Rats

[Egghead_Jr]

If the goal is to kill the pests then why would it matter if the method was via bull terriers or poison? If the poison is contained in two places, the bait box and rodents mouth then it's not going where it's unwanted therefore no unwanted casualties. Yet a dog can harm me, my chickens and my cat. Like I'd stated earlier; in well over a year of use only once was a rodent (chipmunk) dead on the ground, the rest die in holes and nests away from animals who'd eat them.

Rats are prolific. Able to reproduce at 3-4 months of age. Have a liter of 6-14 pups in 21 days. Go into heat every 5 to 6 days. It gets ugly quick. Even uglier if some decide to winter over in your house to brood another 10 pups each in your walls and attic. If you take care of it then your house will stink. Best to nip this type of problem early and hard. If it gets out of hand in a barn situation they eat eggs and young poultry.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

I had rodents and I did not need to trap, poison, or get barn cats/dogs. All I did was put the feed bags in a metal container (I used a garbage can) and keep it closed. I feed my birds in the morning and at night, never more than they can eat in a few minutes. The problem went away after I started doing this.

There are other things you can try to make them leave even faster. Try getting cayenne pepper flakes and sprinkle them all around, in the chicken food and on the coop. Its spicy and will sting the rats eyes, making them run away, but it is good for chickens and won't bother them.

 

[Allears]

This is what I work with, this is what secondary poisoning looks like. One poisoned rat may not kill an owl, but an owl doesn’t eat one rat per night and when they are feeding chicks they hunt even harder! And people wonder why there are so many rats...


These are only a few of the owls we've dealt with, but there are many other raptor casualties due to secondary poisoning. There is always a bigger picture and I am just asking that natural remedies be tried before considering the chemical route.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

This is what I work with, this is what secondary poisoning looks like. One poisoned rat may not kill an owl, but an owl doesn’t eat one rat per night and when they are feeding chicks they hunt even harder! And people wonder why there are so many rats...


These are only a few of the owls we've dealt with, but there are many other raptor casualties due to secondary poisoning. There is always a bigger picture and I am just asking that natural remedies be tried before considering the chemical route.

Thank you for sharing.

Poison is rarely, if ever, necessary.

 

[Allears]

Most poisons make the rats and they leave their shelter in search for water. The owls see the rats out in the, open moving slower than normal and that makes the rat easy pickings.The poison builds up in the owls system and they start hemorrhaging internally, they get weaker are less agile in flight and are slower to react. Some people believe that is why so many owls get hit by cars, its due to slower reaction time because the poison has started building up. They also go look for water and many are found drowned because they land in water and are too weak to get out again.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

And of course, with less predators, we end up with even more rats than we had before!

 

[galvinj]

Tamper proof bait boxes with chunx bait. I keep one right in the chicken run, safe to use. Chunx bait doesn't get scattered about like pellets, the pests have to chew it off so it stays in their mouth. In over a year of using it I've only found one dead rodent on the lawn and dispatched that before letting chickens out in morning. The pests will die in nests and holes. Effective on squirrels, chipmunks, rats and mice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Protecta-LP...801?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f25e7cc79

Chunx bait can be purchased in one gallon size pails that would last years. It's a bit of change up front and they work so well you'd think you don't even need them until you open a box and see all the bait is gone.

If you see one hole you've got a dozen rats, two holes fifty and three or more holes your overrun.

X2

 

[Allears]

I know you need to protect your flocks, just please don't be indiscriminate if you decide to use poison. There are many of us who would like our children's children to see an owl in the wild, not just see pictures of them.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Killing rats won't help, more will just come. You have to stop feeding them. That is all. It's actually very easy to get rid of rats, they are not the huge problem people make them out to be.

Allears, what is that creature in the first picture- a genet?

 

[Allears]

!00% correct, a big hunter of rats.