Tunnels?

[TurtleFeathers]

Hi all -

To date, we've not had any problems with predators/pests <knock wood>. Our back yard is 2 acres surrounded by 4' chain link, and the chicken coop/run is inside the yard, surrounded by 4' wire fencing. If a predator climbed over or thru the chain link, they'd have to deal with our dogs before they ever got to the chicken run. Under the cover of darkness and/or while the dogs are inside at night is a different story.

The coop is sealed up tight every night, and all feeders/food is contained inside it. I store food bags in the garage, about 30 feet away, in garbage cans and Rubbermaid type containers. I do throw out a couple handfuls of scratch in the run every morning, but the chickens gobble it up in less than 5 minutes.

The coop sits on a slight slope, so one side is directly ON the ground, and the other side is up on blocks to make it level. Since the snow melted this spring, I've noticed little tunnel openings leading under the coop. They're are 4 or 5 of them, about 2-3" wide. I don't see any evidence of chewing on the wood of the coop, and I've scoured the ground looking for droppings, but can find nothing. I have checked under the open end with a flash light and haven't seen anything. Last night I sat just outside the run for about 2 hours waiting for noises or movement, and saw nothing.

I really don't mind chipmunks, and although I would rather not have mice, they probably wouldn't hurt anything - but I certainly don't want rats or weasels living under the coop.

Any ideas how I could identify my tunnel digger without killing it first? I'd hate to set traps for rats and weasels only to find out I killed a chipmunk... I mean, if I have to sacrifice a chipmunk for piece of mind, then so be it, but I thought I'd check with you first before I jumped the gun, so to speak...

Thanks -

 

[Intheswamp]

I don't know if a game camera will work or not on such a small animal. A mouse sized Hav-a-Hart trap might work. There are some small Hi-Def video cameras out there that run around $100...I picked up one a year or so ago to tinker with and it does fairly good. The thing is that you can record for around 4 hours in hi-def on a 4gig memory card...even has a "night mode". The one I got is called a "Jazz". There is another one out now called a "Flip" or something like that. Just some thoughts...

Best wishes on your hunt!
Ed

 

[Festa X11]

Sounds like you have Rats, get some bait stations put out they are covered so chickens and dogs/cats can`t get in them

 

[ChixPix]

sounds like voles to me!! Are there trails on the grass in the area?

I had them last summer, but thought it was a snake (I was ok with a snake) (I didn't have chickens then). well, this winter it got REALLY BAD and I've been busting my butt trying to kill voles all spring before I plant.

Put a little mole/gopher killer down the holes and cover them with a rock. They eat it and die obviously. In a couple days, smash down the holes then wait overnight and see if there's new holes, if there are, more killer and a rock... lather rinse repeat. Be very careful if you are putting that poison in your run! I'd look for the holes on the outside first.

 

[TurtleFeathers]

Thanks guys - I'm going to the feed store today - I assume I can get bait stations there, right? And if this is a chipmunk, will it be attracted to (and therefore killed) by whatever bait is inside this thing? Is it an immediate kill, or will they run off and die somewhere where my dogs and chickens might have access to the body?

Something else I forgot to mention that might be pertinent (prepare to be grossed out):

One of my cats died last fall. He was completely indoors for 14 years, and the closest he came to the outdoors was sitting in a screened window. I wrapped him in a towel, placed him in a cardboard box, and buried him in one of the flower beds (about 200 feet away from the coop in the front yard, on the other side of the chain link fence) with the idea of planting a bush or something on his little grave in the spring. We dug a hole 3 or so feet deep, and there he's been for the last 6 months, undisturbed.

Well, I was picking some daffodils in this very same garden on Easter morning (for a bouquet centerpiece for the dinner table), and much to my horror, I found that something had recently dug my cat up - not only was he dug up, but he had been dragged out of the hole and was in pieces everywhere. It wasn't pretty. While collecting his remains, I noticed small tracks in the freshly disturbed dirt, but I couldn't really make out what they were. My husband suspected a fox, but I was too creeped out to come to any real conclusion. Besides, I think the tracks were too small to be a fox. Definitely not a dog tho.

