Us vs. The Rats

[Birdinhand]

We recently cleared out our backyard jungle and for the first time ever we have a rat or mice problem. This morning I went to our storage bin (a lockable/sealed coolman) where they have knawed through the first outer layer of hard plastic. One more layer and they are in rat food heaven and then I’m sure there will be more which will bring arh!!!!
We have always kept food away from hutches and in sealed heavy duty containers, but I think as we have disturbed their old natural environment, they have decided to move on in.
Thank you to everyone’s comments here.... I think that we will be going the route of poison under our house and ensuring our chickens and child can’t access.

I can certainly understand how them getting inside one's house ups the anti! to keep them from coming back from other outside populations, after you've exterminated this group, I highly recommend figuring out how they are getting under your house and securely close up all openings with hardware cloth or metal of some sort. do not leave any more than a half inch gap. the least funky way to deal with them now is to close up those holes and bait traps under the house, that way you get rid of the dead rats instead of them dying somewhere in your house. it's no fun dealing with the stink.

 

[Pjacct]

I can certainly understand how them getting inside one's house ups the anti! to keep them from coming back from other outside populations, after you've exterminated this group, I highly recommend figuring out how they are getting under your house and securely close up all openings with hardware cloth or metal of some sort. do not leave any more than a half inch gap. the least funky way to deal with them now is to close up those holes and bait traps under the house, that way you get rid of the dead rats instead of them dying somewhere in your house. it's no fun dealing with the stink.

Thanks for the heads up....we actually have booked a pest man to come in next week for spiders and termite annual spray/inspection. After the poisoning this week we are going to get them to try and find any areas we may have missed.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Ok, Please don't judge I'm not a bad person. We use smoke bombs. At 4 of July I bought three cases. Because I was sick of snakes, moles, rats and had just had enough. See if I was evil I would do it with a smile on my face. So I put my College Degrees to work.

1) find the whole
2) I put three lite smoke bombs in the whole
3) make sure they pop and start smoking.
4) before smoke bombs finish fill in whole with dirt, Pat down and repeat until Whole is full.
5) do to each whole you find.
6) say bye bye to underground problems.

This works three main ways
1) the chemicals they use in smoke bombs leaves a residual in the whole that burns animals and snakes. This causes them to not try and dig the same way
2) You close and lock the critters out and basically lock the door
3) It chases them out of hiding so you can dispatch as soon as they pop their heads out. If they are in the whole.

Last but most important, it looks so cool to see your yard smoking in a bunch of colors.

Little late, but that sounds a lot more humane to me than most poisons do.

 

[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.