Time to go on the offensive...enough is enough.

[Meg-in-MT]

Raising animals doesn't make you God. It doesn't give you the right to kill needlessly.

I'm sorry, I think I'm misunderstanding you. Are you saying that my statement is likening myself to God? And who are you to say that I do or do not have the right to kill an animal that has the potential to destroy my flock?

 

[Meg-in-MT]

I'm all for differing opinions. Throwing insults and telling someone their "rights" really doesn't sound like "let's agree to disagree", now does it?

 

[RoosterML]

"Should not" should really be followed by "in my opinion"...in my opinion

If I see a coyote on or near my property I am not going to wait for it to kill my chickens or barn cats before I do something about it. They may not be actively seeking chicken dinner, but they certainly won't turn their nose up at it. That's good enough for me. Part of my job in raising animals is to protect them.

X2 I saw a coyote in the field a couple times. I didn’t do anything about it. Low an behold I lost 4 chickens to a coyote in one attack in the middle of the day. Screw me once shame on you, screw me twice shame on me. Won’t be a second time if I can help it needless to say.

 

[Fairview01]

Raising animals doesn't make you God. It doesn't give you the right to kill needlessly

But thats an erroneous statement. In my domain, on my property i am God and with the assistance of a Colt AR15 equipped with an illuminated tactical scope I routinely decide what lives and dies on my property.

It isn't legal to shoot a dog for simply wandering, through.



If there are rats, they are keeping predators fed.

Agreed but there's nothing illegal with stinging that sucker with a well aimed pellet on the hindquarters from my slingshot.

Never had a rat kill a chicken i assume.

 

[Birdinhand]

every time I read one of these threads, it reaffirms the fact that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I spend the money up front to use hardware cloth, wall to tall, top and bottom on my coop and have been rat free 5 years running until recently when some of the HW cloth rusted through at the bottom. I put a new section skirting the coop. I've never had to use poison. keep traps going periodically outside the coop to keep the population down. use poison if you have to, I'm not going to tell people what to do, but definitely admit to yourself that it does not know when to stop killing, that it absolutely does get into the food chain and effect wildlife and has lots of unseen, unintended victims. worth avoiding if you can, definitely worth building the coop with rats in mind in the first place, leaving no gaps greater than a half inch.

 

[Zach123]

As far as anticoagulant poisons go, warfarin is relatively tame. Developed in the 1940’s, it is what is known as a “first generation anticoagulant rodenticide (AR).” These AR’s take multiple feedings in order to kill the target pest and have a relatively short half-life. These attributes also make it so that animals can, and do, develop a resistance to the toxin and then they are no longer effective. The short half-life and low toxicity also means that dead or intoxicated target animals are far less dangerous to non-target species then the AR’s that were developed later. (Note that “less dangerous” does not mean “completely harmless”.)

In an effort to combat the resistance that developed with fist gen AR’s, second gen AR’s were came anout. These are far more toxic, requiring only a single dose to cause death, and have a longer half-life which can, and absolutely does, cause secondary poisoning in other animals. I’m not going to re-read the book tonight, but I remember somewhere in “Prairie Dog Empire: a saga of the short grass prairie” Paul Johnsgard mentions that these second generation AR’s have been linked to deaths in animals far outside the typical predator/scavenger-prey food web, such as song and shorebirds, in areas where they were used to control prairie dogs.

Does that mean one should NEVER used rodenticides or other pesticides? Absolutely not. However it is CRITICALLY important that they are used cautiously and ONLY as specified on the label. The label on any pesticide, whether it’s Round-Up or warfarin, is a legal document and failure to follow it can result not only in damage to human health and the environment, but you can be held liable for that damage in court.



On the note that ANY predator can and should be killed, that is also legal issue. Without the proper permits, it is unlawful to harm or kill any protected species. An animal doesn’t have to be a listed threatened or endangered species to qualify as protected either. For example, ALL birds of prey (threatened or not) are protected in the U.S. by several laws including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Most mammal predators such as bobcats, lynx, mountain lions, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, and various weasels are covered by state laws, which vary in regards to livestock/personal property protection. It is vitally important to be familiar with these state laws before you start shooting or poisoning these animals. Both state agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service take wildlife crimes VERY seriously and violators should expect to be held accountable.

 

[Birdinhand]

a while back I did some research on the effect of poison on wildlife. turns out rodents are basically akin to land plankton, the base of the food chain for a myriad of things. the use of poison is associated with declining bird of prey populations, particularly owls if memory serves. so yeah, I can see that poison may still be worth using in certain cases, but generally best avoided.

 

[Rothy_058]

Whoa! - I can see I have opened 'Pandora's Box' here and that this is an issue that has touched on many of us. I see both sides of this debate and they are both valid.

My view?

Of course I don't want my actions to impact on other wildlife and would go to great lengths to prevent that happening. But equally I won't have my chickens predated upon and will absolutely go to whatever lengths I need to do keep them safe.

