Us vs. The Rats

[jesss]

over the summer/fall, it became apparent there were rats stealing our chicken feed. We have had chickens for seven years and never had a problem with rats. We built a garden coop from plans we bought online, and covered the entire coop with hardware cloth, which we also buried 12" underground with river rocks. But the rats have dug an extensive network of deep tunnels more than a foot underground to get into our coop and eat the chicken feed. I tried trapping them, and while I was pretty successful, only the live traps worked. it is such a slow way to eliminate a population, and we all got tired of killing the rats we trapped. We don't want to use poison because of a fear that the chickens could somehow get the poison, or that a poisoned rat could stagger into their reach and they could eat the rat. (Chickens are crazy AF). We have been bringing ning in the food every night and putting it out in the AM but it's quite a lot of work and doesn't really work with our schedules.

At the feed store recently, someone told me to buy bulk corn gluten and mix it into small balls with peanut butter and drop them into the rats holes. I have searched BYC and the bowels of google and can't find other people who are using this method, but I will say that it seems easy, cheap, safe to have around chickens... but is it effective? Has anyone else heard of this? Do you have any other advice or tips for things I could try? Thank you!

 

[BYC910]

I have told this story before I hate rats and will kill them anyway I can . We lived in the city for a couple of years when my family first moved to Tennessee . In a rental house close to a Purina feed mill . Rats were awful one crawled in my little brother bed and bit him on the ear while he was sleeping . I have no problem killing rats and mice . My favorite way is shooting them with my 22 pistols loaded with bird shot . Also use a 410 shotgun .That's for the ones that get high in the trees . Good hunting head light I go out around 10 to midnight and have killed hundreds that way .The trick is not to turn on the light until I get close to the chicken coop. I have all but eradicated the rat problem here . They have caused me many problems from chewed wires to chewed water lines . Kill tem all any way you can . I also use revenge smoke bombs . If they don't kill them they run them out of the holes so I can shoot them .The smoke bombs will help you find all the tunnel entrances . But don't breath the smoke or let chickens or pets breath it .Once found block them off and flood the holes with water .Also you can use quickcrete mixed really wet and flood fill the holes . It needs to be wet enough to run down the tunnel. I also use snap traps with the bait well I like those better peanut butter and scratch feed. Now one other way is to attach a hose pipe to the tail pipe of you car lawn mower or whatever and stick it in the hole and gas them that way . You see I'm pretty serious about killing rats

 

[Howard E]

I think the mix you may be looking for is peanut butter and plaster paris. Theory is they eat it, can't digest it or pass it and it kills them via intestinal blockage. Some say it works, others say it doesn't.

In the annals of most of the rat wars, about all that seems to reliably work is rat poison. Chunks and place it in bait stations well away from the birds. Normally, rats eat it, then crawl off to their tunnels to die.

Trapping may get a few. Dogs and cats may get more than a few, but not all of them. Remarkably, nature's best rodent killers are weasels. They can go into the tunnels and kill just about everything in sight.........but won't hesitate to do the same to your birds. In fact, a lot of weasel issues seem to crop up due to heavy infestations of rats and mice, which draw in these nasty predators.

So long term, best solution is a rat proof feeder to cut off their food supply, in conjunction with poison bait chunks protected in bait stations.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

No pied piper or trapper will get rid of a rat problem. The old adage of if you see a rat in daytime you have hundreds is true. They breed constantly. A poor system of maintenance may keep rat population in check if used from the beginning of keeping poultry. If your inundated then there is no other means of ridding them than poison.

I've been there and done that. It's horrible to be inundated with rodents. They ended up moving into the house. I wish more people and chicken 101 type hype books spoke about rodent control. It's something everyone will experience if they don't have any sort of control in place from day one. It took chunx bait in bait boxes to cure my problem. Since then I don't build a run and coop without adding a bait box with chunx bait. Keep it right in the run and have never had a rodent problem or accidental animal poisoning since. It's the best maintenance plan and only plan if already invaded.

 

[lazy gardener]

over the summer/fall, it became apparent there were rats stealing our chicken feed. We have had chickens for seven years and never had a problem with rats. I tried trapping them, and while I was pretty successful, only the live traps worked. it is such a slow way to eliminate a population, and we all got tired of killing the rats we trapped. We don't want to use poison because of a fear that the chickens could somehow get the poison, or that a poisoned rat could stagger into their reach and they could eat the rat. (Chickens are crazy AF). We have been bringing ning in the food every night and putting it out in the AM but it's quite a lot of work and doesn't really work with our schedules.
At the feed store recently, someone told me to buy bulk corn gluten and mix it into small balls with peanut butter and drop them into the rats holes.

I doubt that the PB/corn gluten approach will do anything more than give them a snack. Live trapping is most likely not eliminating them as fast as they are breeding.

I think the mix you may be looking for is peanut butter and plaster paris. Theory is they eat it, can't digest it or pass it and it kills them via intestinal blockage. Some say it works, others say it doesn't.

