Rats

[Moodleroni]

We live behind a "lumber yard" sort of deal and have rats in our yard, they go for the leftover chicken food at night, as they do, but have thankfully had no chicken injuries/deaths due to said rats as of yet. All my chickens roost in their coop, which the rats have found their way into. I'll be working on filling in the holes I've found throughout the week.

I've been reading up on different threads where rats are mentioned to eat/maim chickens when aggrevated or are desperate for food. We do have a large amount of stray cats, we have dogs in our yard, and there are tons of fruit trees through the neighborhood for them to eat (which they also do), but they still go to my coop/run.

My question is, will I need to worry about them hurting my chickens if I spend the time raking up the leftovers and still putting up their feed at night? I'm concerned I will be making them desperate/aggressive but I also don't want to attract more.

 

[theoldchick]

If you don't want to use poison, use rat traps placed at various locations. You are doing the right thing by keeping all sources of food away from them.

 

[Penpal]

They will go to where the food is. If pickings become lean at your place, they will search out another. Dogs will keep them out if the dogs kill them. The Meer presence of dogs make the rats more leery, but as you can see, they still will find a way to get to the feast.

 

[Kiki]

Spend the money on investing in 1/2" hardware cloth and cover your whole coop with it.
All openings.

Covering holes is not going to prevent the rats from covering back because they will just dig or chew a new one.

Not only will they eat chickens, they carry nasty bugs and diseases that they can pass on to chickens too.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Do a forum search for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control. Three methods, sanitation, exclusion, elimination. Sanitation, treadle feeder that is actually rodent proof, most are not, bulk feed in metal barrels, and clean up the paths that rats use to travel to and from the coop so the natural predators can do their job.
Exclusion, build a Fort Knox coop. Expensive.
Elimination, poison or traps. Never ending and ineffective usually.

Do the first and you don't have to do the other two.

 

[McChooky]

Rat proof your chicken coop and the weasels and minks will eat the rats

 

[Moodleroni]

We don't have weasels or minks here, just dogs (which includes 2 boxers that have caught/killed 1 rat that i know of & a mini schnauzer which alerts/acts like a rat dog), stray cats, and the occasional hawk or eagle. We are deep enough into city limits that we don't have to worry about coyotes or vultures.

We do have bait stations, but I don't feel like they're effective since they have soooooo many other food choices, including fruit trees, water bugs, cat food the neighbors down the street leave out for the strays, then there's the flock of wild chickens that visit the back alley. I guess it's easier to get any scraps from the coop/run than to go scavenge elsewhere I know rats have also become a huge problem throughout the city in recent years so they're everywhere.

My run is enclosed with a combo of 1/4"×1/4" & 1/2"×1/2" hardwire mesh on all 4 sides, the walls are buried into the ground about 1-2 feet, but the roof is not fully covered or finished yet (still a work in progress). We are also getting pest & rodent proof food storage set up and we put their food away at night. They are digging tunnels into the coop/run, and so far I've found and filled in 4 tunnels.

I'll take the deep dive into Howard E.'s posts!!

 

[arizona_chicken_noob]

Digging tunnels.... it could also be ground squirrels.

I haven't noticed rats going after my birds specifically (and they totally could as I don't have a Fort Knox situation) but they did figure out how to get into my feeder, sadly, so I cover the ports and put that up at night.

Doing battle myself with rats and it sure does keep me humble (not the coop) Think I got their access point this time? NOPE. So far they do not appear to be affecting the birds. I'm not sure if they eat chicken poop, that's one thing I do wonder about.

 

[Moodleroni]

No ground squirrels, they are 1000% rats, but we do have tree squirrels that are content with staying in the fruit trees, they don't bother with the chickens

I also wonder if the rats eat chicken poop

 

[McChooky]

Rats dig under coops,porches,foundations, garages, wood piles and sidewalks. They nest where there's plentiful food sources and move along when there's none. If no food is available close by they will eat their babies and each other which causes the colony to die.