How do I deal with RATS?

[DEVILDOG]

I would be real careful with the poison. Rats make what they call cashes. They take food and hide it for later. Anything with a heartbeat will die from the poison. The bait is real nasty stuff, the base is corn so your chickens may like it too.
I own my own pest control company in SC. I would suggest that if you know were the burrows are getting some tracking powder and dusting the entrances. (You may need a professional to treat the borrows.) The best and easyest way would be to put snap traps all around the area were you see the borrows. Put the trapes up against a surface with the bussiness end towards the wall.
You then need to remove all other food sorces that you don't need out. You need to make them hungery. Rats do not travel so the rats you see are your rats they will not leave. Good luck Brad

 

[dakotasnake]

i had rats a few yrs ago, it worked best for me to fill 5 gal. pails 1/2 full of water in a place they can get in the pail. in the mornings i always had drowned rats to dispose of, if possible always stuff dead rats down there burrows and the rest will want to move on to a friendlier envirment. another trick is to put sugar mixed with plaster of paris and have another little bowl of water nearby for them. of course you no what plaster of paris and water will do. make sure to keep it away from the chickens and other critters. i havent seen a rat here in 3 yrs now.

 

[Jolyn]

Man if you saw the rat my cat brought me yesterday you would get a CAT!!!! I found my mouser on Craigslist.....he's an old barn cat.

 

[Buckguy20]

You can poke broken glass in thier holes.

You just have to get someone to help hold the rats.
(Sorrry old joke)

 

[reallemons1]

An old farmer here, now deceased, used to fill a large bucket of water and hang a cob of corn over it. It worked pretty well. I use Just One Bite Rat Bait Bars. Being bar shaped the chickens are less likely to eat it and the rats and mice love it to death

I put it in the feed room, away from the chickens and other animals.

 

[Jolyn]

Quote:
OMG!!!!!

 

[babalubird]

The fact that your chickens found the poisoned rat would scare me to death.

We are fighting that battle right now ourselves in our camper we use as our home on the farm and also our shipping container we use for our hay, feed and storing household goods.

After having mice die in hard to find places and stinking up everything, I am not crazy about poison.

We have stumbled on a partial solution for us. We use the sticky paper mouse/rat traps. We've used them in the past with little success. It never occurred to me--duh!--to bait them with some real food. We smushed a few cookie crumbs in the middle and viola, we had 7 in three traps by morning. They stay put or die in place. Just remember where you put the traps and it's easy to dispose of them.

I would try to put these also where the chickens can't get to them, but I would think at least a chicken, should it get stuck in those, would be salvagable if found in time.

Hope this helps.

Connie

 

[LV426]

Glue traps are cruel and inhumane and trap more than just mice and rats. Your own pets and birds can get stuck in a glue trap.

Get a cat and keep your feed locked up and swept up. You should also secure the coop against rats getting inside.

 

[babalubird]

Most of the glue traps have a natural anesthetic in them that at least helps in the "animal cruelty" argument. I certainly think they are no more inhumane than poisons, probably less. Your pets, unintended animals, are in far greater danger of secondary poisoning if they find a poisoned rat or mouse and consume it. Hopefully you can unstick your pet if he gets in the glue without getting poisoned. The trick is to try to position the traps where anything larger than a rat or mouse cannot access it. Not always 100% fool-proof, admittedly, but more tragically, neither is poison.

It really depends on the country situation whether or not getting cats is "animal cruelty" or not. We are in wild country. Cats would fall prey quickly to coyotes as well as a number of diseases carried by wild animals. Most people who keep barn cats in sufficient numbers to do any good cannot afford to keep them vaccinated or take them to the vet when ill. I have seen cats sickly and even found unknown cats dead in our barn for whatever reason. I think it would be much more cruel to keep cats in our environment.

Not everyone can have a barn built like a concrete bunker that will keep the little creeps (rodents) out. We do keep our horse feed in metal garbage pans but it's pretty hard to do that with hay bales and that's all you need to attract them by the droves now that winter is here.

Sorry! I don't have a problem being "cruel" to those obnoxious beasts if it means protecting my livestock and us from all the disease and filth mice and rats bring with them. The glue traps, baited, are working well for us and we will continue. I'll be hooking up the Victor heavy duty sonic "mouse chaser" tomorrow, but I am skeptical about that one. It's just that we are desperate.

Connie

 

[cmom]

Decon where the pets can't get it. I put mine under pallets that our wood is stacked on as I have seen rats there I think they like to hide there. I'm feeding antifreeze to the skunks if I can't shoot them, also placed where other animals won't get into it but where I have seen the skunks. I checked with my local wildlife, game & fish dept. and they said I could shoot away, but it's not legal to shoot in all areas but ok in mine.