SERIOUS rat problem

[londrajs]

So my parents have been complaining about having rats in their chicken run for months now, but I had no idea how BAD it had become. Just to keep it short
1. They are huge. I'm talking 8 inches at the very least.
2. They have completely taken over the pen. Mom told me they devoured an entire batch of baby chicks in just a few days.
3. Gaping rat holes in the ground all over the pen. They must have an entire system running right underneath our chickens feet.

I've heard of taking the food away at night, using essential oils, dried mashed potatos, etc. What I'm mainly concerned with is their nest. Does anyone know how I can get rid of that? I'm not afraid of getting a little "redneckish". Can I pour stuff down the holes or something? As soon as I heard they ATE en enitere batch of chicks I knew something needed to be done PRONTO.
Thanks y'all!

Here is something new to try, worked for me. You can look at video online. Old farmer told me to mix 50% Jiffy Cornmeal Mix with 50% baking soda, and a few tablespoons or so of sugar. Put out on a tray next to water. The rats eat, leave, die. Not poisonous to other animals if rats are eaten but don’t leave out for other animals to eat the mix. I tried it. Along with some peppermint spray around, I no longer have rats, and I had them bad. At least check out this method.

 

[Al Gerhart]

I know you mean well but baking soda does not kill rats. Could it? In mice it can be lethal at 5 to 10% of their body weight. But that is simply impossible, doubly impossible using your receipe.

Let's consider a 200 pound human, would they eat ten to twenty pounds of pure sodium bicarbonate, AKA baking soda? No? Or twenty to forty pounds of cornmeal mixed with baking soda?

Then would a 20 gram mouse eat one to two grams of baking soda? No.

Would an eight ounce roof rat eat 10% of its body weight of baking soda?

Mixed with cornmeal as in your receipe, that would be 20% of its body weight?

Or say you weigh 120 pounds, would you eat 24 pounds of cornmeal and baking soda even with sugar in it?

Now, if you search for soda bicarbonate/baking soda as a rodentcide you won't find much in scientific studies. But, you will find baking soda used as an antidote to poisoned mice or for preventing lab mice from emptying their bowels after prolonged exercise done in studies https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,37&q=rodentcide+sodium+bicarbonate&btnG=

Scientists also used baking soda as lavage, a solution to wash out the stomach of a test subject like a lab mouse or poisoned mammal in order to freeze the dose so to speak at certain blood levels.

Baking soda has been used to attempt to mask the taste of rodentcides like strychnine. It doesn't work for that either. Rats don't like the taste of it.

But say you do get a mouse to eat 20% of its body weight in cornmeal and baking soda. Guess what? Rodents are like most mammals and a lot of insects, they do fart. There is a book about what critters fart and which ones don't. Search Google Books for "Does it Fart?" Sloths don't fart because it takes three weeks to digest a meal and it passes the gas through its bloodstream and out its lungs. Chickens don't or bats because the food goes through their digestive system so fast they don't build up an gas from digestion.

But RATS DO FART https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/845703/

https://thepetfaq.com/can-rats-fart/

https://petshun.com/article/can-rodents-fart

Peppermint spray doesn't work either short of being at levels that would choke you and your chickens to death. (pun not intended).

What does work with rats is one of the three methods that Howard E. told us about ten years ago; sanitation, exclusion, elimination.

 

[Al Gerhart]

https://bobseyes.net/baking-soda-doesnt-kill-rats/

My Gawd.... Easter Sunday and I am researching rodent farts.

The guy in the link above tested baking soda and oatmeal complete with coop cameras and did a fairly good job.

No.
Baking.
Soda.
Doesn't.
Kill.
Rodents.

 

[The Good Grumble]

How big is the run, put a bunch of cayenne pepper in the holes, then lay 1/4” galvanized hardware cloth on the bottom of run. Come up sides 1’ and lay a new bed of washed construction sand over the bottom. Additionally, absolutely no food water in run overnight. Set snap traps.

 

[Ted Brown]

Sulphur Gas

Apologies if this has been raised herein (DRTL).

I have just read that Winnipeg Manitoba will use sulphur gas to control ground squirrels in some of their public parks. The gas is introduced into the burrows and "suffocates" anything in them.

Note that sulphur gas is toxic to both humans and animals.

 

[Al Gerhart]

That is a great way to kill the rats but as the burrows generally come out into the coop.... Maybe gas then quickly shovel dirt over the holes.

However, you eradicated the current population but a new population will move right in. Most colony critters are constantly looking to take over new territory. Squirrels raise litters, then drive them off as their territory can support a limited number of squirrels. Within weeks of a population being taken out, new rats will be moving back in.

This is why the elimination method of rodent control never works. The expense is never ending.

Either practice the sanitation method or the exclusion method, build a Fort Knox coop. The coop will need maintenance as rats chew through the materials but once you spend a lot of money building a tight coop the repair costs are cheaper than poison, bait, or gas bombs. The sanitation method also has a cost, under $200 or less for a treadle feeder, metal drums for bulk feed, and cleaning up the pathways. The feeder and drums will last a decade or longer if you keep them up out of the muck. So once you are done there is little expense for the next ten years.

 

[Ted Brown]

@Al Gerhart

I posted above as information, did not intend to suggest your (& Howard E's) sanitation, exclusion, elimination approach was incorrect. I guess gas would fall into the elimination portion as an alternative to poison (although sulphur is toxic so perhaps just another version).

 

[Al Gerhart]

@Al Gerhart

I posted above as information, did not intend to suggest your (& Howard E's) sanitation, exclusion, elimination approach was incorrect. I guess gas would fall into the elimination portion as an alternative to poison (although sulphur is toxic so perhaps just another version).

Sorry Ted, didn't mean it that way. Great way to kill off rodents. Better than poison for sure.

I just try to keep people focused on dealing with the reason they have rodents versus how to kill them off. Howard E. did a great favor to all flock owners with his research but lots of new threads plowing over the same ground instead of doing a forum search so if someone doesn't remind people of the basics they will head down the wrong path.

 

[Ted Brown]

@Al Gerhart I knew that was your intent even if some questioned whether ads were permitted.

"Plowing over the same ground" is common across many topics on BYC. As are folks who want to DIY coop design with scant knowledge of what chickens need/want nor what predators will find a way to have chicken dinner.

I was pleased you agree sulphur gas is an alternative to poisons and then chose to echo that in your post; highlighting the alternative was the reason I made my post.

 

[Debbie292d]

Here is something new to try, worked for me. You can look at video online. Old farmer told me to mix 50% Jiffy Cornmeal Mix with 50% baking soda, and a few tablespoons or so of sugar. Put out on a tray next to water. The rats eat, leave, die. Not poisonous to other animals if rats are eaten but don’t leave out for other animals to eat the mix. I tried it. Along with some peppermint spray around, I no longer have rats, and I had them bad. At least check out this method.

We did this, but put it in a bowl inside of a cage inside the coop. We only had one rat from the farmer's across the road. Yeah, I know, nobody has just one rat, but we did, and I'm not sure why it was here when all its friends are across the road. Anyway, a couple of days later we found one smaller rat, all bloated up laying in the yard. Got him! That was last summer. Never seen any since.

She's still got them over there though but there's one healthy fox still occasionally going by our place to get to hers to eat her rats. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-neighbor-farm-wants-fox-for-killing-rats.1652897/ The best post's were around #17.