Rats stealing chicks?

[Sara Ranch]

I use animal carriers and dog kennels and fencing. Oh my, I have been "creative" in repurposing or multi-purposing things around here.

A lot of my girls will act broody when they are molting or when they feel the roosters are giving them too much attention.

I hope you find the right solution for your situation.

 

[Nats Chickens]

I use animal carriers and dog kennels and fencing. Oh my, I have been "creative" in repurposing or multi-purposing things around here.

A lot of my girls will act broody when they are molting or when they feel the roosters are giving them too much attention.

I hope you find the right solution for your situation.

I don't have a rooster *sob*, and they aren't molting, they molted back in April, because I am in the southern hemisphere. I used an old dog kennel once, because our old dog Maverick didn't like it. But he died, and we got a new dog Roo, and she likes it.

 

[Sara Ranch]

I don't know how active Craigslist is, or if you have Freecycle (freecycle.com) there, but both could be great resources for finding used, free/low cost options for making a brooder for your gal. I took an old cabinet, added handles to the ends, added hardware cloth so the doors could be opened and no chicks would fall out. I placed hardware cloth on top of the brooder that was easily removed. It worked great and then was repurposed again. That cabinet has had at least four different uses.

It does need to be rodent proof.

A mouse can fit through a hole the size of a pencil tip eraser. A rate can fit through a hole the size of an American dime. BOTH spaces are tiny.

Mice will eat the eggs on site, nibble on toes, and be a nuisance.

Rats will take away the eggs for later eating, nibble on toes/legs/all parts of chicken, big or small, and be a nuisance.

 

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you need to get rat bait boxes more than one this way no dogs or chickens can get into most of the time the rats and mice will eat and go back to their nest it will help you more than you know . ever so often check it you will be able to open it and replenish poison as needed . set one on each side of your house too . better than you and your chickens getting killed and iormented

 

[50-45-1]

The coop is a walk-in she’s lol! That would take a lot of wire mesh

i also have a walk in coop. 11 X 14.
what i did was dig a 2 foot trench around the coop, lay the hardware mesh (1/4 inch), around the coop bent in a L shape. fastened it Under my siding. this way nothing can dig down and in.
yes it was a lot of work but it payed off in the long run.
every single nighttime predator i have had has resulted in added measures and update of my coop so the coop i have now is secure.
i learned from my mistakes.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Simple solution. Lock away the bulk feed in trash cans and get a treadle feeder. Search BYC forums for rat proof feeder or chickens and rats and you will find thread after thread on how to deal with the rats.

On chicks, oh yeah, rats will murder all they can get hold of. Back in 2011 I had built a homemade incubator using a hot water heater thermostat and started hatching eggs. At one point I realized that the chicks were disappearing faster than they were being hatched and the chicks were terrified even during the day. I walk over and pick up the big round hanging feeder that I had lowered to the ground so the chicks could get to the crumble and a basket ball size ball of mice and rats boiled up out of the hole they had dug under the feeder and over my feet.

I had been using that round feeder and a PVC pipe feeder but I started working on the prototype rat proof feeder the next day. But not till after I researched available feeders and found either they were super expensive like the Grandpa feeder that was over $240.00 plus shipping or their reviews were terrible.

About two days after installing the first prototype, a wood feeder with a steel rod as a counterweight, the rats were staggering out during the day and my two dogs were killing them by the dozen. Within a week all the rats and mice were completely gone. I posted pictures of the contraption here on BYC and got encouragement to make some for sale and have sold thousands of feeders since. I like most businesses track sales, BYC is a tiny percentage of my sales, but it is wonderful for doing research on the issue of rats and chickens so sometimes when my main business is slow I get to do more than lurk and learn.

Forget the traps and poisons. Deal with the feed issue and your will not have a problem.