Solutions for Rats?

[ScorpioHen]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any solutions on how to rid rats from the Chicken coop/yard effectively? I have tried for years to get rid of them and they have just grown worse over time. I am sitting here now, watching them run all around the chicken yard....about 20 in total and it just disgusts me to no end knowing these vermin are around my girls! I lost 2 chickens last month and swear it is due to these diseased and disgusting rats. I keep the area clean, pick up every scrap of food and be sure nothing is left out to attract them...including standing water. The chickens feed and water are high enough in proper containers where the rats can not get to them, so I am good there. But I give my chickens little treats from time to time, veggies or even the 5 grain scratch feed and if there is anything left behind, I do my best to pick up every piece. But they still are all over the place casing the yard looking for anything they can get. I have tried on these rats: bait blocks, trap buckets, spring loaded traps, DIY bait killer (such as the flour, yeast mixtures and corn meal etc.), sticky glue runners that were of commercial grade, and all the scents they are supposed not to like (peppermint, vinegar, ammonia, etc). I am sure there are 50 more I am forgetting because if it is sold out there, I have bought it and if not, I have made it! But NOTHING works to get rid of them. I have taken to now heading out at night with my BB gun because they will run run across my feed when I go to lock in the girl at night. It is totally our of control and I do not know what else to do to get rid of them. My yard and the chicken yard looks like Swiss cheese for all the holes and no matter what we fill them with, they just dig around it to make new holes. The hardware wire has not stopped them either. I am at my wits end. If anyone has a solution, PLEASE share. I would be eternally grateful, as would my girls! Thank You.

 

[Debbie292d]

Gosh, that's horrific! I saw you said you tried cornmeal. Did you try it 50-50 with baking soda? My farmer friend had issues and tried that, and she had more dead lying around than she even knew she had.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any solutions on how to rid rats from the Chicken coop/yard effectively? I have tried for years to get rid of them and they have just grown worse over time. I am sitting here now, watching them run all around the chicken yard....about 20 in total and it just disgusts me to no end knowing these vermin are around my girls! I lost 2 chickens last month and swear it is due to these diseased and disgusting rats. I keep the area clean, pick up every scrap of food and be sure nothing is left out to attract them...including standing water. The chickens feed and water are high enough in proper containers where the rats can not get to them, so I am good there. But I give my chickens little treats from time to time, veggies or even the 5 grain scratch feed and if there is anything left behind, I do my best to pick up every piece. But they still are all over the place casing the yard looking for anything they can get. I have tried on these rats: bait blocks, trap buckets, spring loaded traps, DIY bait killer (such as the flour, yeast mixtures and corn meal etc.), sticky glue runners that were of commercial grade, and all the scents they are supposed not to like (peppermint, vinegar, ammonia, etc). I am sure there are 50 more I am forgetting because if it is sold out there, I have bought it and if not, I have made it! But NOTHING works to get rid of them. I have taken to now heading out at night with my BB gun because they will run run across my feed when I go to lock in the girl at night. It is totally our of control and I do not know what else to do to get rid of them. My yard and the chicken yard looks like Swiss cheese for all the holes and no matter what we fill them with, they just dig around it to make new holes. The hardware wire has not stopped them either. I am at my wits end. If anyone has a solution, PLEASE share. I would be eternally grateful, as would my girls! Thank You.

What about cats? This farmer neighbor with her rats you'd think we'd have issues too but we don't. We have 2 indoor-outdoor cats and two indoor-outdoor dogs, all of whom I am sure have something to do with why rats stay away.

 

[Quail_]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any solutions on how to rid rats from the Chicken coop/yard effectively? I have tried for years to get rid of them and they have just grown worse over time. I am sitting here now, watching them run all around the chicken yard....about 20 in total and it just disgusts me to no end knowing these vermin are around my girls! I lost 2 chickens last month and swear it is due to these diseased and disgusting rats. I keep the area clean, pick up every scrap of food and be sure nothing is left out to attract them...including standing water. The chickens feed and water are high enough in proper containers where the rats can not get to them, so I am good there. But I give my chickens little treats from time to time, veggies or even the 5 grain scratch feed and if there is anything left behind, I do my best to pick up every piece. But they still are all over the place casing the yard looking for anything they can get. I have tried on these rats: bait blocks, trap buckets, spring loaded traps, DIY bait killer (such as the flour, yeast mixtures and corn meal etc.), sticky glue runners that were of commercial grade, and all the scents they are supposed not to like (peppermint, vinegar, ammonia, etc). I am sure there are 50 more I am forgetting because if it is sold out there, I have bought it and if not, I have made it! But NOTHING works to get rid of them. I have taken to now heading out at night with my BB gun because they will run run across my feed when I go to lock in the girl at night. It is totally our of control and I do not know what else to do to get rid of them. My yard and the chicken yard looks like Swiss cheese for all the holes and no matter what we fill them with, they just dig around it to make new holes. The hardware wire has not stopped them either. I am at my wits end. If anyone has a solution, PLEASE share. I would be eternally grateful, as would my girls! Thank You.

