Rats here and there

[Bonnieboo]

I have a treadle feeder but I still get rats. There is no other food source so I don't get why they keep coming back! I Have a bucket with a small amount of chook pellets with two bricks (either side of the bucket so they can climb in but not out) which has caught me many mice in the past but no success with the goddam rats. I also have two traps with peanut butter (break their necks) and a battery operated electric shock trap that I have had great success with in the past but just can't catch this particular rat. It must be enormous, it's droppings are almost twice the normal rat size and I just can't get rid of it. I have been trying for about two months and just can't believe I can't catch it with four traps!!!
My only option, unless anyone can advise me, is to get an exterminator for one rat!

 

[Al Gerhart]

I have a treadle feeder but I still get rats. There is no other food source so I don't get why they keep coming back! I Have a bucket with a small amount of chook pellets with two bricks (either side of the bucket so they can climb in but not out) which has caught me many mice in the past but no success with the goddam rats. I also have two traps with peanut butter (break their necks) and a battery operated electric shock trap that I have had great success with in the past but just can't catch this particular rat. It must be enormous, it's droppings are almost twice the normal rat size and I just can't get rid of it. I have been trying for about two months and just can't believe I can't catch it with four traps!!!
My only option, unless anyone can advise me, is to get an exterminator for one rat!

So you are from down under, treadle feeders can't work upside down silly. Jokes aside, which kind of treadle feeder is it? I know you have a couple of inward swinging door type available there in AU. Most likely a Grandpa Xi style feeder maybe? Post some pictures of the mechanism, might be able to offer a modification so the large rat can't use the feeder.

 

[Bonnieboo]

Ho, ho, ho amazing, but they must work upside down!!!
I can send a photo but it's basically step on the step and the lid opens outwards and food can be accessed (even the blasted ducks from the nearby lake have figured it out). I keep one of the four rat traps near the feeder but to no avail. Obviously, chicken pellets trump peanut butter!!!! There are never any droppings on the floor near the feeder only upstairs where the girls are. Not sure what to do next.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Send a photo of the feeder showing all of it and one photo from each side showing a close up of the opening/closing mechanism. Maybe we can figure out how to add some springs to provide enough downward tension on the lid/door to keep the rats out.

No joy on the ducks, they are supposed to be able to use a treadle feeder. Longer reach and about the same weight or more, they can use the feeder.

Rats are smart enough to recognize traps. Best bet is to keep changing out the type of trap and you might get one before they figure things out. How about an enclosed box with sticky traps inside and some smelly bait food?

 

[Taranakian]

Reviving an old-ish thread. I do predator control in NZ and rats are one of my target species.

Where do you put your snap traps? Rodents don't see so well, so given the chance, they like to keep their whiskers in contact with a wall/whatever obstruction they're getting around. If you're not currently, you should move your traps to use that against them.

Instead of baiting a trap and hoping the peanut butter lures them in, skip the bait entirely and put the snap traps perpendicular to and butted up tightly against the baseboard on the outside of your run. When the rat is coming to get its nightly treat it has to run over the treadle plate on the trap.

90% of rodents I catch the first try using this method, no bait - including rodents that just watched another rodent get caught. 90% of the remaining I catch by moving the trap around a corner or someplace new where they aren't expecting it. If those things don't work, then I bait the trap and that works eventually.

If you've been going after this rat for awhile, it probably wouldn't hurt to change the style of snap trap you use, just in case, from the Victor wooden traps to the easy set plastic ones they sell at Mitre10 or Bunnings (or vice versa).

Finally, if that doesn't work, Cacophony Project here has done some interesting experiments and found that a 'leaky' fence is a top tier way to catch predators. Basically they found that predators tended to travel along an obstruction for awhile looking for an easy way through before they climbed over. Using those instincts against them, they erected temporary fencing with, if I remember correctly, warratahs and a plastic sheet like silage wrap. In that sheet they left intermittent gaps and trapped in those gaps using box traps with great success. It wouldn't be too hard to make a temporary leaky fence around your run at least until you catch the bugger. I don't know how readily available box traps are in Oz, but look up the DOC200 if you need inspiration.

