Rats?

[RichardTheRooster]

This morning I was greeted by a large dead rat carcus. Should I be worried about rats and my chickens? I've seen them kill mice before and they took care of a couple mice all on their own just killed them and left them for me to take care of. I'm not worried about mice but rats are different, should I be worried about rats getting inside of the coop?

 

[azygous]

I would be concerned. Both rats and mice carry vermin and disease that could be carried to your chickens.

I have a mouse problem that I try to keep under control with traps so they don't attract snakes. Three times a rattle snake found its way into the run and had to be removed. Snakes are attracted to rats and mice.

I use the bucket trap as the mice have all caught onto the two types of commercial traps I used to use. The rodent climbs up a narrow ramp to the bucket, attracted to peanut butter on the revolving stick installed at the top, lose their balance and fall into the bucket to drown in a few inches of water. I've never had rodents catch onto this trap. http://fivegallonideas.com/bucket-mouse-trap/ This video shows the bucket trap I made with a wood dowel, a piece of copper tubing, and some plastic sleeves over the dowel so the copper tube rolls. But you can buy the roller on the internet.

 

[RichardTheRooster]

I would be concerned. Both rats and mice carry vermin and disease that could be carried to your chickens.

I have a mouse problem that I try to keep under control with traps so they don't attract snakes. Three times a rattle snake found its way into the run and had to be removed. Snakes are attracted to rats and mice.

I use the bucket trap as the mice have all caught onto the two types of commercial traps I used to use. The rodent climbs up a narrow ramp to the bucket, attracted to peanut butter on the revolving stick installed at the top, lose their balance and fall into the bucket to drown in a few inches of water. I've never had rodents catch onto this trap. http://fivegallonideas.com/bucket-mouse-trap/ This video shows the bucket trap I made with a wood dowel, a piece of copper tubing, and some plastic sleeves over the dowel so the copper tube rolls. But you can buy the roller on the internet.

Thank you, ive heard of that trap but never heard of any success. Ive looked around and see no signs of rats and it looked like a cat dragged it over there. But I forgot about how many diseases there are in rats and mice. None live in the coop and it the one time i saw it happen was in their run.

 

[Howard E]

Short answer is YES. Until you confirm it from actual sightings, you can monitor things by using rat traps, and/or game cameras set to record activity around the coop. Once you find a live one, then you know you've got problems as you never have just one.

The fact that one has shown up, even a dead one, means they are in the neighborhood somewhere. Most chicken setups are a magnet for them to boot, so yes, time to start planning what you can do about it if their presence is confirmed.