Rodents

[newbyduckmom]

I had heard that with livestock you get rodents. We live in a rural area, so they are in the area anyway, but we seem to have developed a real problem. Mice are usually an issue about once a year when winter sets in, but these are rats. (It was colder last night, but - ) Have reason to believe they were in our crawl space and potentially in one wall of the house last night. Bait (other animals - dogs make this a problem), traps, etc. I realized the added food source is an issue, and access to house (from wherever they are coming from - thought it was sealed pretty much from prior issues). Any suggestions? How does everyone deal with this?

 

[bt03]

Traps with peanut butter and a piece of dry cat food is the best way we found to catch them. No matter how good we sealed the food they knew it was there and came for it even if they couldn't get to it. They were hunking big ones to. There really is nothing you can do to prevent them from coming to scout out the house, we learned that one the hard way, only ways to kill them and keep them from eating the feed. Plus the fact that we have 2 great mouser cats is a huge bonus, just had to teach them the ducks/chickens/ducklings/chicks are the only thing off limits. Kind of hard but like any other animal that is trainable we accomplished the ultimate goal and only rats/mice are caught and eaten at our place.

 

[Amiga]

I, too, have cats who work hard to reduce the rodent population. Right now the rats are not making obvious appearances. But a couple of years ago, even BD (Before Ducks), I'd see them around a bit. I think my Cat Ion handles most of the difficult cases.

Right now voles are the biggest challenge. They ate close to 100 of my sunroot plants and a bunch of hostas. Phooey.

 

[agregg15]

I agree with everyone else. Cats and traps. You can also get d-Con which works really well. Just make sure it's not in range of pets. I hope that helps.

 

[70%cocoa]

Doing your best not to spill any food at all and trying to ensure that your poultry feeders are in an area that can be shut up at night both help (a bit). It is difficult though, as a couple of pellets is a banquet to a rat and one grain of wheat is a feast to a mouse.

I don't have a cat but my neighbour's cat is on the job and he's a big help.

 

[mama dixie]

wow I am right there with you. I have some brude ducks that are setting on like 24 eggs and I am so afraid we are going to watch them dwindle down to nothing as that happend this spring. I have set traps both bait and the live traps and we just cant get them. I have chased the rats with bats pitch forks and a hose. they run and hide but I know they will be back. Please let me know if you find anything that works. I even set by the duck coop with the pelit riffle, but it scares the neighbors so I had to quit :O I told the rats to go to thoes peoples homes and they disapered for a while lots of prayers and keeping things put away the funnest thing for me was when I went to let my ducks out of there shed one am and there was a dead rat with all 7 of the ducks around it looking at it out of cocked little heads and you could just tell they were like hoo hoo we got one when they came out all of them walked right across it as if to say thats right ..... I will keep prayers for you
I have heard that you can take a can with a plastic lid, like coffee can and cut a whole big enough for the vermin to get in and out glue it to a bord you can take up in the day and leave it out at night I may try this.
as for your house and mice and rats in the walls we put that chunk bait in under our mobil home and it really worked, I do worry about pets getting the baited rodents though.

 

[calgal98]

For the first time this year we had a huge problem with rats. Having chicken feed out where they could access it has been a big part of the prob. I finally resorted to poison bait stations (so other animals couldn't get to bait) and have finally seen a turnaround. We have three barn cats and they are wonderful, but this got so far out of hand the rats were playing baseball in my tack room! UGH!

 

[mama dixie]

lol lol lol how funny but really they are horrible arnt they. I saw the movie you know the one about the rat chef, a rat that cook not a chef that cooks rats. but hey if the economy gets much worse I think I may look into some use for these rodents I am sure there must be some culture that eats them. I think I am going to do bait as well.

 

[NuAgePaulBunyun]

i know this is an old thread but i have found a great trap . i have just begun my own lil fowl farm and ran into a problem. i realize your issues are of a greater size than possum and coons but for the small types (especially nice if u have dogs, because it is dog proof) it is called Coon Dagger. i actually met the man who helped create it. he is a professional trapper. odd story is i was getting my hair cut at the local bar (yes hair cut in a bar, pretty cool.) and i ran into him as i asked the barber if coons have a good sense of smell or do they rely on their site.

i had already purchased the dagger and had it in place when i spoke to him. he heard what i was using and informed my that when setting traps in N. America he has found that canned Mackerel and dried Cherry jello powder. mix one can for one box on a jar and add Buck Lure ( a scent for attracting deer ) anyhow. i have caught 1 possum and 2 coons in 4 nights with this setup.

this should take care of smaller pests. good luck on the others.

every little bit will help

o btw, i now have 3 daggers and always set . no need to replace to lures they dont last too long around here

 

[Jane and Gil]

Hi Ok, perhaps our rats are extra smart . . .I hope not! Anyway, we had one dancing in the yard, eating chicken food on the lawn!! I was SO mad! Removed food and he still came out again. Set a trap and he is now dancing elsewhere . ..

However, due to our traps being snapped and the food eaten, we went on line and decided to nail the rat traps to a 2x4. Now the traps are still getting sprung and the food eaten. Gil suspects a racoon, although it seems like a lot of work for a little peanut butter. We really do not want to use d-con as it gets in the web of nature. Any other thoughts? I thought about "renting" a Jack Russell dog as I have heard they are great at getting rats.