Theres a live catch trap that is called Uhlik repeater trap. A youtuber called shawn woods did a review on it and i would highly suggest it. The main premise is you need to let the rats trust the trap. Have it not move and stay locked, let them belive its safe to walk on until one night you unlock it. I never dealt with rats and only mice, which is why im suggesting the youtuber.

Idk if the link will work. So if it doesnt just look up best rat trap shawn woods.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Gosh, that's horrific! I saw you said you tried cornmeal. Did you try it 50-50 with baking soda? My farmer friend had issues and tried that, and she had more dead lying around than she even knew she had.

Really? I tried a few of the homemade concoctions including that one and same but also adding powdered sugar. I never found even one dead rat.
I even caught one in a live trap and feed him that for about 2 weeks and it never killed him.

 

[Al Gerhart]

There are literally hundreds of posts on rodent control and for the life of me I do not understand why anyone would make another post when there are so many posts that have discussed the topic and provided solutions.

But you came here looking for answers so search the forums for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control. You will find there are three methods, sanitation, exclusion, and elimination.

Sanitation is locking the feed up in steel barrels with tight lids, buying a proper treadle feeder with a spring loaded door and hopefully an inward swinging lid so the darned thing doesn't have to be left open for weeks for training, and cleaning up the avenues and paths used by the rodents to get to and from the chicken feed. This lets the natural predators do their job and control the numbers of the vermin. You need most of your hens to be full size as the tiny hens won't be able to operate a treadle feeder that is set stiff enough to stop the rats.

Exclusion is build a Fort Knox chicken coop. $$$$$$ and no free range is possible.

Elimination is trapping, hunting, and poison. A never ending trouble and expense. And they wise up quickly so usually it doesn't work.

And forgive me for being blunt, but if you have think you have 20 rats you have three to five times that many and YOU ARE FEEDING THEM or the colony wouldn't be that large. Doesn't matter that you take the feed in at night or pick up every scrap when they can gorge all day.

Number of laying hens or broilers x .25 pound per day gives a rough estimate of feed your CHICKENS will eat in one day. Figure out how long a bag of feed is lasting and you will realize how much feed is going to the rats. Yes,sanitation has a cost but you are already paying that cost and not getting the benefit of stopping the feed theft.

The week you stop feeding the rats they will die or leave. It is that simple.

Now please, humor me and do a forum search using the key words rats, mice, chickens and you will have days of reading ahead of you but add Howard E. to those key words and save yourself a bunch of time of people repeating the old wives tales of peppermint, mashed potatoes, and sonic repellers.

Stop
Feeding
Them

 

[ScorpioHen]

There are literally hundreds of posts on rodent control and for the life of me I do not understand why anyone would make another post when there are so many posts that have discussed the topic and provided solutions.

But you came here looking for answers so search the forums for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control. You will find there are three methods, sanitation, exclusion, and elimination.

Sanitation is locking the feed up in steel barrels with tight lids, buying a proper treadle feeder with a spring loaded door and hopefully an inward swinging lid so the darned thing doesn't have to be left open for weeks for training, and cleaning up the avenues and paths used by the rodents to get to and from the chicken feed. This lets the natural predators do their job and control the numbers of the vermin. You need most of your hens to be full size as the tiny hens won't be able to operate a treadle feeder that is set stiff enough to stop the rats.

Exclusion is build a Fort Knox chicken coop. $$$$$$ and no free range is possible.

Elimination is trapping, hunting, and poison. A never ending trouble and expense. And they wise up quickly so usually it doesn't work.

And forgive me for being blunt, but if you have think you have 20 rats you have three to five times that many and YOU ARE FEEDING THEM or the colony wouldn't be that large. Doesn't matter that you take the feed in at night or pick up every scrap when they can gorge all day.

