Quail Murder: Episode 2

[Skankiewicz]

Is the run covered with 1/2" hardware cloth? My old place had a rat problem, but they couldn't get into the quail pens.

As for rat extermination, I called and spoke with an exterminator, and it turned out that what they were going to do was nothing that I couldn't do myself. Basically, it was set snap traps. The trick was to set a circle of snap traps with quail food (since that's what they were eating) in the middle of the circle rather than baiting the individual traps.

I set them up right under the crawlspace door at my old place. I caught six rats in the first week. One big guy actually got caught in three traps. He set one off, then his struggles set off two more.

If you have a compost pile, check there too. I had about a dozen living in my compost pile. I ended up dispatching a few of the slower ones with a shovel.

To be clear (pics in my other post) the coop is hardwire secured, the run is not. They go in the coop at night.