Oh, rats !!!!!!!!!

[emjay]

Well, this is a first for me in my life. I saw a live , wild, disgusting rat. I went to lock up my chickens tonite, and there it was , scattering, clambering up the chicken run and out to its escape. I am thoroughly disgusted, concerned and sick that I now have to contend with this.
I have youngsters I was hoping to move down to the coop soon, as well, I have two broody's set up in that coop. It's a fairly solid coop, I don't know if there is a hole big enough for the rats to get inside. But, they are in the run, thus, rat crap and urine in the run. How do I sanitize that now.
I live on Vancouver Island, I used to live in ALberta, which was rat free.
I don't know what to do next.

 

[wsdareme]

That's because in Alberta they all FROZE to death!

 

[emjay]

hahha, good point.

here's other thing. If they are as diseased as they say, why aren't more people sick and why aren't they being eradicated from the planet???
Ugh, I'm still grossed out, sorry, I don't do squeemish things.

 

[Judy]

There are a lot of ways to deal with them. I just poison them. Not 100% safe for chickens and other pets, but if the bait is well secured away from any other animals, the risk is low, IMO. I've never had it harm my other animals, and I have had dogs who actively hunt, kill and eat rats. Read here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=606272#p606272

Some people are more comfortable with traps and live release, or kill traps. Lots of info in this P&P forum on rats. Chickens can get sick from eating rat poop -- I believe they get salmonella, not sure. At any rate the rats eat lots of chicken feed and, yes they can eat baby chicks and eggs.

 

[newfoundland]

Rats are a perrenial problem around any livestock. We have them and when we lived in London they were numerous even in the city. Poison is the main weapon I think. If you look around you can find one that will not harm family pets etc. If you lay it down in a piece of drain pipe, or even a large food can, other creatures will not take it. Make sure you lay it on their rat run, as they always use the same run. Our Jack Russel cross has killed one this morning, dogs can be great as can cats. To disinfect, use a stable disinfectant or even a greenhouse one. We have one called Jeyes Fluid it is a thick black liquid that you dilute and by golly the whole neighbourhood will know you have been cleaning let alone the rats.

 

[aprophet]

if you can find where they are going into the run at they are easy to trap I use muskrat sized body grip traps here set in their runways I don,t use any bait several go away here each day

 

[Katy]

I never had a rat problem in all the many years that I've kept poultry until about 12 months ago. Because I have a lot of outside barn cats and outside dogs I was hesitant to use poison.

First I started removing all feed at night.

Then I tried traps...both live, snap and even bought an electric rat zapper. I would catch one rat in each and then they avoided that trap like the plague. I don't know whether they can smell death on then or what but it seems that way.

Then I tried the plaster of paris mixed with peanut butter or cake mix. They ate a tons of it and I never saw a dead rat, but when I was using the white cake mix they sure started pooping white turds!!

I also tried powdered sugar and concrete......same result, no decrease in rat activity.

I tried locking cats up in the pens at night.....I know they killed what they could, but even a cat can only eat so many rats.

I shot a few of them but I couldn't sit out in the pens all night....plus they got smart quickly to that method and once I shot one they didn't come back out of their tunnels for hours.

I started doing a lot of research on using "just one bite" rat bait. I even contacted the vet at our veterinary school and asked them. What I found was the general consensus was that if a pet ate the bait bar itself, they stood a high risk of dying, but if they were to consume a dead rat, it in most, not all cases would take many dead rats in a short amount of time to be enough carry over to kill them. I bought several locking bait boxes to put throughout the different chicken pens and within about 7 days was seeing a lot less rat activity. I have found probably 15 dead rats out in the open in the pens but everyone I talked to said I wouldn't find many, that most would go down in their burrows to die, so I can't imagine how many dead ones are under the coops!

It has now been about a month since I first put bait out and I know there are still a few left, but the amount of bait they are eating has went way down and the fresh digging in the mornings is pretty much non-existant.

All cats and dogs are fine so far....even the wild ones who hang around the outsides of the pens...... altho I still worry about it. I will continue to keep the bait stations out and baited......I just wish I would have done it sooner.

 

[emjay]

got 2 rats last night, was a successful hunt.

the one was kinda cute though, awe......................... moving on.....................

they were smaller black(roof) rats.

 

[birdygirl123]

I have to tell you this story:..

My mom is deathly afraid of Rats. When my brother still lived at home, I received a frantic phone call on my cell phone... Caller said Mom..I had just left her house, so I answered it. It was indeed my mom, but she was frantic, crying,.. I couldn't understand her. Of course, I was trying to get her to calm down. I feared there had been an accident or something. I told her I was on my way, turned around.. and headed back to the house.

While still on the phone with her, She was able to get out the name of my brother..house locked.. .. that was about it..

When I got to the house, there my brother was outside.. with a dead rat on a shovel.. She was on the chop block in the kitchen, with the phone.. House was locked up shut like fort knox... He was laughing so hard he had tears running down his face. It took me an hour to convince her to open the door.. I felt bad, but my brother and I did get a good laugh out of it. Of course, I had a talk with him. No need to give our mother a heart attack!..

My mom's a tough gal, raised on a farm, raised 3 kids, 2 of which on her own.. but .. Do not mention the word rats around her.. Now, every time I hear Rats, I am reminded of that day and still laugh.. lol...

Sorry, just thought that I would share...

 

[OtneyPrice]

Yes - Just One Bite II Bars is the poison to get. The poison ingredient is the same as some grocery brands, but the Bite bars are made of stuff rats actually want to eat. The bars look like yellowish bird suet cakes - you can see the seeds etc in them. Use a locking bait box if you have small kids or pets. Or, run a little bit of wire through the bar's center hole and tie the wire loop to something so the rats can't move the bait. This allows you to easily see if they're consuming it. The bars are a bit more expensive than the compressed green poison stuff they sell at the grocery store, but they're far more effective!
Lastly, put the bars along where the rats run - usually next to a fence or wall - you can often see little rat trails on bare ground. Placing bait at the mouth of a burrow is also a good choice.