Rats???

[Rechicked]

I have had a critter(s) underneath my coop for about a month now. From the 2 tennis ball size holes and the fan-shaped discharged dirt outside of the holes, I'm thinking RATS.
They avoid the snap traps and enclosed baited traps. I've also tried putting onions, black pepper and peppermint on cotton balls down the holes and covering it in. Every morning, the holes are open again! My unwelcomed visitors have so far been content to staying under the coop but I'm sure they will soon try getting inside with my chickens. On top of that, the holes are inside the run and right beside the hatch door where the chickens come out. I don't want to open the hatch because I'm afraid "whatever" will sneak inside the coop.
As a last resort, I've thought about pouring a jug of bleach down the holes in the hopes that it will gas them out or kill them. Has anyone ever tried this? Will the bleach fumes come up through the wooden coop floor to my flock?

 

[LateBirdFarms]

If you're able to keep the chickens out of the coop, a reasonably easy way to eliminate a good number are the mole pesticide smoke bombs. If you're able to cover most of the holes. Of course this also means dead rats under your coop, which equals out to a bit of a stink when things warm up, if the few survivors don't consume the corpses left behind. If you're able to get a good amount of water down there and it's cold enough, you'll freeze a good number, but the little pests are really persistent. I have an issue every year when the farmers pull in the crops off the neighboring grain fields, you can literally see droves of them running from the machines as they tear up their burrows.

 

[LateBirdFarms]

I swear, our Ontario rats are the trickiest, cleverest foe to go up against. I'd rather out-think a coyote. From my experience, I'll be honest, I was a little terrified at first due to fire risk, and of course the package saysonce there's no more smoke there's no more danger, but I didn't want to trust them on that.. The first time I was super careful, moved the chickens for a night to make sure the coop was aired out right, kept a hose handy, but it wasn't nearly as concerning once I saw them in action. With the "bomb" part actually underground the way its supposed to be, it rests on dirt and stays a good distance away from any bedding that the rats may have dry further under the coop, and the wick itself doesn't spark like a sparkler, but it does burn quite hot, so I definitely wouldn't be using them without a bucket of water at handy. What I'm trying to say, in a very long winded, round about way, is that I understand your worries completely, and without seeing your coop I can't say one way or other if the situation isn't ideal for the smoke out. Water though, if you can get enough of it, works beautifully in temps just under the 0 mark or lower. Not only does the dirt freeze solid on em, and some may just have the added bonus of freezing to death but they clear out for a bit and you can fill up the holes and sit back with a nice pellet rifle as a deterrent. Just a heads up, the problem with hardware cloth aprons that I've had is the little ba$7@rds tunnel under anyway, just now they're coming in under my limestone paths 3ft away.

ETA: I spent a fortune putting in hardware cloth 16"-18" down around the outside of my run and where I could around the coop, where I couldn't there's grass, and I have no clue why they haven't gone under that way, maybe the visibility factor, but they tunneled down from between the roots of a pine right up against the trunk, then the 3 feet to my coop, and under where the wire apron is. And up and out the other side of the coop into the run on the other side of the apron there! Next time I do battle I'm going to try pouring cement down the holes as they become visible, and then the holes they dig after that until they've got no other options but to leave and my DH is out of cement bags.

(And I just realized I brought up the water idea twice. Think my brain might be a bit soft still from the Holidays! )

 

[Acre4Me]

where are you located? Sometimes this helps bc certain critters are more prevalent one place or another.


Can you shoot water through the holes forcing them to evacuate, and have a friend nearby to help you spot whatever critters shoot out?

Borrow a game cam from someone to try to id a nocturnal animal.

look at your DNR website, they usually have local wildlife and nuisance wildlife parts of their websites. Of course, rats are everywhere, so DNR probably does not have a section on them.


A tennis ball sized opening could be many animals. Oppossum? Would guess not skunk bc you would probably already know by smell. Groundhog? one of these set up shop under my neighbors shed, hole not that big.

 

[LateBirdFarms]

Have you tried the Tom Cat brand snap traps? The black plastic ones? Those worked well around my coop (but I covered them with a cardboard box with an entry in it for the rats because I didn’t want to kill the wild birds). We had a bad rat problem here (Central Coast of California), and with a combined effort of the Tom Cat traps, smoke bombs (in the big PVC pipes stored out back), flushing them out/finding their nests (my terrier mix was a HUGE help with that), and the electric traps, we got it under control. Rats are super smart, so it takes time and testing different things. Also, peanut butter makes the best bait .

