Rats!!!!!!!

[XxPandaxX]

BOILED EGG... they hate it... at least my hamsters do.. put something smelly in there .. To catch my hamsters, we trap the room off that they ran into. They're sneaky, smart guys. I've heard of rats attacking and eating chickens .. KILL EM' QUICKK! LOL! They're also a sucker for food. Mice don't really like peanut butter. Try some fresh veggies on the trap, or put some poisoned food where the girls and your lab can't get to it. I hope I helped !

 

[clucky3255]

Rats are suspicious of anything new in their environment, and they also tend to travel the same ways every time. Observe to see where their trails are (look for the poop) and place snap traps there (unarmed and baited) for a week or so. Then you go to arming the traps once they are used to taking bait from them. Use something tasty and smelly like peanut butter and keep dogs and chickens away from areas where traps are deployed of course. It took a few weeks, but this is how I got rid of roof rats in my attic. I think you are right to be hesitant about using poison when you have any other animals around...and the rats might die somewhere inconvenient if you poison them. With the snap traps you can dispose.
You could also try putting feed inside coop only (assuming they are locked up there at night) then stuffing all crevices with steel wool or copper mesh.

Yes.. I think i would do that if i have a rat problem......i dont though.... i gotta chipmunk prrrrrblem

 

[JoshU]

Okay guys, thanks for all the feedback! I might have to try that exlax trick. I am still with rats and willing to try ANYTHING! I have killed a few, maybe five over the past several weeks, but I don't think that even puts a dent on my population. I will tell you that the steel wool and peppermint oil has helped a little. I put the peppermint oil and some water in a spray bottle and it seems to keep them off for a few days, until it wears off and rains. I did have the pest control man put one of the black locked boxes with poison that only rodents can get in, outside of my coop & again have seen maybe three dead, but like another person replied, they're unfortunately pretty smart! I have come to the realization that wherever there is chicken feed they WILL find a way to it. And unfortunately I do not have the time to twice a day remove the food and replace it. I will just have to learn to get over the little rodents I suppose! Ughhhhh. If anyone finds a fix, I'll be waiting!

Thanks again all!

Try feeding them once a day and only giving them enough to last until dark. If those rats find the eggs then you wont be getting any eggs. Your best bet would be to put hardware cloth on the floor of your coop. You can dig down 3 or 4 inches, place the cloth then put the dirt back. You have to make it so there is nowhere for rats to get in. That or keep chickens and feed both them and rats but get no eggs. Thats my advice and opinion. Good luck.

 

[CityGirl35]

Okay, here's what I'm going to do, thanks to all the suggestions. I've put together what I hope will work, since the Rat Zapper is not (so far), the snap traps are unsnapped, and I've already gotten much better about keeping food contained and put away at night. I have a chicken tractor that I don't use. The girls safely free-range during the day. So I am going to put the unarmed, baited traps inside there and close the door so the chickens won't go in. I believe the rat can walk right in through the chicken wire but maybe I'll bend it a bit to enlarge an opening. Then after a few days I'll arm the traps. My deepest concern, to tell the truth, is that my neighbors will start seeing rats in their backyards. That would not be good for neighborly relations and they might rightly want me to get rid of the chickens, which would break my heart and deny me the best eggs I've ever eaten. I'll let you know. Oh, I think a squirrel has gotten into the Rat Zapper. The red light was on and the bit of peanut butter I had placed in a little lid was out in the backyard.But nothing inside. I only set it out at night thinking squirrels are not night-feeders.

 

[Morrow1411]

I keep my feed in a metal trash can with a lid. For rats...glue traps work good. You can also use a live trap to catch them, if you'd rather release them in the woods, instead of killing them. The good old fashion spring traps also work. And if all else fails, get a barn cat. Also, have you considered other creatures then a rat? I had a baby opossum stealing food, and eggs early this spring. I found him sleeping in their laying box one morning LOL. If you use spring traps make sure they are the right size. A trap thats to small or to big won't do the trick. You can also try using different baits. Maybe some peanut butter, or some tuna fish will be more tempting. They also sell rodent repellent at the feed store, but I havent tried it. Hope this helps.

 

[meowmmy65]

Well, I tried exlax - did not work. And I got a ratzapper. We caught a chipmunk, but that's it. My neighbor put out snap traps and caught a few. But those dang things are smart - and would avoid them.

