Rats in my coop and stealing my eggs

[Bens-Hens]

Hi all, probably a bit late but if you want a non poison DIY trap try one of these.

I have used this style in many places and had great success, you can use the water or you can leave it dry if you prefer to dispose of them another way.

Just add a thick knotted rope up the outside or a plank for them to run up to get to the PB.

 

[seminolewind]

Anything works much better if they can't get any feed whatsoever during any treatment.

 

[Vamvakas]

Is there a rat poison product out there that will only kill rats but not chickens/other pets if they eat by mistake? Highly doubt it, but was worth a try asking..

 

[murfmagic]

I have a 4 stall barn and my chicken coop is out back. In the coop I have 25 birds which three are ducks that roost on the floor. I get about 3 to 6 eggs a day and that's all. I know I have rats because I am trapping them in the barn and they're big suckers. I also have two cats that live in the barn and they can get the odd young one, but the adults are just to big for them. In the summer we put down a cement floor in the coop because the rats were burring in and we also poured it all around the outside. Now they just dig holes where there is no cement, crafty little buggers, anyway, I went to check on my chickens last night and about ten of them scurried out past me when I went in with the light. They're young because they're small but I'm thinking they might have a nest inside because I'm doing the deep litter method and I have about two feet of shavings in there. So today I cleaned the whole thing out as it was quite warm out and I don't know when it will be this mild again, so I took advantage of the weather. They was no nests, but now I have to place snap traps inside but underneath milk cartons so the chickens don't get caught. I have uncovered two nests this past summer, one just outside at the side of the coop and the other in the barn under my stall mats. We killed all the babies(sorry, but they grow into big rats) but if we see that many, how many are we not seeing, I have heard them in my barn down in the hay playing with extension cords and when I pulled them up, I couldn't believe the damage they have done to them, we're lucky they didn't burn down the place. I'm so fed up because I know there's probable a colony of them under both the barn and the coop and I don't know how to wipe them out without poison. I can't take the chance my cats won't catch one that has eaten the poison, so I need to know if there is any other way of exterminating them. I think I will also try Bens Hens water trap, but I really want to wipe them out. Hate these pests.

 

[bellschick]

Do several different things at once. Poison traps bens bucket thing. Keep doing them until u see no more. But I believe u "we" will allwayshave a rat problem. Might take new ones a couple of months to find your place but eventually they will.

 

[sandman55]

ME TOO!!!!

I have 8 hens and I've had 1 egg since July!
I, at first, thought that it was stress... then heat... then molting...then a lack sunlight. I was ready to just give up and then last night I went out for something and decided to check on tmy hens while I was out there and I saw a rat run away from the cage right past me.

My chickens eat mice (mouse football) but I'm thinking that this pudgy rat was too big for them to mess with.


I just cant figure out how the rat would get the egg, out of the nest box, without breaking it. there is absolutly no trace of the eggs.

I have heard that they co-operate by one rat hanging onto the egg with its four feet and another rat pulling it along by the tail.

I am just getting back into chickens I have 5 young layers but when I had chickens 35 years ago I had a problem with rats and I made a continuous resetting rodent trap. I will post a couple of very rough drawings the first with the trapdoor is the one I made and it worked well on rats and mice. The second is just an idea I have that when I get time I might try.


In the very rough drawing above there is a trapdoor above a drum with about 4 or 5 inches of water and cooking oil on the surface so they won't smell the water or any dead rats. The curved part at the top is three walls all made from sheet metal two walls on either side of the trapdoor and a back wall with the bacon rind as bait. The drum is placed against a wall and something that they can climb up to the top they are lured onto the trapdoor by the bacon and into the drum the trapdoor hits the spring and it flicks it back also the screw with the washers as weights if you imagine the trapdoor being vertical the screw would stick out to the right and weigh the trapdoor closed (not to scale as in the drawing the screw would hit the lid you have to imagine the trapdoor being longer) I used to also put a couple of grains of wheat on the trapdoor when I fed the chooks as the bacon got old and I was too lazy to replace it.

I got the idea from when there was a mouse plague up north and I heard they would jam an apple core in the neck of a beer bottle suspended over a drum of water, the mice would climb onto the bottle which was slightly tilted down and slip off into the water.

The drawing below is just an idea I have but not tried, it is on the same principle as the trapdoor one only it might be easier to make out of 4 inch pvc pipe also I have heard that mice like to climb into pipes.

Once again it is very much not to scale the two diagonal cuts in the pipe would have to be much further apart than drawn so that the screw with the weights on it would not catch on the stationary pipe. You would make two diagonal cuts in a piece of 4 inch pvc pipe it would be held together with two wood rails on either side the centre screw would be the pivot point and when the rat overbalances the pipe it would drop into the water and the moving pipe would be flicked back by the spring. the pipe might have to be closer to the drum or a wall brought up so that the rat is guided into the drum.

I am at present building a bird and rodent proof chicken feeder that Gallo del Cielo has posted plans for https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/building-a-treadle-chicken-feeder
so when I have completed that along with some jobs that my wife is waiting for I am going to give it a try. I don't know if there are many rodents about but it is one way to find out.

I hope you can work out my very rough drawings.

 

[sandman55]

Wow I didn't go to the next page and I just saw Ben's bucket trap, what a great idea and simple too. I think I will be giving it a try.

 

[AnnieSantiago]

I made one of these and they just licked it clean!

 

[SVTechChick]

Well, we have several thieves. I didn't mind the mice so much, as they weren't stealing eggs and they keep my cat busy, but the RATS. UG! Went out this morning, and found three eggs (the girls are laying late right now) rat-ified. I know they are digging under the run to get in, little pests. Will try these ideas, but can't use any poison with the cat and dogs.

 

[Beyond Yonder]

Is there a rat poison product out there that will only kill rats but not chickens/other pets if they eat by mistake? Highly doubt it, but was worth a try asking..

I'm getting ready to order this product. Has anyone else used
RatX Non-Toxic Mice and Rat Control