I've Been Bamboozled !

[Liz Birdlover]

Down the rabbit hole and read this whole thread.
Thank you all for the very descriptive depiction of your unfortunate incidents with various varmints. Great way to start Sunday with a good laugh!

I can always count on this site for humor & it's my "gotta have" now every morning to start my day smiling. Plus, You all make me remember my own laughable incidents. I do believe the 3 Stooges & Lucy would be proud of us all!

 

[Liz Birdlover]

The one thing I can't get rid of for the world, and its already starting to be BAD is the fgn moles. I have a feeling im going to have to hit that with propane and hope i don't blow up too much of the neighbors yard too but they are VERY bad already. Miserable things.

Lotta moles here but the foxes get them, I see little divets dug all over & know Foxy just had himself a fresh mole dinner. I tell him he's a "good dog" & to stay on rodent patrol...thank goodness for my foxes...like that's some crazy words coming from a bird lady's mouth, but my friends have a rat problem & OMG, I Never want to go through what they're experiencing.

 

[Ascholten]

We have fire ants here too, they call them “tiny fire ants” and have become a big problem. From what I understand if you see any ants you actually have to kill the queen and this requires poisoning every month for a year.
We’re supposed to report any ant sightings and then somebody from the county comes out with the poison and instructions. Not sure about toxicity to chickens. We thankfully haven’t seen any on our property, yet. Pretty sure I have rats up in the attic though, I haven’t seen any during the day yet but I hear them rearranging the furniture in the middle of the night.

They probably are using some sort of Bromethin? to nuke the ants, which if the chickens eat it, they will die.

For the most part the chickens know to leave the stuff alone, it smells awful, but I had a retarded one, I think literally, she dug up the burlap sack I put over it to keep them out and scratched thru and ate some of the powder. she was gone in a few days. Tried to save her but when you start seeing stuff like, administer atrophine and 2pam chloride, sorry honey, it's not your day. You go out of your way NOT to poison around the birds, but some stuff you HAVE to take care of or you will have a HUGE problem, and when you go through all the extra steps to keep them out, and ONE decides to rip through all your safeguards anyways. well .. you Darwin'd yourself there tootsie.

The rats, that reminds me of my time in the Keys. Things would climb the trees and hop into the house and cause all sorts of damage in the attics,but OH NO !! you can't kill it, that's the endangered cudjoe key rat !! Oh really? well it'll make a nice tasty side dish, right next to my Key Deer Filet ! Maybe I'll get lucky and find a spotted owl and a manatee, and have a super surf and turf !!

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Those ants. Ants are ants in some aspects. Put some boric acid down around the house, that should keep them out and is harmless too the cluckers. or mix Boric Acid and DE and puff dust in and out. If you want throw some powdered sugar in it to entice them to it to make sure they get it.

Aaron

 

[Liz Birdlover]

It took a little time. I set a number of snap traps, they got one or two but not too many. I eventually got them with an electronic trap and one of those bucket dunk type traps where you bait it and they fall in.

I would also go out with a 22 pistol and some lower power rounds in it and go over to the one compost bin they were fond of, rip the cover off it and as they scurried, shot them on site.

Rats I always threw in the trash. Mice, I have a few snakes so never really seen many mice, wish they'd get the rats but nope, but mice and smaller ie baby rats, pinkies /furries, Id feed the chickens. THey actually LOVED them.

Aaron

I bought 20 electronic battery zap traps for mice & now my pigeon loft is mouse free...well, I also rebuilt their flight pens with 1/2" welded wire & tore off the 20 yr old T1-11 & redid with the step up quality T1-11...in doing so I found a few chewed hole access openings in the old stuff. Snakes patrol the property but they can't gain access to the bird areas or they'd eat eggs & babies, so yeah, the electronic traps do great for the mice. Rats??? I haven't had to deal with & pray I never do. Neighboring cats, foxes, hawks & owls patrol rats, but if I ever see one I will do something!

 

[Ascholten]

Lotta moles here but the foxes get them, I see little divets dug all over & know Foxy just had himself a fresh mole dinner. I tell him he's a "good dog" & to stay on rodent patrol...thank goodness for my foxes...like that's some crazy words coming from a bird lady's mouth, but my friends have a rat problem & OMG, I Never want to go through what they're experiencing.

When the moles become scarce, won't the foxes start eyeballing your chickens?
We have the occasional bobcat out here that I have seen, and some really mangy looking foxes. I forget the name of it but some kind of wierd dog thing too, not a prarie dog, not a fox / wolf... it'll come ot me. nasty little things but the moment you grab them by the scruff, they like petrify and you can do what you need to with them then.

 

[Ascholten]

Those electronic traps work nicely. have to keep them dry though. sometimes i get real humid days out here and they don't like that very well.

I always have my trusty 4160 kitty tickler but really do NOT want to set THAT thing up on the back porch when a tiny little black box does the trick.

Aaron

 

[Folly's place]

Moles are there because you have grubs in the soil, that's what the moles eat. There's a non-toxic biological product, I think Bacillis, that's sold in bags at garden centers, that lasts years in the ground and kills the grubs. No grubs, no moles.
Mary

 

[Ascholten]

Moles are there because you have grubs in the soil, that's what the moles eat. There's a non-toxic biological product, I think Bacillis, that's sold in bags at garden centers, that lasts years in the ground and kills the grubs. No grubs, no moles.
Mary

Mary, ive tried all the powders, goops and glops one could possibly ever imagine existed.
I can treat my yard / garden area but the neighbors don't treat their yards, the things will just tunnel over there, and still keep coming back to my place looking for food. Even though I don't have the stuff because i treated, it don't stop them from making a super highway thru my yard to the other neighbors yard on the other side

Also,for the life of me, I never did master putting those stupid ass manual traps down in the tunnels for them either. It seems like every time I try, they go around it.

Aaron

 

[LadiesAndJane]

I’ll probably going have to call an exterminator to come and set some traps up in the attic. Could do it ourselves but I just think it’s so gross.
Our chicken feed is kept in closed buckets and the chickens are in completely enclosed runs, covered with half-inch hardware cloth that is also aproned out on all sides. The only thing that can get in there are cockroaches and then the chickens love this of course.
We are blessed with no snakes in Hawaii.