Rats! I have bad rats!

[BDutch]

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these did the trick for me. Find the rat holes, and stuff a place pac down in there. I spent months digging up their tunnels, my mom buried glass, we blocked off the whole basement (chickens were in the mud room at the time) and nothing seemed to work. Then, we Placed these in their burrows, and a few weeks later there wasnt a rat in sight. The only problem is that the poison is little crumbles of poison, so you’ll want to keep them away from your chickens. And be aware of secondhand poisoning and such.... if you find dead ones, I try to bury them at least 4 feet deep in a plastic bag so they don’t smell and attract animals.

Don't you have a garbage system out there?
Why do you put poison an plastic in the ground. You're polluting you're own environment this way.

IMO its better to seek for solutions without poison. Poison is never good for the environment and only helps temporarily.

Some other solutions: Keeping cats, put hwc around. Built a new and better coop.

 

[SlickyChicky]

Has anyone tried the ones that are electronic? Some are solar power for low maintenance.
I.E. https://www.amazon.com/DURANOM-Ultrasonic-Wild-Animal-Repeller/dp/B082MR9X9V

 

[Luxorna]

Has anyone tried the ones that are electronic? Some are solar power for low maintenance.
I.E. https://www.amazon.com/DURANOM-Ultrasonic-Wild-Animal-Repeller/dp/B082MR9X9V

The comments on this product on Amazon say it won’t bother chickens if set under the setting of 4. However a lot of other remarks say this device doesn’t deter pests. I’m wondering if this is because they were trying to deter large animals and not rodents.

 

[Howard E]

I am in South GA, and have what neighbor called ‘tree rats’. They seem to be getting in through the coop roof, maybe in a ventilation area, since the roof isn’t damaged. I‘ve searched For the hole, so far haven’t found it. Once found and fixed, do I need to bait and kill those who have learned of the easy meal? If so, how do I bait in such a way that my hens don’t find the poison?

What you describe sounds like black rats, aka, roof rats, aka tree rats. Different vermin than the normal, larger Norway / Brown rats.

First video referenced in this thread goes through the process of how to find their travel routes, block them off and eliminate stragglers.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/rat-control-the-video-series.1337456/
For roof rats, bait block dispensers are different and are put up higher where they live. If you are successful at exclusion, you have a good chance of picking off the stragglers with traps.....inside the building.

 

[Henry&Friends]

Don't you have a garbage system out there?
Why do you put poison an plastic in the ground. You're polluting you're own environment this way.

IMO its better to seek for solutions without poison. Poison is never good for the environment and only helps temporarily.

Some other solutions: Keeping cats, put hwc around. Built a new and better coop.

They were in my basement while I built the better coop they're in now. I have indoor and outdoor cats who made no dent in the rat population, and spent months using other solutions-- I used the poison and moved the chickens into their (HC enclosed) coop and have been rat free since.

 

[Tacampbell1973]

Aww man! Do I know your pain! Couple of years ago now my neighbor, closest one is quarter of a mile down the road, mind you, started to notice rats. They throw table scraps outside to their birds. Lo and be damn hold here cometh the rats. Near about a few months later we start noticing they have spread to my yard. I tried very hard to humanely deal with them but in the end had to wait for it to stioraining and set poison in their homes blocked em in with rocks so they had to eat the poison. Worked like a charm. Wish I hadn't waited so long to use it. When I said we tried to humanely deal with them i mean we bought a live trap. We finally had one get in the trap and stupid critter tried so hard to escape he got his head and a leg stuck in the metal bars of the side of the cage. I told my husband, the fearless Marine, to put on a glove and gently pull the rat backwards by his tail. Not happening. So I got the glove and gently pulled him back to safety only to have the darn thing as soon as he hit the ground, instead of running from us, he runs toward us! Thank God no one was there to witness my nearly 6 foot tall husband and I screaming and dancing around like two old sissified grannies! So much for trying to be kind to nature.

 

[Al Gerhart]

You have rats because YOU are feeding them. In the wild rats have to hustle non stop to feed themselves and they won't breed very much unless they have a good feed supply. Putting a chicken feeder buffet out there was just laying out the welcome mat.

Sanitation will fix the problem nearly all of the time. Put your bulk feed in metal trash cans or barrels. Get a rat proof chicken feeder with a spring loaded door if you have normal sized birds, a few small birds like bantams and silkies will learn to eat from the side but get the soft close feature so they don't get clocked.

Once the feed is safe from the rodents they will leave. There is no need to poison the rodents, they will leave once they are starving. As they travel they will be picked off by their natural predators.

Do your research on the feeders, find independant review sites, not Amazon where you can get fake reviews by the dozen. $5.00 and the cost of the product will buy a fake review, I get emails every week by people offering them. Fake Google reviews are even cheaper, under a buck. If the review site just happens to have a handy link watch out, they are selling under an affiliate program and are biased. Our shopping cart has an affiliate program but we do not use the system for that reason. There are plenty of reviews out there on blogs and forums like BYC.com.

 

[hayley3]

I have mice in my house and there's not a crumb to be found in my kitchen or anywhere else in the house, so they ate my dishtowels and oven mitts.

 

[aart]

I have mice in my house and there's not a crumb to be found in my kitchen or anywhere else in the house, so they ate my dishtowels and oven mitts.

That's for bedding.......they're eating something you just haven't found yet.

 

[hayley3]

All my food is safely locked in rubbermaid containers or in freezer or frig.