How Do You Destry A Rat/Mouse Family?

[DrinkTheRainbow]

Stupid, stupid, stupid rats or mice gnawed their way all the way into our coop where we keep the babies and took 10 of our ducklings. In revenge we killed 7 rats or mice. I cannot believe how many there are! There were so many! Then the next day they take the last 5. I want them all dead or they'll take the chicks! Help!

 

[Katy]

After fighting the rats here for many months without poison I gave in and put poison out in locked bait boxes. Wish I'd have done it sooner....after a week I saw a marked decrease in activity and it's continued to the point I think 99.9% of them may be dead.

 

[PDurkin]

Poison. Take no prisoners.

 

[orientphoenix]

if there is any of the dead remaining carcass then use those or raw meat scraps, dunk those with the rat poison from wal mart then put in an area that they usually come to but make sure that it is away from the other animals reach, in the next few days u will notice the decrease in rat activity

 

[ralleia]

Quote:
Which are they--rats or mice? There's a significant difference in the size and danger of the two. If they can kill ducklings, I would guess you would have to be dealing with rats.

I found a nest of baby mice under a board in the litter of the henhouse. I just tossed them into the chicken yard and the chickens went nuts chasing and eating them.

I avoid poison because of the possibility that the chickens will eat the bodies.

We haven't had to deal with rats yet--only mice, but so far we've used the Victor snap traps. I've started to get shy of setting those, so I bought a few of those black plastic Rex traps that you set by pressing the back. That way the fingers get nowhere near the business end of trap (unless one is being silly). Those are kill traps, and just need to be set either somewhere that none of your birds, cats, or dogs can get to, or otherwise set during times of the day when you prevent any non-target animals from getting close.