What animal is living here???

[Orit]

Is that inside or outside?
Looks too small to be rats. If it's outside it might be voles, they like to dig tunnels under things sitting on the ground.

It's outside.

 

[Orit]

There seem to be several votes for rat's nest UGH!!! I've covered the holes up with bricks. What do people recommend to deal with this problem?

 

[dawg53]

There seem to be several votes for rat's nest UGH!!! I've covered the holes up with bricks. What do people recommend to deal with this problem?

Buy "Just One Bite" poison bait at a feed store or maybe a hardware store and put one cylinder of the bait into the rat hole and cover it up with your brick or paver. A rat(s) will eat the bait and then die a couple days later, usually in an underground tunnel or underground nest. Once in awhile it's possible to see a dead rat on the surface of your yard, see pics above.
You can tell when they die underground, dead decaying smell.

I've found that Tom Cat bait cylinders and Ramik poison baits are ineffective as are rat traps no matter the bait. Glue traps work for mice, but not rats.
Rags soaked in ammonia and hung on chicken wire after birds have gone to roost at night are very effective deterring rats and mice. But you have to do it for about 5 nights in a row and most of the time they wont show up at a particular pen.
Keep in mind, this is controlling them, you cant eliminate them.

Also, always wear disposable gloves when handling poison baits and ammonia soaked rags.

 

[Folly's place]

We used bait stations, and I put bait cubes down the holes, covered with cement blocks. In two weeks or so, had to use different bait. All rats disappeared, only found one above ground.
Those rats ate eggs, and killed three nice bantam pullets, before we got rid of them.
Also wear disposable gloves when handling any dead rodents! They go in a garbage bag and into the trash.
Traps were a fail here too. Once a juvenile rat drowned in a five gallon water bucket at the barn. One. The rest took bait to eliminate.
Mary

 

[dawg53]

Bait boxes and PVC pipes containing poison baits outside the pens.