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[Yorkshire Coop]

I read that somewhere also

Will see how I get on with the bait first but may give that a whirl. I'm thinking they are only just back as I've seen no evidence of them and only the hole today that looked pretty fresh so I hope to nip them in the bud before they get out of hand.

 

[Rudies Roost]

I read that somewhere also

Will see how I get on with the bait first but may give that a whirl. I'm thinking they are only just back as I've seen no evidence of them and only the hole today that looked pretty fresh so I hope to nip them in the bud before they get out of hand.

We shove our ash from the log burner down any rat holes and we put ash along our fence lines ....they hate it. Any holes are soon undisturbed by them! We've had to line the inside of the chicken coop, 2 x log sheds and our garage with sheet metal at ground level to keep the pesky rodents out. They kept pinching my duck eggs off the floor and nesting in our garage (along with using it as a toilet). My neighbours bought a kitten last Autumn who is maturing well so hopefully he'll keep them down too...it's been a constant battle for us....only just really got on top of them. We live quite rural and we are surrounded by fields so we don't stand much of a chance really but we can keep trying!

 

[rebrascora]

Yes, I started losing eggs to rats a few weeks ago. Never had that problem before! As well as stealing the odd one out of the nest boxes, they ate away the side of an egg carton on the bench in the feed room and stole an egg out of there too.
I have a favourite conventional rat trap that I bait with pieces of carrot and peanut butter. The older ones are too wiley but I usually catch a few mid grown ones with that and then they get wise, so I have to resort to poison. I really like those wax blocks that you nail down onto a piece of wood. I nail them to laths and then place them in bits of old pipe off cuts along the walls. I also have bait stations but the wax blocks seem to be most successful. I have old stone farm buildings and they are in the walls. I am going to have to do some major pointing this summer to try to block up some of their holes. The problem is that sometimes they die in the walls with the poison and every now and then you walk into the feed room and smell them....yuk!
I hadn't heard about wire wool but my sister got me some plaster of paris and I'm going to make some peanut butter balls with them. The idea being that you make a kind of dough with the peanut butter and flour and make little balls from it filled with plaster of paris. The greasy peanut butter protects the plaster from moisture until the rat eats it and then the plaster absorbs moisture in their stomach and sets. I haven't tried it yet to see if it works in practice, but it's better than having poisoned rats dying around the place with the subsequent risk to wildlife...and chickens for that matter.

I am having to remove my hanging feeder on a night because they are jumping up onto it and having a feast and of course they are not interested in my traps when there is chicken feed to be had.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

I take my feeders out on a night too just incase but I've been in the habit of that for a while. It costs enough to feed the chickens never mind the rats as well!

Great tips Sasha and Barbara, thank you

I have ash from my dustbin burner so that can be option for the horrid little critters! We are surrounded by fields too and we have a railway line pretty close so that's a draw for the rats. The couple down the street are even closer to the line and they have a terrible rat problem.

Where do you get the wax blocks from Barbara? I've not seen those before. I have just loose bait at the moment but this will be the last tub of it as the general public can't buy it like that anymore and you have to have a pest control license ~ http://www.hse.gov.uk/biocides/eu-bpr/rodenticides.htm

I've never heard of the plaster of Paris, let me know if you give it a whirl. Sounds too much like cooking, mixing it up and making balls! Cooking is not my forte in life

 

[Rudies Roost]

Was flicking through some old snaps on my phone and going back to the mud situation - thought I'd share a photo of what my lot did to my garden last year (before we had the pen installed):

They totally annihilated the lawn. It was mud all last Winter, the pic was taken last June...it's now finally, thank God, recovered and back to luscious green since we installed the pen and put a gate across. At least I can enjoy a small section of the garden now and I can even have flowers...in pots....in the flower beds and on the ground, not 10 feet high to stop the birds eating them!

e

 

[rebrascora]

@Yorkshire Coop

Hi Kim

I get them at "The Feed Warehouse" which is my local feed store. They come in different colours....red blue and green I think. I have the red ones and I just buy a big box of them and nail a couple to a lath and put them in places that the rats run but the chickens can't get to. I have some plywood boards leaning up against a wall and there is a gap at the bottom so I can put the lath in there and it's out of the way of the chickens. The rats can't move the whole wax block because it's nailed down so they just nibble at it until it's gone, then I pull the nail out and nail another one in it's place and put it back. Takes seconds and no worries about spilling bait and unlike the bait stations where the rats seem to sense when you have opened them to check, you can tell at a glance whether the block has gone and needs replacing and they eat the replacement block the next night, so replenishing them doesn't seem to spook them like the handling the bait station does. It's been a week since I set my proper spring trap, so I'm hoping I am going to find I've caught another one in that by morning.
Will take some photos of the wax blocks and the box when I am back up at the yard because I can't think off the top of my head, what the brand is.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Thanks Barbara
I will have a good look next time I go to get feed and see if they have blocks. We have a BATA close by so most of my chicken stuff is bought there.

Where would you have started with this forelock? Harry decided today to give himself a new hair do of thistles, haylage & mud

 

[rebrascora]

@Yorkshire Coop

Hi Kim

Yes, that is a familiar sight

except that my mare has a big shaggy forelock and mane and she had gorse prickles (which are incredibly sharp) included in the mix, along with thistle and mud .... any haylage gets eaten, so no spare strands for hair do.

