How to protect chicks from rodents

[Cholesterol man]

Hi, I have 3 chicks and they live in area where lots of rats are there. I am going for a trip for 3 days and givings chicks to my neighbour. There are no other predetor such as cat, snake and birds of prey. Does rat kill chickens ?, Please help

 

[Cazook]

what's protecting your run? hardware cloth will keep them out, just be sure to bury it into the ground too.

 

[Callender Girl]

I have not had rats around chicks, just full-grown chickens, but regardless of whether they would kill the chicks, they're just bad to have around and darned hard to get rid of.

Hardware cloth is a great tool, but even with that, I would worry about tiny birds.

 

[Cholesterol man]

Any homemade pesticides ?

 

[cmom]

I had a coop that was infested and tried a lot of different things but in the end bough some rat bait boxes and put them in our barn which is behind the coops. I put the bait boxes in pet carriers on a shelf so nothing but the rats could get to the bait. I did resort to using poison. I'm not advocating using poison only that I did. When I started renovating the coop taking out the ceiling and walls, dozens of rats of all sizes poured out and there were rat nests. I didn't find any dead rats laying around so I assume they went into some tunnels that were around the coop and barn and died so they buried themselves. Since you have only three chicks you could put them in a cage. I have some made with hardware cloth so nothing can get to my chicks. Good luck on your trip and have fun...

 

[Al Gerhart]

Rat will catch and kill even feathered out chicks. Gotta make a coop rat proof and keep them there till they are large enough to fend for themselves. After that, as always, use a treadle feeder so the rats cannot eat the feed. Once you stop feeding rodents they always leave for another food source.