In the annals of most of the rat wars, about all that seems to reliably work is rat poison. Chunks and place it in bait stations well away from the birds. Normally, rats eat it, then crawl off to their tunnels to die.

Trapping may get a few. Dogs and cats may get more than a few, but not all of them. Remarkably, nature's best rodent killers are weasels. They can go into the tunnels and kill just about everything in sight.........but won't hesitate to do the same to your birds. In fact, a lot of weasel issues seem to crop up due to heavy infestations of rats and mice, which draw in these nasty predators.

So long term, best solution is a rat proof feeder to cut off their food supply, in conjunction with poison bait chunks protected in bait stations.

I read a study re: the plaster of paris/PB. They stated that all the mixture did was give the rats a serious case of constipation and hemorrhoids.

Howard, do you have a particular bait station plan that works well for you?

We had been using peanut butter and cheese and caught nothing. The minute we switched to FF, which was what they had been enjoying in the chicken yard, we caught dozens and dozens. I'm also zealous about storing food in tight containers and trying to minimize left-over feed in the yard.

Good to know that the FF was successful.

If I had a rat problem, I personally would not kill them. I would trap them and release them somewhere away from most houses, at least five miles away from my house. I don't like the idea of killing animals just because they want something to eat.

I am thankful that you are not my neighbor. If you are releasing rats 5 miles away from your house, you are releasing them to become some one else's infestation.

 

[sylviethecochin]

I am thankful that you are not my neighbor. If you are releasing rats 5 miles away from your house, you are releasing them to become some one else's infestation.

x2.

I hate killing animals too--especially juveniles. But dropping them off is not really the answer. If there aren't rats where you're dropping them off, then you just produced another infestation, or the area wasn't suited for rats anyway and he'll starve/freeze/move right over to someone else's house where they'll try and kill him. If there are rats there, then the existing, rather territorial rats will try and kill him.

Just hit him over the head with a shovel and bury the body. It's far more humane.

 

[jesss]

looks like a great coop and very manageable sized run. hardware cloth comes in rolls, I go with the 4' rolls that are about $2.50 a linear foot. I'm thinking you could do your's for about $50-75. dig down 8" on one side, pile the dirt on the other, spread the cloth, mend the seams, move the dirt over the cloth, switch sides, dig the second side, lay down the cloth, mend the seams, spread the dirt back evenly throughout, voila, no more rats! there will always be s manageable background population, so don't be alarmed at signs of one here and there. I also keep snap traps out to keep control of the population of rats under my neighbors shed that is at the property line and catch probably one a month.

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences and advice. I think we are going to dig out the run and mend hardware cloth underground. We have a bit left in the garage from another project so it may only cost me a weekend. I'm not really looking forward to all that mending but oh I just can't take the rats anymore.

 

[Stephanie_VA]

I think the mix you may be looking for is peanut butter and plaster paris. Theory is they eat it, can't digest it or pass it and it kills them via intestinal blockage. Some say it works, others say it doesn't.

Actually, they might very well have said corn gluten. There is a product available for rat control that has as it's main ingredient corn gluten. In reality, the product is completely safe around kids and pets. You COULD eat it without harm, if you chose to do so. Supposedly, rats are unable to digest corn gluten since they lack the enzymes to do so. Death is supposed to be caused by starvation. While reviews I have read are highly mixed, I have tried 2 bags of the stuff with my rat problem and have had zero success. From what I understand it works IF it's the only food source. The rats do eat it readily. But, if they have access to other sources it won't reduce the population. I had limited success with snap traps. Rats are smart and will learn to ignore them. The best control I've had is with poison blocks. It wasn't exactly pleasant when several died in my attic. However, being as cold as it is it wasn't intolerable, and the smell only lasted 3 or 4 days. At one time I would regularly see up to a dozen at a time at my bird feeder at night. Right now, I'm down to only a couple. Trouble is they're in the house. I'm still putting out poison. I'll win this war!

 

[JaeG]

Whenever the rats turn up so too do red mites in my coop. We tried the live capture traps (no other sorts are large enough to catch the huge rats we have round us, and there are no predators, other than the odd backyard cat who'd be crazy to take them on, to kill them in New Zealand). Drowning them isn't fun and we only ever caught a few. So we now use a poison that makes them thirsty so they seek out water (rather than hanging around in your roof to die and stink). I love animals but after they started pulling/attacking/eating my quail through the half inch hardware cloth, and even having a go at chewing through it, we had to do something! They are an introduced pest that is decimating native animals so they have no place in our backyard.

 

[Morrigan]

Agree with the above posters. Although it's a kind-hearted thought to live trap and release, when you're talking about relocating an infestation of dozens, if not hundreds of rodents, it's simply not feasible. Even if you could find some idyliic place, miles from other humans, the logistics of moving the rodents, many of which carry deadly diseases like hantavirus, is challenging to say the least. Plus, the relocated rodents will most like die after being denied their preferred habitat. There is a reason you don't see the kind of explosive rat populations in the wild that you do in human settings where there is an abundance of food, water and shelter available.