Rats, rats EVERYWHERE! ☹️

[hysop]

The land would need some serious landscaping.

oh okay. Do you have family or friends that could house your chickens for the rest of the winter while you tackle this problem?

 

[Weeg]

Has the "Ratinator" been suggested? It.... Is.... Awesome!

I love that trap! I like the live trap they make best! I caught 10 rats in one day with that one!

 

[ChocolateMouse]

That’s about the size of the one I found floating in my duck pool the other week. Sickening. But shockingly the ones I see scurrying about are much smaller. Not sure why the one in the duck pool was so big unless it’s a different breed.

Big ones like that are breeding age. The ones you see scurrying aren't even breeding age. Think of how much worse it will be when they are...

 

[HuffleClaw]

oh okay. Do you have family or friends that could house your chickens for the rest of the winter while you tackle this problem?

Sure but the chickens wouldn’t have a place to stay. It’d be really hard to move all of those coops that far.

 

[HuffleClaw]

Big ones like that are breeding age. The ones you see scurrying aren't even breeding age. Think of how much worse it will be when they are...

Oh no

 

[Weeg]

Rats are really difficult, but is is BEST to not use poison unless you have tried everything.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ya it's a bad deal. I tried all kinds of traps and the stupid baking soda, plaster and all those. Pretty much everything anyone suggested.
Problem is they'll breed faster then you trap them. I end up using poison. Wish I would of used it from the start and they wouldn't of gotten so out of hand.

 

[MGG]

I love that trap! I like the live trap they make best! I caught 10 rats in one day with that one!

At our old house we had a bad rat problem in the chicken coop. It got so bad they actually ate one of the chickens. We got the big live ratinator trap, and caught 36 rats in one night! And then we just submerged it in the tub, dumped them all out, and reset it. It pretty much fixed our rat problem. We caught hundreds of rats in that thing.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Sounds like you've got some options but no matter what you do step one is cleaning up feed and eliminating as many hiding spots as you can.

Agreed with Moonshiner here. Personally, I did try other things but went with what I went with because I was losing birds and it was getting worse not better. Like I said, I was getting several per night and not beating them. They got into my house even. Not mucking about with that. I still haven't fixed my garage roof damage.... 6" timber with bricks and mortar chewed straight through.

 

[HuffleClaw]

Ya it's a bad deal. I tried all kinds of traps and the stupid baking soda, plaster and all those. Pretty much everything anyone suggested.
Problem is they'll breed faster then you trap them. I end up using poison. Wish I would of used it from the start and they wouldn't of gotten so out of hand.

What kind of poison did you use? I guess I could lock the cats up for a while and warn the neighbors not to let their dogs come up here.