Number of laying hens or broilers x .25 pound per day gives a rough estimate of feed your CHICKENS will eat in one day. Figure out how long a bag of feed is lasting and you will realize how much feed is going to the rats. Yes,sanitation has a cost but you are already paying that cost and not getting the benefit of stopping the feed theft.

The week you stop feeding the rats they will die or leave. It is that simple.

Now please, humor me and do a forum search using the key words rats, mice, chickens and you will have days of reading ahead of you but add Howard E. to those key words and save yourself a bunch of time of people repeating the old wives tales of peppermint, mashed potatoes, and sonic repellers.

Stop
Feeding
Them

There are literally hundreds of posts on rodent control and for the life of me I do not understand why anyone would make another post when there are so many posts that have discussed the topic and provided solutions.

But you came here looking for answers so search the forums for Howard E.'s posts on rodent control. You will find there are three methods, sanitation, exclusion, and elimination.

Sanitation is locking the feed up in steel barrels with tight lids, buying a proper treadle feeder with a spring loaded door and hopefully an inward swinging lid so the darned thing doesn't have to be left open for weeks for training, and cleaning up the avenues and paths used by the rodents to get to and from the chicken feed. This lets the natural predators do their job and control the numbers of the vermin. You need most of your hens to be full size as the tiny hens won't be able to operate a treadle feeder that is set stiff enough to stop the rats.

Exclusion is build a Fort Knox chicken coop. $$$$$$ and no free range is possible.

Elimination is trapping, hunting, and poison. A never ending trouble and expense. And they wise up quickly so usually it doesn't work.

And forgive me for being blunt, but if you have think you have 20 rats you have three to five times that many and YOU ARE FEEDING THEM or the colony wouldn't be that large. Doesn't matter that you take the feed in at night or pick up every scrap when they can gorge all day.

Number of laying hens or broilers x .25 pound per day gives a rough estimate of feed your CHICKENS will eat in one day. Figure out how long a bag of feed is lasting and you will realize how much feed is going to the rats. Yes,sanitation has a cost but you are already paying that cost and not getting the benefit of stopping the feed theft.

The week you stop feeding the rats they will die or leave. It is that simple.

Now please, humor me and do a forum search using the key words rats, mice, chickens and you will have days of reading ahead of you but add Howard E. to those key words and save yourself a bunch of time of people repeating the old wives tales of peppermint, mashed potatoes, and sonic repellers.

Stop
Feeding
Them

Wow.....how arrogant, thanks!
FYI....I have only 21 chickens, I give them what they eat in 5 minutes...I DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE FOOD IS ATE OR PICKED UP! They free range the rest of the time. These rats were here on my property, living under my shed, for years before I even got the chicken. EVERYTHING you have said in this post, I have done!
No offense, I hope everyone in this forum is not as mean as you!

 

[arubio92]

Wow.....how arrogant, thanks!
FYI....I have only 21 chickens, I give them what they eat in 5 minutes...I DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE FOOD IS ATE OR PICKED UP! They free range the rest of the time. These rats were here on my property, living under my shed, for years before I even got the chicken. EVERYTHING you have said in this post, I have done!
No offense, I hope everyone in this forum is not as mean as you!

Have you found something that works?

 

[ScorpioHen]

Have you found something that works?

Not yet.

 

[2ndTink]

I've just started using treadle feeders in two of my three coops. No luck with snap traps, hit ans miss luck with the electric zap traps. I think between the zap traps and my rat killing obsessed dog, we've killed 8 to 10 in the last month. I think we're making headway against them. I haven't seen my cat do anything with the rats, she's gotten old though, she used to kill all the rabbits and squirrels that dared enter our property. The dog somehow killed a mouse about a year ago and ever since then she's done nothing but hunt. Literally obsessed, she'll come say hi when we get home then run straight back to the coops.

If a dog is an option, that might help. But you have to find one that likes to hunt and kill, but not hunt and kill chickens, we got ours from the shelter and no clue on mix. Treadle feeders I don't think are perfect, my chickens have been getting food piled on the lips on the sides, I looked for a photo but don't have one. But if you're already cleaning up all feed, that's better than what I have anyway.

I wonder if there is a food source nearby and they are just living at your place?

I expect an exterminator is expensive, but may be worth checking into?

Sorry for the ramble, just typing and thinking. I hate rats, so nasty. I don't like killing things but rats are an exception...