I should put a bit more 'meat on the bones' regarding our own set-up here as a lot of the comments / replies don't really apply in our situation here...

Firstly, in the night time our chickens do enjoy absolute security from predators in the form of a stout log cabin constructed from 100 mm thick timbers - there's no way anything smaller than a silver back gorilla would be getting in there.

We know where the rats are coming from - the garden next door - the house has been unoccupied now for 18 months or so and the garden has become overgrown and rats have moved in...the place is strewn with rat-holes in the earth....I've seen it for myself.

I've been using a block type bait and have witnessed the rats physically removing the blocks of bait from the runs and disappearing down a rat hole that goes under the boundary fence into the garden next door.

Over the last 24 hours or so...since we started baiting...we have re-set the bait a dozen times or more over the three areas we have been leaving the bait. The areas are within the eglu run, the second run that I built and the space between the concrete floor the cabin is built on and the floor of the cabin...which is maybe 75 mm....big enough for a rat but not a chihuahua.

It's been taken within a couple of hours every time we have re-baited. Earlier this evening I re-baited and since then only one of the bait blocks has been taken...the first sign that the tide may be turning. I have been scanning the garden next door and have recovered just two rat carcasses...I'm convinced that most of them are dying underground.

Finally the life of Mrs.Chicken remains in the balance. I had thought she was OK but, whilst she is hanging in there, she clearly isn't right and is gravely pale and isn't taking much interest in food. She did manage some live mealworms today, however, so we are hopeful that she will recover.

Thanks for all your comments and advice on this subject.

 

[Lizzy733]

Whoa! - I can see I have opened 'Pandora's Box' here and that this is an issue that has touched on many of us. I see both sides of this debate and they are both valid.

My view?

Of course I don't want my actions to impact on other wildlife and would go to great lengths to prevent that happening. But equally I won't have my chickens predated upon and will absolutely go to whatever lengths I need to do keep them safe.

I should put a bit more 'meat on the bones' regarding our own set-up here as a lot of the comments / replies don't really apply in our situation here...

Firstly, in the night time our chickens do enjoy absolute security from predators in the form of a stout log cabin constructed from 100 mm thick timbers - there's no way anything smaller than a silver back gorilla would be getting in there.

We know where the rats are coming from - the garden next door - the house has been unoccupied now for 18 months or so and the garden has become overgrown and rats have moved in...the place is strewn with rat-holes in the earth....I've seen it for myself.

I've been using a block type bait and have witnessed the rats physically removing the blocks of bait from the runs and disappearing down a rat hole that goes under the boundary fence into the garden next door.

Over the last 24 hours or so...since we started baiting...we have re-set the bait a dozen times or more over the three areas we have been leaving the bait. The areas are within the eglu run, the second run that I built and the space between the concrete floor the cabin is built on and the floor of the cabin...which is maybe 75 mm....big enough for a rat but not a chihuahua.

It's been taken within a couple of hours every time we have re-baited. Earlier this evening I re-baited and since then only one of the bait blocks has been taken...the first sign that the tide may be turning. I have been scanning the garden next door and have recovered just two rat carcasses...I'm convinced that most of them are dying underground.

Finally the life of Mrs.Chicken remains in the balance. I had thought she was OK but, whilst she is hanging in there, she clearly isn't right and is gravely pale and isn't taking much interest in food. She did manage some live mealworms today, however, so we are hopeful that she will recover.

Thanks for all your comments and advice on this subject.

In order to re-secure your run once the tide has subsided, you can back-fill the rat holes with steel-wool and dirt. The rats may burrow under elsewhere, but with repeated filling, they will give up. That was my last resort on getting rid of their tunnel last summer and it was the only fill that had lasting results.
It sounds like a long-term trap solution after things have settled down will help keep a repeat incident from occurring. Where are you currently baiting? Ideally, you should set up traps somewhere along their 'track', but not in a prime feeding area - so it's not competing with other food sources. The bacon grease is great for us because it stays on the trap after repeated kills, but then we have to check and reset it regularly. The auto-traps are pretty much set and forget, which is great. If your putting down new trapping hardware, rats will avoid it for quite some time as they're phobic of new things in their environment.
Your girl is probably still in shock; if she's not in any 'physical' danger, a quiet and secure quarantine might help ease her nerves.

 

[Rothy_058]

Thanks, Lizzy, for your advice on Mrs.chicken....I'm sure her injuries are superficial. Right now she is in the best place she could be...next to her lifelong partner in crime 'Ms. chicken' secure in their cabin sleeping quarters at the bottom of our garden.

I'm hopeful that we are now on top of the infestation and we can soon return to normal chicken life with the girls being able to be free in their runs during the daytime...which we have had to temporarily suspend and replace with supervised garden visits with cabin confinement for most of the time....purely in the interest of their own safety.