Because we are in the city, we called the health department for help. A guy came out to assess - and help us problem solve. He baited the sewers, checked them frequently, replacing bait as needed. We monitored the yard obsessively, looking for any and all evidence of rats. Our dogs were a huge help.

We eliminated all evening feedings, ensuring we only put out enough food for the chickens to eat during the day, never leaving anything out or accessible at night. We still had a problem.

After much research and discussion, I resorted to poison - Tomcat, bromethalin bait chunx. I put them in the rat holes and covered them with dirt. Fortunately, the rat holes were outside our fenced yard, so my dogs could not dig them up. I monitored the holes - and the entire yard - vigilantly, putting out new bait anytime I saw anything that might be new activity. Within a month, we noticed a marked difference. My neighbor is convinced that we got them all, but I'm going to keep monitoring.

I decided on poison because the health department guy assured me (and I read lots of supporting articles) that a dog would have to eat many poisoned rats to be injured from the poison. Catching a rat wasn't enough - and the potential harm the rats carried (exposure to disease, etc.) was a much bigger threat to my dogs.

So that's my rat story. I hope it helps someone else who is wrestling with this problem. I learned a lot - and hope I NEVER have to deal with rats again. You know I'll be very vigilant.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

You might also try Just One Bite rat poison made by Farnam http://www.farnamhorse.com/product.php?mainkey=200005&pid=100444&key=300002 . I have used it before with huge success. Although it has the same active ingredient as Tomcat, most people seem to think that the Just One Bite acts faster and is more attractive to rodents. I have a rat that has appeared within the last week in one of my chicken runs. I've set out a RatZapper and caught dozens of mice, but no rat yet. I'm out of the Just One Bite so will have to get more.

 

[ellie32526]

Hi, I'm new, don't have my chickens yet, but I have dealt with rats because I have lots of dogs (7). I used to keep my dog food down all the time in the garage and stored my extra food in a plastic storage bin. I started finding droppings and realized we had rats. I would not think of using poison either because of my dogs. The rats moved into our garage and started eating the dogs food so I moved the food inside and quit leaving it down at night. I could hear them scurrying around day and night when I went into the garage. They started chewing my plastic storage bin to get to the food, so I bought a metal garbage can to store my dog food. I bought those snap type traps that will break your finger if you make a mistake. I mixed sardines with bread dough and made a dough to stick to the trap. The rats can't resist the fishy smell. I just kept resetting the traps until I caught all the little devils. (sorry to those of you who love rats - I happen to loathe them) We have since moved to the country, and I am being a little more careful with my dog food now. I only put it down during the day and my extra food is always in a metal can with a tight fitting lid. I haven't seen any evidence of mice or rats except the little mouse my dachshund caught outside and brought up on the porch to toy with after he killed it. I don't plan to have food in the coop at night, but I will put water. I think it is important for the girls to have access to water all the time. My girls will have food during the day, but at night they will be locked in with no food inside. I am going to raise my coop off the ground about two feet, also going to reinforced walls and floors with hardware cloth. I hope doing those simple things will minimize my rat population in the future. I hope some of this is helpful to you.

 

[ellie32526]

I also visited a local feed/garden center and talked to the people there who convinced me to buy a bottle of fox urine and some bottles to distribute the smell around my garage and yard because he said that foxes are natural predators and the smell would drive away the rats. Please don't waste your money - our rats must have been city rats and had no fear of the nasty smelling fox pee. It sure made my husband and I miserable and drovde my dogs crazy but didn't diminish my rat population. One more thing, I have read a lot of people talk about using glue traps. Not all do, but I have been told that a rat will chew off it's own foot to get away from a glue trap. I don't especially care about being kind or humane, I just want the nasty things to go away for good, so a snap type trap is my choice.

 

[cnj-tx50]

We had several kinds of night time critters before we got chickens. We have always had storage sheds and shop buildings and any and all critters love to dig under them. We had such a problem with rats and skunks that our local animal control would deliver us traps and we would set them and they would pick them up. Finally and old timer told me to by a 49 cent - it was then - bottle of ammonia and put it in a sprayer. Spray everything that you could. I did - around our fences, out buildings, house, etc every night or two. If it rains it washes away - no harm to anything - so you have to respray. My husband put it in a pimp up sprayer and I sprayed alot! In about a month we had no more critter problems. We had a house down the street a while back that was infested with rats and when they came to tear it down I started spraying again. Never saw one!