Roland eat and friends

[Suep666]

Help... Currently have a serious rat problem in our coop....
We have two seperate coops that are joined together with a top and back fencing...
This is mounted on a footing of concrete slabs...

Rats have tunnelled underneath the slabs and have been knocking about underneath the coops and round the back which has not caused too much damage and only seemed to appear during the day when the chickens were out
We put poison in bait boxes (safe from cheeky chickies) and found a couple of dead ones outside the pen and so thought we'd started the clearance
But... There's a serious increase all of a sudden and despite patching as many holes up and filling in as many tunnels as we could it's getting worse

I'm now finding droppings inside the coop in the mornings when I let the girls out.. I found two fresh ones under an egg which horrified me completely

So firstly how much danger are my girls in ?? Obviously rats are known to carry germs etc but what's the chances of my ladies catching something

They never look perturbed by anything. And there's no sign they are hurting them but.. You just never know
Plus the buggers are chomping through any remaining feed in the feeders...

And has anyone got any ideas for a long term solution.. To at least keep the numbers down - doubt they'll ever be eradicated totally but need to get it under control..

Any feedback greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance from me Beaky , Frost, Pegg, Smoky bacon, Bowie and little Ziggy stardust
Xx

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Secure the coop as much as possible and try to keep the feed inaccessible (treadle feeder, something you can cap at night, or something you can remove at night). And get yourself a Rat Zapper or two. I like the one that plugs in so I don't have to keep buying batteries! I used to live next to guy whose yard was completely overgrown with blackberry bushes and a couple of these was the only thing that worked to keep up with the nasty critters that came out of those bushes every night.


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_lawn-garden?ie=UTF8&field-brandtextbin=Rat+Zapper&node=2972638011

 

[Suep666]

Thanks I'll look into to this.. I'm in the UK and not sure if such a thing is available here.. But I'm going to have a dig around

The pen and coops are situated on an allotment at the back of my in laws house.. I know it will be impossible to remove them totally but we need to keep them invisible like they used to be

They're getting way too cheeky

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Just looked at Amazon.uk, they have them there, too. Best of luck!