Rat dropping from poisoned rats.

I have also had to resort to poison this winter. My pantry in the kitchen and all the cupboards and draws were full of mice droppings, i tried live traps and a sonic system but there were so many, it was a health risk in the end. At the chicken coop the rats were having a field day, they were everywhere and at the back if the chicken coop I have a large shed housing the mowers and gardening stuff and they were burrowing and eating through everything in sight. I tried ordinary rat poison sachets but I think they became immune to them, I tried two types of traps but they stayed well away from them, in the end I had to buy extra strong stuff, I put a few down the holes around the coop and left the box of 12 in my shed in the box in a hanging basket. The next day all the sachets had gone, also the rats thank god. That was a week ago and I havnt seen any droppings since, keeping my fingers crossed. It was either the poison or being over run with vermin which was a health risk. If I can save animals the humane way that would always be my first choice but this time it was too much.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
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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.

You have both patience and wisdom "brother"!
 
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.
We had a stray cat.
We kept everything in containers, after they ate everything in my garage that wasn't boxed...they were eating everything and anything, which included tarps or whatnot or maybe just making a nest out of it...not sure....but we had hundreds of them. They would make a nest inside my freezer which was outside. I wish we had only had 50 mice. It had nothing to do with keeping feed up, although I can't say the chickens didn't ever spill any.
 
Hi, thank you all for your advice on this situation and sharing your experiences. as most of you i do only use the poison as a last resort. and sadly we dont have any snakes in my country, you can thank st Patrick for that. i also do not like to keep a cat on my homestead. as they not only target vermin, but they prey on song birds. so the vermin on my homestead have no predators, our owl and hawk population would be very low as well. as some of you have said that you use poison in the same area as your birds and have never had a problem. then i think that gives me the best answer to my question. i have been putting a lot of poison down heavy. in the hope that i can do one or two big doses and then that will be enough. just to bring vermin numbers down to a manageable amount. i dont mind having the odd mouse or rat on the homestead. they are part of nature too. but i just cant handle when a population explodes. the dogs do help sometimes. but they can only do so much.
 
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.
There are other options: like having cats, weasels or other preditors. Make sure there is no food laying around.
 
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.
 
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.
 

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