Rats in the chicken coop

[Folly's place]

We have had rats in the barn, and near the chicken coop. Rats are difficult/impossible to trap; you will get a few, but never the whole group. I locked up my chickens, the barn cat, and the dogs, and set out dicon rat bait, for about a week. Lots got eaten; when no more disappeared, I picked it up and waited a few more days before letting the cat, birds, and dogs out again. Never say a rat carcass, but no more live sitings or rat poo. Ugh! Mary

 

[seminolewind]

I have 2 bait stations that work really well. Especially when there's nothing else to eat.

 

[hbhoffman]

When we have rats my DH sets the traps late at night after the dogs come in,then checks and sets off the ones that don't have dead rats before anyone or critter is let out.
I was reading elsewhere (The Chicken Chick) that a mixture of cornmeal and plaster of Paris is a natural bait. Basically hardens inside them. But I wouldn't use it near the coop! As to the bait, I would enclose it in a bait station. As to dog pop, yes, they will eat it so it means regular yard cleanup. On the blog The Chicken Chick by Kathy Shear Mormino (www.the-chicken-chick.com. I think) she talks about what horrible diseases rats carry and helpful ideas on rat control. Some have already been talked about here. But it was nice, concise and informational post dated June 1,2013.
So keep at it. Spring is coming and everything gives birth then including rats!

 

[BarneyChick97]

Well, I FOUND a rat in my coop. My turkey/duck/chicken coop is all under one roof, wrapped together with chicken wire. We processed our 2 tom turkeys yesterday, and so, I thought I'd be nice and clean all of their "poo" out of the turkey/duck area. (they had to share those spaces) I had to move my duck houses (one is an old dog carrier, and the other is a plastic dog house-comes apart in 2 pieces), so I could rinse off the roofs of both (turkey liked to perch up there a poo on it), I took them outside of the coop to rinse, I drug my entire hose from my house out there. I don't know how far that is, but anyway, I turned my back, and was rinsing, heard something, turned around, and there was this rat, running along the bottom of the coop, trying to get out. Its completely wrapped in chicken wire, mind you. I did not know what to do, but I just started to hose it. It climbed all the way up to the ceiling, and eventually dropped back to the ground. It could not squeeze through the holes of the chicken wire. I totally expected it to escape that way, but it did not. Long story short, I killed it. Not going to say how, just in case someone on this feed "loves rats".

I do not believe in catch and release. I had never seen a rat that close before until that. So , my momentum with my "cleaning" suddenly stopped. The duck coop is a complete and total mess, and there's a dead rat in it. My husband gets to clean that up when he gets home. I killed it, but I am not going to touch it. I think it was living UNDER my duck house. There was a hole/bowl dug under it, and there was some dry straw and stuff there too. I did not go digging to see if there was more, that was enough for today. I am DEFINITELY going to get some kind of baited rat traps or something today from the store!!!!!!!

 

[hbhoffman]

Sorry you went through that! Good for you on taking care of it!
The upside is that one is dead and you know where it was hiding. Go see if you can move anything else around to see if there is more. Take a strong shovel with you just in case it's needed. And be alert! This is important to your flock's and your family's health and well being. These are Not pets! They're nasty persistent pests.

 

[BarneyChick97]

I did not dig into the ground. Its pretty wet, and compacted. I totally abandoned the area until my husband came home. He took the rat out (he thought that I didn't kill it, and expected it to be gone by the time he got home---HA! I showed him!

) , and sure enough, he was still dead! I had him rake up/ and scratch up the ground that was under the duck house. He didn't see anything? So, I put all my houses back, and I put a loaded tomcat trap behind the duck house. Now, I'm pretty certain that this would be the best place for it. Our duck coop is in the middle of the "coop building", and its the least used coop of them all. My ducks only go in there houses at night, and are locked up. They do eat in there, and have a water bucket, but the tomcat is behind the big duck house, in the corner. So, unless they fly on top of the house, and fall behind it, they can't get to it. I've got one laying turkey hen on the one side, and my chickens on the other. I think I'd be most worried about chickens, but its closer to the turkeys side, and she doesn't seem interested in that part of the coop. So anyhow.....

Now should I be looking for dead rats in a few days...or even mice???? YAAAAACK!!! My neighbors are going to think I'm a freak!!

 

[hbhoffman]

Hi! Totally get what you are feeling and thinking. Once we knew what to look for like chewed through trash cans we realized who else on the block had them! And who else was harboring them unintentionally. 8-0. They will be grateful they are gone. Now when someone sees one we quietly let the others know. It has really helped!
My DH didn't believe me either. No one believed that we had rats. My whole family really sneered and snickered at me. Even more so when I told them our docile dog and I had killed one huge one. They didn't snicker after the third one. To this day my dog reacts strongly to the scent of or the words of "Bo, Rat!". Ours were the size of XL guinea pigs. Put more than one trap out in multiple areas. Let them sit to remove human scent for a couple of days, then fill for a couple of days,then fill and set the trap. Worked every time. Keep at it!

 

[towniechooks]

Eeek we are new to this, just 3 chickens in our back garden, and just saw our most plucky chook pecking at a moving thing - a rat it's bright daylight?! We thought bringing food in at night was enough.
Hubby is currently constructing something to hang their feeder from - not sure this will help if rats can jump??! We are meticulous about bringing in the feeders at bedtime and the food stays indoors. However the bedding straw lives in the garage and hubby has now noticed the packaging has been chewed through
We are worried about using poison as we live in a residential area where many people have cats and dogs.
Help a newbie anyone..?!

 

[andreanar]

I had a small rat issue awhile back. I made sure to keep food out of the coop at night, I went over the coop with a fine tooth comb and found a hole in the corner of the coop floor. I put down hardware cloth on the floor and partway up the walls. I put some just one bite bait stations under the coop. That seemed to work and rats are gone after 2 weeks.

 

[seminolewind]

Andreanar is right. Can't leave any food droppings out. You can make something. Take a 2x4, cut into 4 parts, nail it to make a square, nail a piece of board on it covering the bottom, and hardware cloth on top. Set the feeder on it . The droppings will fall into this base and can't be touched.

Bait stations are great. They work really well if there's no other food available. I have 3 around my chicken pens. If you buy bait, get the Tomcat, and buy the DARK green chunks, not the light green. The light ones didn't seem to work for me.

I keep my horse at a place where they live outside. They had a shed that the feed was in. If you stood in there for 10 minutes, you would see no less than 15 rats, and many were youngsters. I had to move my saddle out of there because everything I had would get covered in rat cr@p. They bought a new shed and put poison in the old one and I can't tell you how many dead rats there were laying all over the place!