I have a Rat in the duck/chicken pen and it's been stealing eggs from the girls. Does anyone have ANY ideas on how to safely remove/kill it?
Ive covered the hole, filled it with rocks & even put juicy fruit in there to try and kill it (it works for moles). but the nasty thing keeps coming back. any ideas???
Like with mine, I dropped some poison pellets down the hole.... it dug from the outside where the chickens are not... thenI wadded up some chicken wire and stuck it in said hole and secured the hole they chewed to make bigger on the coop. worked.
juicy fruit? what? really? they were like, thanks for the treat lady.
At our house a rat is nothing more than cat food. That is why I don't have any bird feeders in my yard. They don't bother the chickens though they seem to realize that they are pets.
Well you have Three ways you can go with this one is to do a glue trap but it tends to be a bit messed up cause everything sticks to it.
Second would be a rat trap now you could set it and forget it but I have done this and it works first of all get a small box and cut two holes in it one on ethier side of it (or make one out of wood with a hidged lid on it cut the holes on the bottom of it ) thsi you will place the trap under so the open side of the box is where you cut the holesso when you flip it over the holes are on the bottom now take some bread (plain white works the best) squeeze it on tight to the metal flange piece really tight (you don't need alot just enough to cover the piece of metal now set the trap in the area where you have seen the hole or along the wall if no hole is there (mice and rats like to run along walls easier for them) set the trap down cover it with the box place a heavy weight on the box not so that it gets crushed and wait when the mouse pulls on the bread it will need to pull it hard enough to set the trap off so you caught him but you will need to set it again and again till you go a few days with nothing in it then you will you have gotten rid of them.
Third is get a live trap or cat cause I don't think you have a mouse or a rat I belive you have a possum or something else because your girls would have taken the mouse down belive that.
The hole is Fa r too small for a possum or raccoon and it comes right up out of the ground. the hole is about 3 inches wide. I have a cat but she's basically useless unless she finds a little one to bring in the house as a present
The geese killed one, there was blood everywhere. The stupid thing is digging from in the pen, i am assuming when it steals an egg. that's why i am worried about glass or poison, i am afraid the ducks or chickens might accidentally eat it if the rat kicks it into the pen.
do you guys think a goose would kill it?
maybe i should borrow a goose for a week or so.
What you can do is bury a hardware cloth wire skirt around the perimeter of the pen to exclude digging rodents. Just make sure you did down far enough (12 inches) and turn the bottom another ten inches or so outwards. (12 inches down, 10 inches outwards: total 22-24 inches.) A wire skirt along the bottom of your pen can save your chickens lives because lots of things besides rats like to dig.
I am having the same problem. We have had a live trap set for days with sardines in it
and absolutely nothing. So far we have been outsmarted by a rat
I guess the next step is to move the chickens from that portion of the pen and set a few kill traps. Other than that, DH wants to sit outside for a few hours at night with his shotgun
Overkill, probably
Also, my chickens have never once killed a mouse... Biggest game they've ever taken down is a fly
