Rats? A Cat? Something Else? What killed my chickens?

[McChooky]

They multiply fast when they have ample food supplies but once its removed the females will quit reproducing.Its only a matter of time before the colony dies once the babies are gone

 

[Anon112]

They multiply fast when they have ample food supplies but once its removed the females will quit reproducing.Its only a matter of time before the colony dies once the babies are gone

Yes, I'm hoping that we're getting to the end of this. I just put out snap traps for tonight and moved my stubborn chickens off of the coop roof to a roost.

 

[Fluffy_Butt_Hutt]

Before I got chickens I knew rats/mice would be a major pest I had to be wary of. Our rat/mice problem was actually that they were getting in the house. It took some years before I realized. A combination of neighbors telling me they had mice in their house and finding a mouse carcass in my dishwasher base made me realize. We already had a bucket trap outside, which was working but the mice kept popping up. Went into the crawl space, found the access point holes they were entering in with daylight, and set snap traps. Followed a video on sealing the holes. The neighbors have also taken the same actions. Did that last fall, and the cameras aren't seeing any more mice/rats at night even with intentionally left out feed. If you have any other possible place they are taking shelter in, an old shed or your crawl space, take care of putting traps there too.

 

[Anon112]

If you have any other possible place they are taking shelter in, an old shed or your crawl space, take care of putting traps there too.

Yes, there were two days last week where a few rats seemed to be investigating my house(!!!!!!!).

This is really good advice. I'll see what happens if I set some traps in my garage and cellar.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Don't forget your cars. Rodents love the soybean based insulating plastic used in modern cars. They got my mom's car twice, first time was when it was fairly new, $5000 to replace the wiring harness throughout the car. Second time was about eight years later and the insurance company totaled the car. We weren't unhappy, at 93 she had started "bumping" into people and it was time for her to stop driving.

Driving them out of the house might cost some serious money. But, once you have shut off the buffet, poison and bait in traps becomes far more attractive to the vermin.

 

[Folly's place]

We've had rodent damage to both our pickup truck and my car. Expensive! And a royal pain keeping them safe. Mice and ground squirrels, cute but rotten little critters here.
Mary