Rats are no joke, protect your birds from these vile creatures

[Chocorobo12]

Rat stealing baby bird right under its mother's wings

 

[ShannonsChimkens]

I’ve had that happen so many times! Now I lock up mom and babies for a couple weeks where the jerks can’t steal them.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Rats are jerks. I've never had them go after my birds but they used to steal their bedding for their nests and use their feeder like an all-you-can-eat buffet. We had to do some major remodeling lol

 

[ruthhope]

One of my muscovy drakes recently killed a rat that had the temerity to go in the coop to get food. I had closed the coop for the night and heard a whump. I shot back because I was having trouble with the drake being mean to a much smaller pekin drake and I immediately thought "oh no, he's jumped on Ping". The pekin drake, Ping, was fine, but the rat was on its side kicking its last.

 

[RiverOtter]

Last year, I had rats take a bunch of youngsters who were too old for the brooder but young enough to sleep on the lowest perches. They'd either bite the back of the skull and drag the whole bird off, or the bigger ones, they'd get under the wing and chew right through. It was horrific, and rats were the last thing I thought of!

My dog earned how to hunt them, but it still took poison to get rid of them totally. It was rough.