Could this have been related to the tunnels under my chicken house, or do you think this is a totally unrelated issue?

 

[TurtleFeathers]

Quote:
Thanks Chix - I *know* we have voles - I've been fighting with them over my hostas for YEARS. But these holes are bigger than any vole holes I've ever seen. Not that it couldn't be voles, but voles won't hurt the chickens, and they darn sure couldn't dig up a dead cat. Actually, I'd be more worried about the chickens killing the voles! Well, not "worried" per se' - at least if the chickens killed the voles, my hostas would be safe...

 

[Lil Chickie Mama]

I don't know about your cat, and I'm sorry that happened, but I doubt it's related to the holes. There are many more pests in the world than any of us really want to know about. We have a bunch of big holes like that everywhere but we don't live anywhere that snow hits the ground. Here the number of holes seems to correlate with the number of tomato and onion plants that disappear. What do we have? Gophers and moles. I HATE gophers and moles. I watched a tomato plant get sucked under before my eyes. We poison, we fill in, nothing works. There are holes all over, even in the chicken coop and while I don't care about these pests with the chickens, I do care that they are making tunnels that snakes can use. I don't have any suggestion, but that's what we have here.

 

[bugflipper]

You have the norway rat most likely. http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pcnorwayrat.htm I had them at my old place. I bought a tub of rat poison blocks. Dropped one in every hole. And put them back behind boards and things in the chicken house. Also underneath it. I just used the 4 or 5 pound bucket up and never had them again. I imagine the poison lasted for years as it is for outdoor use anyway. I was picking up rats everywhere for a week or so. Mainly they were the hump backed one listed above. There were also some gophers in the mix. The birds did not bother the carcasses.

 

[TurtleFeathers]

Ok, just an update...

I've set several live traps 3 nights in a row, near the tunnels leading out from under the house - bait was peanut butter, with various things mixed in it: roll type dog food (thinking "aromatic"), lunch meat, dry dog/cat food, crumbled bacon. Each morning, traps have been untouched. Either this animal isn't a meat eater, or its not nocturnal. Or its neither.

Saturday evening we went out of town to attend a function at about 3PM. It was WAY too early to close up the chickens, and I thought we'd get home before sundown - but the function ran over-time, and we hit a bit of traffic on the way home. We got home about 9PM, WELL after dark. I was in a panic, thinking if this was a rat or a weasel, I'd find a massacre when I got home. When we pulled up in the driveway, I ran straight to the hen house in my dress clothes, in the dark, only stopping in the garage to grab a flashlight - and I found everyone snug as a bug in a rug, sleeping peacefully with the pop doors open. Whew!!! What a relief!!!

So I was poking around the hen house yesterday morning - I lifted the cinder blocks that the hens use at their pop doors as "steps". Under each one, I found "chambers" of sorts, dug out to about the size of my fist, with connecting tunnels, about 2-3" wide. I poked around in each one with a stick, and the ground is hard inside - in other words, these are not the entrance ways to more tunnels. They're more like little "rooms".

These "rooms" didn't contain anything - no food storage, no babies, no droppings, nothing. I don't smell anything out of the way. There are no holes like a mole or a vole would make. But the dirt that had been excavated from these "rooms" was sort of stuck together in semi hard, dry clumps, mixed with feathers and old shavings that had fallen out of the hen house. It took alittle effort to break them apart.

So I set a brick up against the edge of the hen house last night just to see what would happen. This morning, there was a new "room" dug out beneath it, about the size of my fist. The room was empty, save for freshly hollowed out earth.

Any ideas on what I'm dealing with? Should I set the traps using grains/greens/fruit and see what happens?

I know y'all must think I'm crazy, but I really want to ID this critter!!! Especially if it is a potential threat to my birds, and/or if its going to multiply and start affecting/upset my neighbors. If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with me - and thanks in advance for any suggestions!!!

 

[allanimals21]

sounds to me like its mice. We get that here all the time. They tunnel in the dirt and under the straw and grass. The pockets could be where they plan on making a nest? Thats my thought with my experiences.