Something is digging holes everywhere around the coop!!

[duckmanjim]

Rats for sure! Had the exact same problem! I put large rocks over the holes outside the pen and packets of rat poison and next day dead rats everywhere! Problem solved!

 

[blucoondawg]

When I was a kid I used to stick the hose down their hole and flood them out, if stand near the holes with a shovel to smash then when they came out or a shotgun to blast them.

 

[Messipaw]

I'm having the exact same problem and I'm loosing my mind. I found little poops in my nesting boxes. I'm grossed out. My chicken run is plenty big for my seven hens. It's divided up into sections. These holes are everywhere. I'm going to try the chunx bait.

 

[wolfchicken]

Sounds like a rat

 

[ericinga]

Hi everyone - so I'm hoping that someone might be able to give me some kind of idea of what might be lurking around at night and digging a number of holes in the ground all around the coop. At first, we only noticed a couple of holes that looked like something was trying to get into the chicken run.

Some time has past and there are so many holes, its scary. One of the holes were even successfully dug up that whatever it is, has access to getting into the run and can get into my chicken coop.

These holes are about the circumference size of an orange. Some just go straight into the ground with no outage and others are from one side of the fence going underneath to the other side. There are holes also dug into my garden beds.

Today, I went to change out the water for the chickens and noticed with their open feeder, that there was small tiny poop pebbles that I've never seen before. It's definitely not from the chickens, I know what their poop looks like. There were also the same small pebbles in a couple of the beds in the coop.

So now I'm really freaking out and am not sure if this is something that will present danger to my chickens or if it is something that is just trying to co-exist with them and perhaps looking to eat their food as well. I really do not know. I will try to get some pictures up soon.

For now, has anyone else experienced this before? We have no idea what it could be. We didn't experience this last year. We're usually up late nights and haven't heard the chickens make any noise in the dark backyard. What should we do???

Thanks in advance!

I had that years ago..To find out what it was I stuck the water hose in the holes and flooded the tunnels and waited a few minutes and wet rats came out. You keep flooding and they will move on because they cannot reproduce in water. Be careful with poison. Had a friend use poison and one died in the coop and some chickens pecked on it and died. That could be rare but still shows it can happen. Chickens are very curious as we all know.

 

[ericinga]

When I was a kid I used to stick the hose down their hole and flood them out, if stand near the holes with a shovel to smash then when they came out or a shotgun to blast them.

We did the same thing. Called it rat squashin. LOL

 

[wolfchicken]

Along with curious. Chickens are truly carnivores had one of my nieces feed one a lizard. Was funny watching lizard get away then while flock chased it. RIP Lizard