I hate rats!!! What they are capable of...

[hypnofrogstevie]

They killed my porcelain d'uccle chick. I am so upset and mad right now. I never would have thought they would kill a 1 1/2 week old chick and my last baby quail. I know it was a rat because the remains where in my back closet and I saw the SOB's tail. I just put rat poison in my room. I hope they die a slow painful death!!! I now have to look for more porcelain d'uccle eggs. Why does this happen to me?

 

[chickaboom]

Oh, I'm so so sorry. How awful.

 

[Pumpkinpup]

How terrible!!!!

 

[cjeanean]

haven't u ever seen Lady and the Tramp??? The rat was going after a baby!!!

....so sorry to hear that, I hope the darn thing dies, too!!!

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

Please make sure your birds are well protected inside your house and out. Hopefully no one will make the same mistake I did. I should of had a cover on there cages. I will be buying some rubbermaid bins and turning them into brooders with lids that lock. Now i know they got my red tailed boa 2 years ago. UGH!! The little chick was the only one that followed my hand and chirped when she wanted company. All the other chickens we have are not like that. I have to save up and get another batch of d'uccle eggs next year. I dont want to put the pics of the remains up as it will upset me again but if people really want to see what they are capable of I will suck it up and get some pics. All I found was a foot and some feathers in the dehydrator. In the cooler I have in the closet had the guts.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Rats, mice, and chipmunks can chew through wire. I have repaired
hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of rodent damage.

They are smart and remember things. Once they know of a food source it's
all over.

Old fashioned traps work well. Bait it with some peanut butter. CLICK - DEAD!

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

I remember the pics PC of the machine you where working on that had mice in it or rats. I got poison down but will buy rat traps and I will laugh when they get there necks snapped. I dont care if I sound rude but they deserve it. Well I put the chick feed up high where they cant get it and I wont have eggs coming in for a couple days. The day the eggs hatch I should have no more rat problems.

 

[PurpleChicken]

The poison is bad. Just use old fashioned traps. They are cheap and
effective. The rats are just trying to survive. I enjoy rat paintball hunting.

 

[SussexInSeattle]

Yes, rats are a very real danger to chicks and I have heard that they will eat the feet off confined chickens and rabbits so you have to take all into consideration. I lost my first pullet to a rat in May this year. At first I thought my dogs had gotten her but on close inspection, her hear had been eaten out of her as if a surgeon had taken it and not a spot of drool on her so then I came to my senses and realized no way it could be the dogs.

Next the rats got one whole new chick in June and just a head off another who they tried desperately to pull through a section of chicken wire but the chick of course wouldn't fit so they settled for eating her head. ( had an outdoor baby pen)

Finally I was sitting home with the window open and my chicks outside at 1:30 in the afternoon, broad daylight and hear my chicks going off! I ran outside so fast that I was barefoot still. To my horror, I see a big brown rat on top of one of my chicks back, inside the pen and biting away! I will NEVER forget that image! My Doberman had come out behind me and I kept telling him GET THE RAT! GET THE RAT! He didn't see the rat for a few seconds, then he saw what I was freaking over and by this time the rat, who had it's back to me, engrossewd in eating the chick, realized it was screwed so it kept running around in the pen trying to get out. The rat disappered under my truck when it found it's way out and my dog went after it but came back in a minute so I was really bummec that it got away.

Meanwhile I picked up the chick and held it and although the bite on it's back did not apppear to be deadly, she just shut her little eyes and gave up living. Someone told me she likely died of shock. I was so PO'd! And finally sick to death of rats. Someone on a dog list told me to pop my poison blocks down their holes. (These are Norway rats here who like digging mazes of burrows in the ground.) I had been afraid to do that since the poison maker advized not to on the packaging.

I went around my truck to put the little body in my trash and there laying in a patch of crushed flowers lay my killer rat, all dead! My wonder dog had caught and killed her but he forgot to tell me when he came back a minute later! That dog got extra treats that day!

Right after that I said screw it and dropped blocks down every rat hole I could find and wound up with like 13 dead bodies, just in my yard. No telling how many I killed in all. I figure if there are so many that they would kill in broad daylight then I better get a grip on the situation and so I did a no-no. There must have been so many that they ate every bit of poison and even if some remains, it is still buried under ground in their fairly small burrows.

I'm sorry you lost your rare chick. I say use the blocks. The stuff I used was called Real Kill (I think--it was green blocks, about 1/2 inch square-I could only find this at Home Depot) I have used other stuff since with the new rats that have taken over the barn, but they just eat that like candy and I have gotten no bodies! The new stuff was yellow and they just consumed that like crazy.

 

[SussexInSeattle]

Plastic containers are not good enough for chicks who have rats. Once they get a taste for blood, they will chew right through plastic. That is why we have to buy galvanized steel trash cans to store feed in. I have a fairly large outdoor shed which holds my lawnmower. They have holes chewed all over that thing because they like hanging on top of and underneath my mower for some reason.

You could enclose your plastic brooder in baby wire. Or use a large aquarium with a metal wire lid which you can lay your heat lamp on.