Rat in Duck Run

[Callduckies]

How do I get rid of the rats in my ducks run? They're burrowing under the pool and a dog house I have for the ducks

 

[Al Gerhart]

You stop feeding the rats.

It is that simple.

Search using the keywords rats and chickens on this very forum or site wide. Tons of advice available. Forget the old wives tales about strong smells, spices, ultrasonic sound, baking soda or plaster mixed with baits.

There are only three ways.

Sanitation, clear up all pathways the rats use to travel so the natural predators get some of them. Bulk feed in metal drums with tight lids. Coop feed in a good treadle feeder that you do not buy off Amazon. Watch the negative reviews, most are not rat proof.

Second way, exclusion. Build a fort knox style coop. Very expensive, easily ten to twenty times the cost of the sanitation method but with maintenance it can work for a small coop with no free range.

Third method, traps and poison. Rarely is it effective as the rodents are very smart. The expense never ends, were you to wipe out your colony, a new colony would move in soon. It does help if you start with the first method and the rats begin to starve so they get desperate.