemed very secure so I had trouble figuring out how it got inside until I hung around observing in the evening. I knew the things ran around outside, but after doing a few circuits outside the HW cloth, using it as a rat playground, one flung itself into a narrow gap between a corner post and wall panel. I marched over with my flashlight and tried to stick my fingers through, only one would fit. Truly it makes no sense how their bodies work, but I learned my lesson and eliminated every gap.

Couple years later, this summer, we lost a chick in our outdoor brooder to a pencil thin corn snake. That brooder was supposed to be Ft. Knox with HW Cloth over dog exercise panels for doors overlapping the frame. So I scoured that thing for an entry point and finally found by opening and closing the doors that there was a section of door with a thin gap from above due to a very slight warp in the dog panel. I couldn't imagine a creature getting through something so slight, but I guess that snake was determined. And the chick it went after (2 weeks) was way too big for it to consume.

Thanks, I will definitely keep a light on all night. Today we are cleaning all the bedding out of the coop (in the frozen rain) to get a good look for any places where they might be getting in. It truly is amazing how they can fit through the smallest hole. After that, we're doing smoke bombs, with the dogs waiting for them to make a break. Probably won't get them all but will repeat as necessary. This is war

 

[Al Gerhart]

I've had chickens for 25 years and never had this problem before. Rats are living under my coop, we've been waging war on them for the last year...With the weather being so cold this winter we forgot to trap them and now they've decided to eat my chickens. In the last week I've lost four chickens.
We've got rat traps and RatX under the coop, today we're going to try smoking them out and then my dogs will be lying in wait. We keep our feed in metal containers and take the feed away at night. Every other day we find a new hole chewed into the coop. I feel so bad for my hens, I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks in advance,
Jude

Traps and poison usually do not work long term as the rats are clever enough to understand what to avoid.

Bringing in your food at night doesn't help either, it might hurt actually. First the rats will just eat during the day as not that many hens or roosters will take on a full grown rat. You just teach the rats to eat during the day and at night instead of stealing your feed they eat the toes off the chickens or worse. They are mostly nocturnal and they are hungry, chicken is on the menu.

If you see a few you have two to ten times as many. They have to chew to live, to keep their teeth worn down or they penetrate their skulls. Chewing new holes is just what the do.

So you have three methods, ordered by lowest cost and effectiveness:

Sanitation, bulk feed in metal drums, a treadle feeder that actually is rat proof, most are not, and cleaning up the paths used by the rats to travel between water, food, and their dens. Expose them to natural predators is the goal to keep their numbers down. I think you already have the bulk feed taken care of, $65 up on a treadle feeder plus shipping, a good big one will cost you $110 to $140 shipped in depending on where you are. You won't find a good one on Amazon. The HAVE to have a spring loaded door and a narrow and distant treadle AND you have to have mostly full size hens. No chicks, no poults, too dangerous to use ANY treadle feeder with young birds.

Next method, exclusion, a Fort Knox coop. Hardware cloth 360 degrees unless you have brick walls or corrugated tin with zero gaps, no free range. Even concrete won't stop a chewing rat nor will aluminum. Cost, you will spend a fortune or work to keep the holes plugged. Not impossible but it can be done.


Then the last method is to try to eliminate them by trapping and poison. Rarely possible, works for a while till they wise up or if you did wipe out a colony a new population would move in shortly. A non stop expense and as you said, you gotta keep up on top of the trapping or the rat population explodes. One caveat, once you do get a treadle feeder with a spring pre loaded door that is impossible for a few rats to push open, when the rats start to starve on day three those baits and traps begin to work again and the rats begin to venture out into the day where your dogs and the natural predators will thin their ranks out quickly.

Best of luck to you. Search for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control, he was the best source we had for years. He finally gave up, said people wouldn't listen to his advice so he quit giving it.

 

[McChooky]

Move your chickens and get a Rat terrier and some cats or hire an exterminator.They're not cheap.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

Move your chickens and get a Rat terrier and some cats or hire an exterminator.They're not cheap.

In my experience for every rat that a cat kills that same cat will kill 30 harmless woodland creatures such as songbirds

 

[Judwah2000]

Traps and poison usually do not work long term as the rats are clever enough to understand what to avoid.

Bringing in your food at night doesn't help either, it might hurt actually. First the rats will just eat during the day as not that many hens or roosters will take on a full grown rat. You just teach the rats to eat during the day and at night instead of stealing your feed they eat the toes off the chickens or worse. They are mostly nocturnal and they are hungry, chicken is on the menu.

If you see a few you have two to ten times as many. They have to chew to live, to keep their teeth worn down or they penetrate their skulls. Chewing new holes is just what the do.

So you have three methods, ordered by lowest cost and effectiveness:

Sanitation, bulk feed in metal drums, a treadle feeder that actually is rat proof, most are not, and cleaning up the paths used by the rats to travel between water, food, and their dens. Expose them to natural predators is the goal to keep their numbers down. I think you already have the bulk feed taken care of, $65 up on a treadle feeder plus shipping, a good big one will cost you $110 to $140 shipped in depending on where you are. You won't find a good one on Amazon. The HAVE to have a spring loaded door and a narrow and distant treadle AND you have to have mostly full size hens. No chicks, no poults, too dangerous to use ANY treadle feeder with young birds.

Next method, exclusion, a Fort Knox coop. Hardware cloth 360 degrees unless you have brick walls or corrugated tin with zero gaps, no free range. Even concrete won't stop a chewing rat nor will aluminum. Cost, you will spend a fortune or work to keep the holes plugged. Not impossible but it can be done.


Then the last method is to try to eliminate them by trapping and poison. Rarely possible, works for a while till they wise up or if you did wipe out a colony a new population would move in shortly. A non stop expense and as you said, you gotta keep up on top of the trapping or the rat population explodes. One caveat, once you do get a treadle feeder with a spring pre loaded door that is impossible for a few rats to push open, when the rats start to starve on day three those baits and traps begin to work again and the rats begin to venture out into the day where your dogs and the natural predators will thin their ranks out quickly.

Best of luck to you. Search for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control, he was the best source we had for years. He finally gave up, said people wouldn't listen to his advice so he quit giving it.

Thank you, all great advice!