I had rats around the house and to me that is just unacceptable. I didnt actually see them but something was digging under and into the run every night. I started out using rat traps to kill them and I got two the first night and then after that I ddnt get any more. But they were still digging under almost every night. I know I could have taken steps to keep them out of the coop/run but it was more important to me to get rid of them. The chickens get locked in every night and the feeder gets pulled out also to try to keep it less of an easy free meal for the rats. I have three daughters 17, 6, and 4 and we also have two dogs so I was worried about using poison with the two young ones and the dogs but I didnt want a rat population to get out of control so I opted for the poison. I bought Just One Bite off the interweb after reading that many people had good results with it. I was still worried about the kids and the dogs finding it in the yard and it becoming a problem so I made up my own bait stations. I took a 3 inch diameter PVC pipe and cut it into 16 inch lengths. I then took a piece of 1/2 inch OSB and cut 1.5 inch strips on my table saw. The bait has a hole in the middle of it to run a screw through it so I fastend the poison block to the OSB and then drilled the PVC so that I could secure the whole thing into the pipe with a screw. The kids pay no attention to the pieces of pipe with the bait in it and the dogs cant get there snouts into the pipe to get at the bait. I do check them every morning and every day after work before the dogs go out and the kids are not out unsupervised. I am pleased to say that I have had to change them out because they were devoured but after they were changed they were almost untouched. I have thouroughly checked the yard for dead critters and have not found any but I also havent had any night time visitors to the coop. No visitors to the coop and bait stations seeing little to no activety is a good thing in my book. Sorry for the long winded post but I hope this may help some others out there.
