Rat dropping from poisoned rats.

[theharve01]

I had a question related to rats that i cant get an asnwer on. I was wondering if anyone knows the answer for sure. I put poison out due to the high numbers in the field from when i had my xmas turkeys. Now ive started seeing the blue droppings in the field. My hens have access near the field. Is tge blue just the die. And all the poison had been induced by the rat. Or would there still be any poison in them droppings that could harm the hens. I dont like to use poison. But i need to get the verman number back to normal going into The summer. Thanks. Please no hate mail over the use of poison.

 

[azygous]

No lecture because you already understand the risk of using the rat poison. When you see the blue dye, you understand already that it signifies the possibility that poison is still present in the droppings.

I don't think you need us to draw your conclusions for you.

 

[Ted Brown]

Not a direct answer to your questions but I think you can deduce that there is a risk to your chickens. Note that secondary poisoning from animals eating dead rat carcasses is a well documented problem; seems logical to conclude that their droppings may be poisonous as well.

https://www.ratcontroltricks.com/rat-poison/

 

[Howard E]

As for the death of mountain lions from eating poisoned rats........that may have occurred, but the article left out another very real possibility, and that was that someone in that neighborhood intentionally poisoned the cats directly with poison laced baits. It happens more than you might think.

I know some folks that routinely use the fly bait in cola trick to kill coons and have even tried it on bears. What I find ironic about that is these are the same folks that never met a rule they didn't like and will get all up in your jammy if you break their moral code......which tends to be a bit elastic when it's their ox that is being gored.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If the rats ate the poison, I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be poison in the droppings.
What goes in must come out. I don't think the digestive tract is that discerning.

 

[IamRainey]

Not a direct answer to your questions but I think you can deduce that there is a risk to your chickens. Note that secondary poisoning from animals eating dead rat carcasses is a well documented problem; seems logical to conclude that their droppings may be poisonous as well.

https://www.ratcontroltricks.com/rat-poison/

AMEN! One of our local mountain lions recently died from eating a poisoned vermin. He was breeding stock and many many times the size of the squirrel or rat or whatever that he ate but it was still enough residual anti-coagulant to do him in.

Tragic!

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mountain-lion-dies-rat-poison-20190430-story.html

 

[hayley3]

In the summer the snakes take over. They do an amazing job. I know a lot of people kill snakes so maybe that is the answer to the question I asked earlier. I hear all the time that someone killed a snake because they are afraid it will hurt something. I've had a 6 ft snake snaking it's way around my chickens feet on their roost and never hurt them. It was after the eggs and the mice. By the end of summer, I don't have one mouse left..the barn is vacant and no longer smells-thanks to the snake family.

 

[hayley3]

I had mice so bad, despite having a family of snakes during the summer that I also had to use poison. I debated 6 yrs before using poison before it became a last resort. I mean they took over and damaged everything in my 30x40 garage and were making my barn so unsanitary that you could smell the mice urine. It was almost like a disney movie with mice hanging from the rafters. Until you have experienced that you truly cannot understand how bad rodents can get. I had to clean massive amounts of poop out of my kitchen pantry on a weekly basis and they were eating stuff behind my walls. I only used it during the winter because I didn't want to injure the snakes and it was locked in a box so that no other animals could get to it. If there was another option I would've taken it.

 

[Mtnboomer]

I had mice so bad, despite having a family of snakes during the summer that I also had to use poison. I debated 6 yrs before using poison before it became a last resort. I mean they took over and damaged everything in my 30x40 garage and were making my barn so unsanitary that you could smell the mice urine. It was almost like a disney movie with mice hanging from the rafters. Until you have experienced that you truly cannot understand how bad rodents can get. I had to clean massive amounts of poop out of my kitchen pantry on a weekly basis and they were eating stuff behind my walls. I only used it during the winter because I didn't want to injure the snakes and it was locked in a box so that no other animals could get to it. If there was another option I would've taken it.

We just purchased a house that had an infestation of mice. That 1st winter we killed 43 in traps and the cat caught 11 (why do we have the cat again? ) last year it was 23 and this year it has been 0 knock on wood. The difference for us has been cleanliness. The last owners were not good housekeepers.
But they did their damage. I have had to rewire much of the house as the mice love to chew the insulation off of electrical wires. They were so numerous in the attic that everywhere they had a nest we had urine stains coming through the ceiling. Holes were chewed everywhere in the garage.
We could not use poison first because of the cat, then the chickens, and now the dog. So we started keeping foods in plastic containers, cleaning up after the kids thoroughly, all animal feed is in rodent proof containers, etc.

 

[Howard E]

To the OP, which poison? Brand or active ingredient?

So most poison bait blocks have a food coloring agent in them that might show up in the droppings. The question is what becomes of the poison? Is it absorbed in the gut, or does some of that pass through too? Good question and I don't know the answer. Sounds like a nice research project for someone with a lot of time on their hands. Is this a potential form of secondary poisoning? The reason for asking about the type........the risk would probably be greater for the potent one bite products.........except with those, logic would suggest not many feces will be dropped from those guys before they succumb.

So if it is one of the slower, warfarin based products.......there might be some residual in those, but it is slight relative to the size of anything that would eat the feces........and probably no harm done.