Rats!

[dsnewark]

I watched them one night walk past traps baited with peanut butter and another with bacon just to eat feed off of the ground, after a few had been trapped. I taped posion packs over the Tom and Jerry holes they chewed in my kennel walls and they would not touch them. I like the stations because I did not have to worry about anything else getting to the poison. They accually started eating the plastic on the station before they ate the poison but once they took to it I could not keep it baited for about a week and then no more rats.

Secure all of your feed and put the poison where they will find it. You can try putting it down their holes but if they push it out it will kill dogs.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
I know everyone says to put up the food, and I'm sure it would work to keep from attracting the rats. However, if the rats are used to having food available there already, removing the food would only make it worse.
We have rats very badly here, they kept getting into my quails' cages and eating all their feed. I followed the general advice and took the feed out of the cages at night. 2 days later I went out to find a bunch of bones inside one of the cages. Since the feed was no longer there, the rats decided to eat the quail instead.
I would put some pellet poison in the tunnels, then cover the tunnels up. Also, if you have any cages that are made of 1 1/2" wire, you can anchor some down around the pen and put a rat poison block or some traps inside the cage. The rats can get into 1" wire, but only the younger ones. The adults can get in a cage that is made of 1 1/2" x 1" wire.

Good luck getting rid of them, we kill at least a dozen a week, and there's no sign of them slowing down any

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Oh, i'm sorry shelleyd2008, that must have been terrible to find.

i meant to throw poison down the recently dug hole earlier, but just got to it now. i pulled the paver off the top and the hole was even bigger. They had clearly been working on burrowing out from under that paver. So i stuffed one of those rat poison packets down it. It fell way down into the cavity easily. Then put the paver back.

There was another hole over by the corner so i set the giant plastic snap trap there. Now the yucky thing will be when i go out in the morning, if a giant rat body is stuck in it.

i guess i'll just keep throwing poison down until i don't see anymore tunnels. Hopefully, they will crawl out from under the playhouse to die. Then i guess i need to go all the way around it and stuff bricks or pavers and cement them into place. What i'm still not understanding is why they are tunneling into there. We have a number of coops and pens all right in that area and there is always food dropped around in all of them. Why aren't they going into those pens. Or, hum, maybe they are.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Any of you ever tried using a rat terrier to control rodents? I miss mine. He was bit by a snake over the summer.

 

[TomKat]

Initially I had some success with the glue traps and old fashion spring traps; however, like the others have noted most wild rats and mice will learn from their breathens mistakes. Poison ends up being the most effective. I also use gopher poison to put in the rat and gopher tunnels. It comes in a pellet form (looks a lot like Layena pellet so be careful not spill any by the coop). It's cheaper then the poison blocks. Taking the feed out before it gets dark is important since the rats have already established the chicken feed is a safe bet. Unfortunately it seems to be a never ending battle. I feel like I make a huge dent in their population by the end of Fall for them to refill their ranks each Spring !

In regard to the rats eating the plastic I was told there is a chemical in plastic that gets rodents high similar to street drugs for people. Fortunately the plastic has similar effects, a slow death. Poison is quicker.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i had no activity for a couple days, then went out yesterday morning and found two more huge holes. i could kick myself repeatedly for not putting that playhouse on a paver foundation. That mistake in the first place is now costing me a ton of work, and then more down the line when i have to trench all around it and fill in with pavers and cement - after i finally kill all the rats.

So this time i threw a block of bait down each hole and backfilled. No holes today.

i hate rats.

 

[kennedyscochins]

This is what I use for rats.

Get a 2 inch round piece of pvc pipe- about 5 ft. long and a t-piece. Cut the pvc pipe at lengths on 1.5 ft, 1.5 ft and 2 ft. Use the t-piece between the two 1.5 ft pieces and then place the 2 ft. piece in the top of the t piece. Your pvc pipe should look like the letter T. Now, turn the pipe upside down to where the leg of the T is pointing up and the rest is on the ground. Drop your rat poison down the leg of the T. This put the rat poison in the middle of the pvc pipe. The rats like to tunnel and will go through the pipe to get to the poison. The best part is, you can put it anywhere around your coop and your chickens or dogs can't get to it!

 

[gallusdomesticus]

Bromethelin poisons, as oppossed to anti-coagulant poisons, have little risk of secondary poisoing to cats and dogs. The following website has the details:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=vpc10

Bromethelin kills in a single feeding and thus rats can't build up an immunity to it. If you have a lot of rats, poisoining is the only effective way to deal with them.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Oh good, the stuff i used was Tomcat block baits, which contain Bromadiolone. This is also what we used under our house last winter when we had a terribly destructive herd of rats living there. We tossed a bunch of the bars and packets down, heard activity for one more night, and then nothing. Also worked hard sealing up any entry points.

The rat zappers we bought didn't work on the rats, but we caught all the mice in our shed with them.

 

[calicokat]

Uh oh. After reading this thread, I think I know what's been tunnelling into my coop at night

I like the idea of the PVC and poison, so I'll be checking my pipe stash (gee, that sounds a little bad,

) and putting one together ASAP. Where do I go for the poison, any farm store??