Rats in my ducts

[Buck Creek Chickens]

Quote:
wow, thats big enough for dinner,

 

[silkiechicken]

You guy's won't want to see the ones in downtown seattle... those are big.

 

[flowerchicks]

We have had a rat problem off and on for a few years, we think started when we had our property cleared of shrubs. When it first happened, they were living in our walls, mostly between the two bathrooms, and in the garage. We got an exterminator to come out and put the poison traps all over. The rats disapeared. But, that was before we had chickens. This year we had them living under our storage shed, which is the back of our open-air coop, so the rats were making themselves at home inside the coop. They were getting numerous enough that I would see them running around during the day, so I had to take action. I researched a lot, and decided to use a rat zapper. We were getting at least one a day/night, then I started getting only "babies", I thought, but after a closer look, realized they were field mice. They weren't doing any harm, and I didn't want to kill them, so I stopped the zapper. Then, about a month or so later, I had trouble with my headlight on my car (which I park in the garage). I took it to the mechanic and they said "you have a rat problem". They were eating the wires in my car!! That was it, I went to the feed store and got Just One Bite bars and broke them into 1 inch pieces and tossed them under the shed and in the garage every night until they stopped disappearing. That took 3 nights. We checked the yard every morning and day looking for dead rats. I found only one, right in front of the door to the coop. That was 2 months ago. My husband saw a "huge rat" walking in and out of our garage a couple weeks ago, during the day, so I put out more of the bars, but they are still there. I also heard that rats/mice HATE peppermint oil. My boss gave me some she used to keep mice out of her garage. I put it on cotton swabs and stuffed them inside my wheel well and under the hood. Don't know if it is working, but a $300 mechanic bill is enough to make me want to kill all the rats on my property (except my pet rat living in luxery in the living room

)

 

[noodleroo]

I was gardening in the back yard, heard a noise and turned around to see this:

I never saw another rat or snake after this...

 

[Judy]

I used Just One Bite (bromadiolone) as well. It's supposed to be safe for an animal who eats the dead rat. I had two rat-killing and rat-eating dogs at the time, and they never showed any sign of illness, and the rats are gone.

I'm not wild about poison, but for rats....

It's simple enough to place the poison bars so that the the chickens cannot eat them.

I never found any rat bodies, so I guess they went elsewhere to die. I wouldn't be afraid to put it in vents.

 

[PineappleMama]

We had some in ours a year and a half ago... they weren't IN the ducts, they just ATE the insulation around the duct... which we noticed when Texas summer hit and the (relatively new) A/C didn't work. Stupid rodents.

We put out poison, but only up high... and had to keep eyes open when taking the dogs out so they wouldn't find a 'treat'... pain in the tail, but it got the job done.

Along with closing up every nook and cranny we could find that they might be crawling though to get to the attic where the duct was... Landlord had A/C guys re-insulate and all's well... of course NOW we've got the gaping hole in the garage ceiling from The Contractor ripping the hole out hoping to expand the ceiling so new garage doors could be placed (evidently they don't make the size we have any more) and finding a support beam so went with plan B which was just closing up the garage... but didn't bother closing the gaping hole into the attic and sure enough there's scurrying... so may be coming back to this topic again soon ourselves... stupid contractor, I SWEAR that guy leaves more work behind than he fixes... job security.... not just based on our encounters with him mind, though there have been a few... but also on other's accounts of his work... like painting a house... he claims he (and a licensed painter he called) had never even heard of scraping the old flaking paint off before slapping new on... REALLY? Hmmm tangent much?

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

Quote:
I don't know what would have made me crap more...OMG. I would have been screaming my fool head off!

 

[maple]

ew...snake AND a rat. creepers.


ok...only thing about poison and having them die somewhere would be the smell...if it died in said vent and you couldn't reach it...you'd have that forced air stench blown in your home until a)you tore things apart to retrieve dead thing b)it decayed down to bones and fur.

 

[justbugged]

The poison acts as a blood thinner. It kills rodents and rats because they can squeeze through spaces as small as a quarter inch or so. As they squeeze they displace their bodies, and the blood thinner causes the rodent to basically internally bleed to death. So larger pets and and other animals rarely are effected by the poison / blood thinner. That is the explanation that was given to me.
I haven't had any more rodents in the house since we started to use the bait. In fact I found bait that was under the kitchen range just yesterday while we were painting the kitchen. I don't know how long it has been there. We have 4 Yorkies, and a Komondor, plus 5 semi feral cats. I know for sure that the neighbors have rat problems. But I still miss my best mouse hunting dog.

 

[BirdHappyTrucker]

When if you put the poisins out.
Make sure you leave No water sources for them to access in the house at all.
They will need water for some reason lots of the poisons make them want it.
This way they will go outside for water.