Rats Rats And More Rats

[The Chicken Lady]

Quote:
Close up as many holes as you can find, but leave one open. Shove a garden hose down it and turn it on. Leave it on until water starts rushing backward out the hole. We got rid of rats this way. Some escaped, but they never came back.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

Now that I can def. try!!! I will do that today, thanks for the idea! .....hope none of them have life jackets!!!

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

I tried that but the drainage here is too good. I'm on a well and it cost me the lot for that moment, and never did see water back up the hole.

Wells should be flushed anyway once a year right? LOL

Darlene I'll get the make and name for you when I get home.

Yes all baits should be secured but as I said this stuff is safer than the old warfrin types. It comes in blocks with holes in it so you can wire it down, or as I do wire it into a bait station that they are standing in, so they can't drag it off.

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

OK so the active ingredient is Brodifacoum 0.005% and the product name I have is WeatherBlok XT which is a wax based water/weather proof star shaped block with a hole in the center for the wire. Even though they are sheltered by the pipe I still feel better about it being waterproof.

http://www.syngentaprofessionalproducts.com/prodrender/index.aspx?ProdID=367

WHO has the following to say about it's action.

Brodifacoum is an indirect anticoagulant, it acts through the interruption of the vitamin K1-epoxide cycle, preventing vitamin K activation rather than depleting its body reserves.

The original book I got with it said it did that in the liver as I remember, and so as that is not passed on the bodies are safer. Please member that nothing is totally safe so be careful if you decide to use it.

I love to stay totally natural but nothing else was even close to working here for this problem.​

 

[onthespot]

I just recently had a rodent bloom at my place. I use TomKat brand of rodent poison. my birds are up off the ground and well contained, so I just strategically place the blocks banquet style anywhere they will find them. It is blue two inch by one inch rectangle cubes with a hole up the middle and they can NOT get enough of the stuff. When I first started using it there was a mouse explosion a few years ago so I got a bucket of TomKat and hid cubes around because we had loose dogs at the time. Well, two days after putting in the blocks it looked like it had hailed mice! I am not kidding you, they were all over the lawn like a mouse bomb had gone off. One old dog must have pigged out on dead mice because about ten days later she died of the rat poison. She was 14 but spry and in pefect health. So... TomKat works like a miracle, and secondary poisoning from dead rodents is a definite risk. Just sharing what a terrible mistake I made, one in not realizing how bad the problem was, and two, for not keeping the dogs up until I had a chance to clean up the little bodies.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Honest, I'd use poison ALL DAY LONG if:

1) There's no way it would cause harm to my chickens from eating a dead rat / mouse
2) They wouldn't die in the walls and places we can't get to them.... ugh the smell is unbearable!

That said, I've gotten to the point (like 4 months ago) when we had ones in the attic and wouldn't go into traps. I literally put out 8 traps exactly where I knew and saw they were running. We got about 3 of them with poison. One died in the wall behind my wife's computer.... not a happy camper.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

I bookmarked that site April, that may be a good option. Thank you for all that info. ...mice/rats must sure be a common problem.

The water thing only made a mess..there are too many tunnels and too far from the shed to the coop for that to work..that would have been cool though..my old lab would have scooped up the ones that floated out of the other end..she loves to kill a rat/mouse....another reason why I worry about poison though...


d.k. I know you talked about how to dispense that confectioners sugar/plaster of paris mixture but does anyone know if that will harm the chickens if the mouse eats it and makes it to the coop to die and they eat the mouse??? I have all that on hand and can shove it in plastic dishes under my shed but I am scared they will get into the chicken pen and die and get eaten...anyone know?


And Nifty..we had that happen when I was growing up, in a split-level house a mouse/rat died in the wall..OMG, I will NEVER forget that smell and it was weeks before it was totally gone ewwwwww.

 

[mmajw]

The great things about poison is that when rats or mice eat it they cant throw up and it kills them. Most other animals including chickens can vomit and the poison (if they ate an infected mouse or rat) wouldn't stay in their systems it would make them vomit.

I have had a rat problem and now know that chickens can get sick from mice and rats without poison involved.
I had my chickens become extremely ill and loose half of my flock to Salmonella. The state vet said it was from ingesting rat feces and then once salmonella was in the coop they passed it on to eachother. I am glad that we caught it when we did or I could have lost the whole flock.

Now rat poison is placed under the coop and the coop is checked daily for dead rats/mice and their feces.

 

[d.k]

* I know that what happens with the plaster is that it hardens and blocks their intestinal tract. Chickens eat hard stuff like grit and pass it but idk. The plaster is not going to harden a second time And a mouse's intestine is small in diameter. It MAY pass fine. But, chickens eating dead, wild mice to start with is another matter, you know?? Nifty-- chances are all you needed to do was switch baits. Rats are SMART buggers and once clued into the danger of one food they won't touch it. I had one get wise to the peanut butter dough bait I was using, so I cleaned the traps and switched to cheese dough. Caught him 2 days later.

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

Onthespot I'm sorry to hear about your dog. I know the dangers of the first generation rat baits (yours was, it's Diphacinone) and that's why I will not go there. Also they tend to work too quick, so you do get bodies out in the open. If you have issues again please look into the second generation stuff so that the kill rate is slow (or the often list is as delayed on the label) which gives the rodent time to know they are not feeling well and they tend to remain nested. Also by being comatose for a bit they tend to dehydrate Rob so you don't get the stink. The body is way more likely to mummify.

I agree with changing baits though, and trap types, it has helped us in our old house attic. We went to town on prevention with that house, took a bunch of siding down and put metal behind it and reflashed the roofline, no help. They just found another way.