I saw a rat in the coop today...

[Yetti]

no luck as of yet. I even did a partial ration of food so none was left in the tray over night. if they are going to get hungry they will go for the traps.
on a side note I had the traps in the barn this fall. caught a couple mice within the first couple days. once the water started freezing I quit using them for a while

 

[confusedbanti]

Thank you for posting the picture . Good luck with the Rat

 

[mendozer]

I got one the good old fashioned way today, with my bat. They didn't fall for the bucket trap I made. I didn't have a spoke or a wire hanger so I made a raft with a pipe sticking up with peanut butter on it. It's still in the middle of the bucket, so I hoped for them to reach for it and fall in. One more to go. I just got done chasing em and even whacked em good, but the sucker's still alive.

 

[Yetti]

well had tracks in the snow this morning but didn't catch any yet. what ever is living in the hut must stay pretty alert as I haven't had a chance to see him yet again.

 

[mendozer]

my poison block's gone after my second attempt to whack it last night so it's hopefully dying off somewhere. It bit one of my girls b/c i found dried blood on my nesting box as well as on the food trough. I don't know where the wound is or which one it is. I'll need to do a thorough inspection later.

they do well to recover on their own right?

 

[Yetti]

just watch that there isn't infection. if the mice hang around the pee is the worst. they get in food stuffs and grain piles and make a mess. I had a nest in my A/C unit outside. they destroyed by just peeing on everything. wiped out the circuit board a relays just from running over top of it. one wasn't so lucky when he stepped on the start capacitor for the electric motor. he took 240Volts through his little feet and went "Poof" in a cloud of smoke. I just found parts of him and some ashes.

 

[mendozer]

i did find pee in the nesting boxes so i cloroxed all of it and re-did the whole filling.

 

[mendozer]

also, i couldn't find anything upon inspection. it's hard to see skin under all those feathers. I'll just watch and see if one starts acting differently

 

[Yetti]

I got a floater!

the trap had been up on the shelf in the coop.

 

[mendozer]

nice. My bucket trap has yet to get it. It prefers to get into the coop itself despite me chasing it out every night. I would imagine it'd go for my bucket trap outside the coop. I filled it with sunflower seeds and put peanut butter!

i'm very angry as I chased it down today (for the first time in broad daylight) and I just missed em with the bat. That gets under my skin, that the bugger gets to live another day.