Rats!!!!!!!

[Haunted55]

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!

X2!

 

[ellie32526]

Did you just use regular ammonia? I never heard of that. My husband told me he was told crushed mothballs sprinkled along the fence lines would keep snakes from entering our yard. I can't say for certain that it works, but we haven't seen any snakes since he didit. It smelled prettybad the first few days but we got used to it.

 

[Going Bhonkers]

Did you just use regular ammonia? I never heard of that. My husband told me he was told crushed mothballs sprinkled along the fence lines would keep snakes from entering our yard. I can't say for certain that it works, but we haven't seen any snakes since he didit. It smelled prettybad the first few days but we got used to it.

I've heard the same thing about the moth balls

 

[cnj-tx50]

I had tried moth balls but never seemed to work. Plus worried that my pets would eat them or my grandchildren would somehow find them. And yes it was just the cheapest bottle I could find. I bought gallons of the stuff. The soap in seems to make "clinging" to things better and stays on a day or two. I sprayed it on grass and shrubs around out buildings and did not seem to harm things. I did however wear a little mask because it can really take your breathe away! Our neighbors have all had problems this year with raccoon under their houses. We had them in the tree in front yard but not anywhere near the coops or other buildings.

 

[Haunted55]

Did you just use regular ammonia? I never heard of that. My husband told me he was told crushed mothballs sprinkled along the fence lines would keep snakes from entering our yard. I can't say for certain that it works, but we haven't seen any snakes since he didit. It smelled prettybad the first few days but we got used to it.

Regular ammonia. Another good use for it is to add some to your rubbish if you have to set it out without barrels. It'll keep critters away from that as well. Mothballs seem to work okay for mice but I've never had any luck with it working for rats.

 

[Birdgirl99]

i keep large traps live and death ones under the coop and i get a few every now and then one time Buffers [my buff orpington hen] killed one and brought it to me as if it were a dog playing fetch i thought that to be quite funny but i took her to the vet after fearing she mighthave got a dieasise from having eating some blood vet said she was fine andwe went home she is OK and this was a few months ago but i think having live traps would work because dogs cannot set them they don't hurt chickens and they don't snap on chickens heads

plus i have a cat named Spider he jumps up trees like a spider and catches the rat everytime one time he got in the walls of our house [lord knows how he did it] and caught the rat we heard him hissing in the walls and a few hours later he came out with a dead rat

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

I have found some of my younger chick's wings in traps that I forgot to remove for the day. So I am so careful about traps.
I love pet rats and used to raise them. I even think wild rats are cute, but they are nasty to chicks.
They have hurt many of my chicks. I live city suburbs and near stores etc. They are out there and it seems if I get rid of them, more turn up. It is frustrating.
I trap and trap.
I feed my hens in the morning and take their food bucket away for the day and bring more food out at night. They free range during the day in a certain part of my yard.
It is hard to do that when raising chicks, but now all the chicks are in the house, so I can keep their food out for them.
I had a horrible thing happen last year when I figured out that the rats were eating food that I left out in the coop all night.
I stopped the food and they got into my chick coop and killed a bunch of my silkie babies. It was devastating.
After that my hubby built me a "rat safe" baby coop.
THey are safer, but the rats will figure anything out.
You can't just ignore them because they multiply very fast.
You have to keep on them. I leave traps out in my gardens because no chickens can get to the gardens. I catch them now and then. They dig holes in my gardens and have eaten my peppers this summer. GRRR!
I put that peanut butter paste mix with plaster out and it seems that they will eat it to no end and it doesn't change things.
I would put poison out, but I thought it might hurt a neighbor's dog if they caught one, but someone here says not. So I might just do that again.
The problem is that it gets expensive. The rats eat alot of that stuff.
I wonder if it might help to mix the poison in with peanutbutter or something just to stretch the poison out. They seem to fill up on it and maybe they don't need that much to kill them.
It is frustrating.
I just read that amonia won't make rats leave their homes. It might be a deterrent to them coming around though. I wonder if it is safe for chickens as birds can die from certain smells and toxins in the air.

 

[Haunted55]

I have found some of my younger chick's wings in traps that I forgot to remove for the day. So I am so careful about traps.
I love pet rats and used to raise them. I even think wild rats are cute, but they are nasty to chicks.
They have hurt many of my chicks. I live city suburbs and near stores etc. They are out there and it seems if I get rid of them, more turn up. It is frustrating.
I trap and trap.
I feed my hens in the morning and take their food bucket away for the day and bring more food out at night. They free range during the day in a certain part of my yard.
It is hard to do that when raising chicks, but now all the chicks are in the house, so I can keep their food out for them.
I had a horrible thing happen last year when I figured out that the rats were eating food that I left out in the coop all night.
I stopped the food and they got into my chick coop and killed a bunch of my silkie babies. It was devastating.
After that my hubby built me a "rat safe" baby coop.
THey are safer, but the rats will figure anything out.
You can't just ignore them because they multiply very fast.
You have to keep on them. I leave traps out in my gardens because no chickens can get to the gardens. I catch them now and then. They dig holes in my gardens and have eaten my peppers this summer. GRRR!
I put that peanut butter paste mix with plaster out and it seems that they will eat it to no end and it doesn't change things.
I would put poison out, but I thought it might hurt a neighbor's dog if they caught one, but someone here says not. So I might just do that again.
The problem is that it gets expensive. The rats eat alot of that stuff.
I wonder if it might help to mix the poison in with peanutbutter or something just to stretch the poison out. They seem to fill up on it and maybe they don't need that much to kill them.
It is frustrating.
I just read that amonia won't make rats leave their homes. It might be a deterrent to them coming around though. I wonder if it is safe for chickens as birds can die from certain smells and toxins in the air.

Something you could try to keep them out of the feeders. Cayenne pepper liberally sprinkled on the feed. The cayenne is great for the birds as it's full of A,D,C and minerals and since they don't have the same taste buds, the heat doesn't affect them. I use this with my wild bird seed and the 'tree rats' squirrels won't touch it! Another good thing about cayenne pepper is it will help keep worms and cocci levels down. I give it to all of my chickens and turkeys 3-5 times a week and have seen great improvements with their appearance as well. Simple and cheap to try.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I'm SO happy, my resident rat has finally had a huge snack on a Just One Bite bar.... sayonara!!!! This rat's been around for several weeks now, digging huge burrows under my chicken run. I set out a RatZapper and killed a couple dozen mice, but no rat. I had run out of the Just One Bite and couldn't find it locally so had to order from Amazon. I set it out but got not even a nibble for several days, so decided to "sweeten the pot" a little, sprinkled the area all around the bar with both cracked corn and Calf Manna. That did the trick! Today I went out and found a big chunk of the bar had been eaten. Tomorrow I'll go out and fill in all of the rat holes so I'll be able to tell if there's any new rat activity.

 

[txori]

I am new to chickens, and I was really hoping I'd avoid the rat problem, but no such luck. Right now there is something chewing holes in my coop-- 3+ inch perfectly round holes, as well as leaving lots of telltale droppings. I keep boarding up the holes with sheet metal but they'll appear somewhere else overnight. If it was just a rat stealing food, I wouldn't be so upset, but a hole that big can let in rats, weasels and who knows what else.
OK, so I'm wondering what you guys think about this idea that I have ...

I know that mice are scared of the smell of cat urine ... so (I know this is weird, stay with me) what if I spread used cat litter around the outside of the coop and in the holes?

What do you think? Has anyone ever tried this? Maybe I'll cover all the bases and use peppermint, moth balls and cat litter.