Rats at night in chicken coop.

[CrazyChickenDude]

 

[carolwfuller]

I had a chicken killed and eaten in the pen. It is an eglu coop and has arun and 9x12 enclosure. All closed on top. I wasn't closing the roosting coop because they are in an enclosed area. Something has been digging around the edges and I finally found a small hole, no more than an inch, where the large pen meets the older run. Could it have been a rat? I am sure it is too small for a raccoon.

 

[CrazyChickenDude]

Likely was a rat. They are very smart hunters. They can get through spaces the size of a quarter!

 

[336White Phoenix]

Unless it's a super mini raccoon
I'd have a problem with rats but I never saw them fig into the run before
If u want a bit of extra security go to a local hardware and order a few buckets of cement and put it around the outside of the run

 

[BreanneRN]

Rats are bad! They will kill baby chicks and eat them... They are small enough to access many places and can climb and squeeze through holes and chew them bigger... My cats keep them under control. I haven't seen any in awhile. I kept my feed in a plastic garbage can with wheels and the rats chewed a hole in the bottom to get the feed. Now I have a tomato plant in it. It has good drainage... I keep my feed in the metal cans now.

 

[336White Phoenix]

Yeah when I first saw a rat I bought a cat with 5 kitten s and they're really helping me out

 

[carolwfuller]

Thanks-I used lawn staples all over the place. I have tied big green metal lawn stakes to the outside. I have ordered two rat traps (not arriving until Monday) I am now closing the sliding door of the coop at night. I didn't think I would have to do that with my new pen. Poisons will not work for me as I have a big dog (not a rat chaser, sleeps in my room) Sigh. The variety of predators is horrible. As a friend said 'farming is hard' even though I only have my beloved chickens for 5 months.

 

[BreanneRN]

Don't know where you are located, but at least in my state (California), you can get help to kill the rats from the County Vector Control. They brought out stainless steel bait traps with some kind of green solidified bait that could not be accessed by dogs or cats (at that time I had only house cats), and if the animals ate the dead rats it would not hurt them. During this same time I had a stray dog that hung around that I thought belonged to the neighbors but realized she didn't when I noticed them chasing her away. She got along well with my border collie mix who was kind of lonely since her mom died and was a nice dog, and after a month or two of not feeding her, I finally decided to just keep her... During that time I saw her eat the rats that were killed by the stainless steel bait stations on multiple occasions. A month later, on Superbowl Sunday in 2000, she had 5 huge, healthy puppies, that all grew up to be twice as big as their 40lb mother. All lived to a ripe old age, I gave one to my brother, kept 2 and gave the others away. Lost the last one in 2014. So there are things you can use to get rid of them (if you don't want to have cats) that won't hurt your dog. Vector control was most helpful with the rats, but wouldn't help me at all with the evil ground squirrels, who are in some ways worse than the rats (but don't eat chickens, only their food). But dig huge burrows that undermine your building foundations, and any pavement and carry bubonic plague, and destroy your garden and landscaping. Happily, my cat Tippy Tail finds them quite tasty...

 

[Lazy Farmer]

 

[336White Phoenix]

Another thing I used to do was hire out trained minks u could let them go at 6 in the morning and by 1 dinner time they'd be in there cage with 40 rats all over the place