I managed to get a photo of the wax blocks



I have been busy washing eggs.... production is starting to take off!

Still trying to chase down this part for my car. Thought I had found one at a reasonable price but it's the wrong model. Spending too much time at this infernal machine doing searches when the weather is fine and I have a poly tunnel to finish, but time is ticking for car to get MOTd.

Gotta go crack on as I still have some coops and pens to clean out. Thankfully mine hasn't quite reached the stage of slop yet but since I can't manage to get in to clean out most of them without losing chickens to the outside world, it will just be a case of throwing more clean straw in and leaving them to it. They always get so excited with clean straw, it's one of the few small pleasures I can give them at the moment. I keep thinking I am going to have a huge amount of catching up to do when all this is over!

Hope you don't get too dirty getting that mud off Harry. At least he is still well enough to enjoy getting down and dirty...always a good ....even if the prospect of trying to remove concreted mud from mane and forelock is not an attractive one.

Best wishes

Barbara

PS. Very disappointed to find my rat trap still empty this morning...I was so optimistic last night! Will have to have a "baking spell" soon and make some plaster balls!

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi Barbara

Thank you so much for the pics. I know what to look out for tomorrow when I head for feed. What a shame you have not caught anything in the trap yet Hope tonight will be the night for you! The rat hole here looks no different today and I've not checked the bait box as not to disturb it.

I have to say that your eggs look fantastic and what a wonderful mix of colours They sure do look very appealing! I got my first polish egg yesterday in I don't know how many weeks/months and it was like finding treasure in the nest box! So I have 3 of mine laying now plus the hen from my parents that had to come here because of bullying. Still pretty poor though out of 11 hens and a pullet that should have started laying.

Still no part for the car? I do hope you can get one in time for the MOT As you say such a waste looking for it when you have other things to do.

I managed to get Harry looking something like I started with mane and tail conditioner in it, then a good rake with a mane brush to loosen it all. Then I'm afraid it was a case of getting hold of it and literally pulling the forelock apart to release the thistle's. Eventually I got it all out but half his forelock is gone and what's left has gone all frizzy :/
I would rather spend time doing this, as you say he's still well enough to get up and down so I can live with the mud. His last field buddy had to be put to sleep after he got down and just didn't have the strength to get back up again. So whilst I'm cleaning mud and pulling thistles I'm happy.

Hope you have found the part for the car and can relax this evening Barbara!

Kim xx

 

[rebrascora]

Hi Kim

Pleased to hear you got him tidied up. TBs don't have much forelock to start with, so he must only be left with a wisp! My 3 younger ones are hogged...they are cobs so they really suit it and as two of them suffer sweet itch, it keeps them tidier and easier to treat. With the oldies, I pull out the worst of the prickles but the mud stays for the duration of the winter, otherwise I would not have any time to myself. Cora would much rather have her bum scratched than her face groomed, so it would be a battle in a muddy field that I would almost certainly lose....you have to know when to cut your losses!

After spending all day at the keyboard trawling ebay and scrap yard dealers and thinking I had found one only to be disappointed that it was the wrong model when I checked the details closely, I bit the bullet and rang the main dealers where we bought the car from new and asked for a price for a new part. They couldn't sell me the part I wanted on it's own, I had to buy the whole unit with a new horn and airbag attached for £427+VAT..... and when I explained that was ridiculous and I would continue to source one elsewhere, he advised me to steer clear of Polish or Chinese ones(maybe because they wouldn't fleece me!!!). I was furious because replacing the whole unit is so unnecessary but anyone that hadn't done their homework like me would have been forced into paying their ridiculous price....and that didn't even include labour! The part only provides a power link to the horn and air bag, neither of which I have much intention of using but both will function fine once I replace the coupling that is broken. Thankfully I did another search after speaking to him (I was so incensed that it inspired me to try harder) and found one at a scrap yard down in the Midlands for £54 including postage and 90 days warranty. Fingers crossed it is the correct part. The seller seemed to know his stuff and was very confident. I rather hope I get one of those feed back calls from the dealership so I can tell them what I think!

I managed to get a couple of coops cleaned out before dark and I have to say it makes you feel soooo much better to have it done. I did the one that I'm renting off my neighbour yesterday too, so starting to feel like I am not quite so swamped. Just need to find time to start processing cockerels again. And then of course, riding horses!!!....and lest we forget, there is an incomplete poly tunnel sitting on my drive!!!!

Thanks for the compliment re my eggs. The Maran's eggs really are a nice addition to the boxes and I've now got my green egg layers back on line, but I'm running out of white eggs with the leghorns fighting and generally not being happy. I've just had another pullet (a welsummer cross) start laying a light tan egg, so I'm starting to get an imbalance of brown eggs now although they are all such different shades that it still provides variety. My pekins are averaging about 4 a day, but pullet pekin eggs are so tiny, it takes half a dozen to make an omelette! Good to hear that your Polish are starting to earn their keep again. When will you start hatching?

Must head out now and do evening stables and put my 2 cockerels back in their overnight cardboard box! We are getting into a routine of sorts at last so they don't protest too much or try to escape. Roll on 28th Feb....I hope that latest turkey farm outbreak the other day doesn't mean it will be extended again.

Have a good evening

Regards

Barbara