The rat family and all their distant relatives that move into the abandoned (evicted!) family home (my coop!) each summer and again in the fall won't touch anything baited with peanut butter! It dawned on me though that what they really enjoy is any spilled chicken feed, so I turn that into a mash and shape it into pea sized balls. I can only get them to take the bait twice tops before I have to switch out traps, but that's a good point I had forgotten to mention, whether water or smoke, if you find somewhere they're getting out and you can't block it, a trap they have no choice but to cross is pretty handy too

 

[Rechicked]

I swear, our Ontario rats are the trickiest, cleverest foe to go up against. I'd rather out-think a coyote. From my experience, I'll be honest, I was a little terrified at first due to fire risk, and of course the package saysonce there's no more smoke there's no more danger, but I didn't want to trust them on that.. The first time I was super careful, moved the chickens for a night to make sure the coop was aired out right, kept a hose handy, but it wasn't nearly as concerning once I saw them in action. With the "bomb" part actually underground the way its supposed to be, it rests on dirt and stays a good distance away from any bedding that the rats may have dry further under the coop, and the wick itself doesn't spark like a sparkler, but it does burn quite hot, so I definitely wouldn't be using them without a bucket of water at handy. What I'm trying to say, in a very long winded, round about way, is that I understand your worries completely, and without seeing your coop I can't say one way or other if the situation isn't ideal for the smoke out. Water though, if you can get enough of it, works beautifully in temps just under the 0 mark or lower. Not only does the dirt freeze solid on em, and some may just have the added bonus of freezing to death but they clear out for a bit and you can fill up the holes and sit back with a nice pellet rifle as a deterrent. Just a heads up, the problem with hardware cloth aprons that I've had is the little ba$7@rds tunnel under anyway, just now they're coming in under my limestone paths 3ft away.

ETA: I spent a fortune putting in hardware cloth 16"-18" down around the outside of my run and where I could around the coop, where I couldn't there's grass, and I have no clue why they haven't gone under that way, maybe the visibility factor, but they tunneled down from between the roots of a pine right up against the trunk, then the 3 feet to my coop, and under where the wire apron is. And up and out the other side of the coop into the run on the other side of the apron there! Next time I do battle I'm going to try pouring cement down the holes as they become visible, and then the holes they dig after that until they've got no other options but to leave and my DH is out of cement bags.

(And I just realized I brought up the water idea twice. Think my brain might be a bit soft still from the Holidays! )

Thanks for sharing your trials. You saved me time and money on burying the wire apron. Looks like I'm going to be investing in some bags of quick-post cement. If my rats are as determined as yours are, if nothing else, I will eventually end up with a nice cement footing under my coop!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I pour water in my mouse holes to flush them out

 

[Rechicked]

Thanks for the replies. I've thought of smoke bombs but because of the warning label, I'm afraid of catching the coop on fire. I live in the country in southern Ontario, surrounded by farmland. We've always had a small barn but I never noticed holes like this until I built the coop, although it could be just coincidence. Def not a skunk. There are opossums around also. I won't be able to flush whatever it is, out with a water hose until spring because we winterized our outdoor plumbing already. I can try buckets of water into a big funnel for now and see what happens. I've thought about the smell factor if I do kill something under there. I was thinking maybe lye or stall-dry and shooting it in the holes via reversed shop vac hose. But I'll worry about that later.

 

[Rechicked]

My old coop had a wire mesh floor and feed would easily fall though onto the ground. It did not take long for the rats to dig tunnels under the coop to gather up all that feed. No matter how many I trapped I would have more the next day. Fortunatly, my dog loved to hunt them and that drastically reduced the population but did not eliminate it.
Do you know what is attracting the rats to be under your coop? Can you modify the coop in any way to eliminate them from tunneling underneath. Would an apron of hardware cloth help? Can you move the feed or reduce any spillage?

My coop floor is all wood, no gaps or holes, so there's no food that could drop down. And my feed is inside also, in tight-lidded totes. I don't think the coop was targeted, just handy and kind of out of the elements. It does have a roof over that part of the run. I didn't bury hardware cloth around the coop but it's for sure getting done in the spring

 

[Dusty Chicken]

If you don't want to wait for spring I would just put the hardware cloth on top of the soil. You can use landscape staples to hold it down. I did this around an area of my coop run where I did not want the girls creating dust baths, it has worked well.