Silkies and predators

[Ozkan]

Thanks

 

[True Patriot]

Rats generally aren't predatory. They're opportunistic. They spend more time gathering not hunting. As long as you keep food items away from the roost the rats will much more likely be happy raiding your feeder than going anywhere near the birds.

 

[True Patriot]

Looking at the coop you have. If you replace the thin wire that comes with it with a good quality hardware cloth you should be ok. Premade coops are generally not the highest security. Coming up you may want to look at the coop construction pages here. There are plenty of ideas to choose from. In the long run it will be cheaper to build a properly secure coop than it will be to retrofit an existing. As far as predators, I would be more concerned about, raccoons,Badgers, skunks(etc) and birds of prey than rats. Look through the predator pages here and see what is killing chickens. Those are the animals you need to keep out. There aren't very many "rats ate my chicken" posts.