Though I hope you caught your menace by now...

 

[Bonnieboo]

Dear Taranakian,
You have certainly got the corner of the market happening there!!!
What a wonderful and ingenious set of trapping methods you have listed!
I have tried the snap traps with a success rate of one but have left them out for weeks with no further success.
I have the electronic trap with a success rate of three (that's over a period of 3 years ) and it's been sitting there forlornly for the last month...
I have tried the tall bucket (with a bit of food in it) with bricks either side to climb in but no ability to climb out. Success rate: zero. This one is I don't understand, we have caught stacks of mice this way??? Maybe mice didn't get a degree in cheekiness that the rats did.
I have tried a trap where the rats go inside, eat the poison and go away to die. After a few weeks I opened it to find precisely nil poison eaten.
It's not as if the rat has gone, I see it regularly running along the fence,drinking the chooks water or running around the chook house. I was successful grabbing it when it was drinking once but it bit me and I quickly lost interest in hanging on to it!
So, thank you so much for your ideas, I will be off to Bunnings shortly to buy some more snap traps!

 

[WhatsUpDuck]

Have you watched mouse trap monday on youtube? You may find a solution.

LORD JESUS IS KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS!

 

[chicknmania]

The only thing that works is removing their food source (putting all feed where they can’t get it), cleaning up the nasty little grease trails they leave and their greasy little nests, and making the coop/run inaccessible. I had a rat’s nest under my run and it took destroying the nest, putting hwc under the run and bringing in the food every. single. night. I also got a spill-proof feeder.

Removing the food helps but it does not eliminate rats. WE had rats in our barn before we ever had animals in it. This year they are terrible. I assume it is because of all the cold and snow we have had. I have rotated elimination methods with mixed results. RatX is reasonably humane, or so I've read, though now sure how, and it does seem to work fairly well, but never know for sure. Rats will disappear and then new ones show up!. WE use closed tunnel traps, RatX, and sometimes mixed powdered sugar and plaster of paris. I hate to do that, because it is not humane at all, but sometimes you have to resort to desperate measures. We only use that (the plaster of paris)as a last resort. Our neighbor's cat, who is an excellent ratter, was our barn cat, but he has deserted us in this weather. Has anyone else found something that is reasonably humane and somewhat effective? I know they are rats, but i still feel sorry for them to a point, they are just trying to survive. This year I think they did kill and destroy one of my favorite pullets, and we had a huge rooster who just vanished, I think he must've died and the rat committee decided he didn't need a funeral. Both chickens just disappeared without a trace, and outside predators were not responsible as far as I can tell.

 

[chicknmania]

Search for the key words rats and chickens here in this very forum and you will find tons of discussions with a lot of advice. Baking soda, works if they eat 40% of their body weight in the mixture at one setting. Not happening in the real world.

What does work, bulk feed in metal drums with tight lids, clean up the pathways so the rats are forced to travel in the open where natural predators can get at them, and buy a treadle feeder after doing a lot of research. Check the negative reviews first and believe them. Tons of people just buy a chicken feeder, don't have rats, they will leave five star reviews that are useless. Not on Amazon, only Chinese made feeders like the Grandpa Xi feeder, the costs are enormous to sell on Amazon. Careful with the reviews on sites that have direct links back to Amazon, those are being paid a commission so they are not disinterested.

Our rats are out in the open all the time this year, they'd come up and eat out of my hand if I'd let them.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Removing the feed at night can work sometimes for flocks IF the chickens kill the mice. Rarely for rats as few if any hens or roosters will take on a full grown rat. The rats will happily eat during the day and take food back to their dens for storing.

Poison never works long term, the rat figure out what is killing the young ones and the older breeding age aren't taking the poison unless they are starving and on the point of death. Plaster of paris, has been tested by a scientist at the University of Nebraska. It results in sore rat bad bunny holes and nothing else. Stomach acid is not the same as water.

There are ONLY two methods that work. I've already explained the sanitation method. The only other method is the Fort Knox coop method.

Pick one. Implement it. Done. Save feed, have fewer disease and pests like lice and mites coming into the coop, and enjoy your chickens.