Rats! Please help!

[into_my_web]

Today I found some holes in my shed and we keep all of our animals in our shed. I have a large shed that is divided by wire and wood. One side has two plastic cages, one with rats in it and the other with hamsters in it, also on this side I have four bunnies and two very young chicks that aren't quite old enough to free range yet. On the other side I have chickens and ducks of various ages. I found two decently large holes in floor of my shed today and they were clearly made by rats but do I really need to be concerned? My boyfriend had a rat problem when he had chickens but no chickens were ever harmed and our neighbor also has had problems with them but no deaths or injuries. I was just curious about what could happen, so here are my questions:
1.I live in Newfoundland, does that mean rats here are different or are they all pretty much the same?
2.We have had our animals out there for several months and there hasnt been any sign of rats until now, is there a reason why?
3.Would they chew through the plastic cages to get my hamsters or rats?
4.Would rats kill large chickens and ducks or just the smaller ones?
5.Would rats kill bunnies?

Thank-you. Any info would be great.

 

[MissJenny]

I've seen rats as small as my fist and I've seen rats as big as cats. So in answer to whether the rats that are getting into your shed will kill or harm your rats, hamsters, bunnies or chicks... I can only say it depends on the rats. They are coming in now because it is getting cold. They want a warm place to live, sleep, eat and breed.

My question is are you sure these holes are caused by rats. Could it be possum or weasles. Are the holes large enough to allow other predators to enter your shed? And before you answer that, any hole large enough for a raccoon to get his paw in is large enough for the raccoon make large enough to fit his whole body through.

Do what you can to reinforce the holes, whether with hardware cloth or plywood sprayfoam -- allowing rats into your shed is big bad news.

Jenny

 

[into_my_web]

Quote:
We've had a mink kill a few baby chicks once and since then it hasn't come back. I'm not positive its rats, it could very well be a mink again but the holes aren't that big and my uncle who had chickens a few years ago said they looked a lot like rat holes because of the shape. We do not have raccoons here, thank-god. We covered the holes over with two-by-fours for just the night. Do you have any suggestions as to what we could reinforce the holes with.

 

[into_my_web]

Bump.