Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[babylady4]

Becky; YES the rat would poison other animals, even predatory animals like Eagles or Coyotes, or if your dog or cat eats it.....

I hate poisons..... I hope to never think about using them.......

I have a bad memory associated with them. Went to a friends house (she lived on a farm) for an overnight birthday party when I was about 8 and while we were playing a game the birthday girl found her favorite cat laying dead....... lots of crying does not make for a fun party!

If I remember from the exterminator shows, look to place traps where you find the grease markings the rats leave with their bodies while they are out on their highways..... of course I have no idea if you have light colored walls in your coop/barn......

Jim, do you think you could get an alarm mat for the floor by your mom's bed????? At least you would know when she is on it then......



I have 4 cats staring me down for their dinner so I better get moving.....

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
yeah, that 's it.. an electric mat.. then when she gets the shock she would lift her foot up and stay in bed..LOL

 

[ElaineS585]

Hello, Wisconsinites!
My name is Elaine, I am a chickaholic . I live in Madison with hubby & son & various critters. Got my first chickens late last summer (long story I'll tell later) and I've been lurking here and throughout BYC ever since . I feel like I know a lot of you from your daily posts in the Cheesehead section which I've been reading every day! Everything I know about chickens has come from BYC, books from the library and internet seaches. It's a fascinating new hobby for me. I don't know much but I've learned alot! I've wanted chickens for years and years. Now that I can cross that off my bucket list there's no stopping me! I have 21 eggs in my $20 incubator (Craigslist) and it has a working turner! The eggs are a mix of silkies, cochins (spelling?) and EEs. I candled 13 eggs yesterday for the first time -- wow, was that cool & exciting! I only had to discard 1. My son and I did the stink test on the EEs today and only one was bad so we've got a total of 21 out of 23 growing so far at week 2. Keeping my fingers crossed... I think my lockdown day is Thursday but I'll have to double-check that as I have the memory of a gnat. It's going to be exciting in our household that's for sure! Hubby's really scared I'm going to turn our backyard into a barnyard (I would if I could but I can't since we're in the city) so I'm only planning on keeping 1 ... or 2... or maybe 3. You all know how that darn chicken math goes... Now if I could only talk my neighbor into letting me put a coop on our boundary line and say it's her coop where I'd take care of them & split the eggs w/her I'd have it made. (Madison only allows 4 chickens, no roosters. I think I'm illegal right now (hee hee) but I'll not put it in writing as to why. Self-incrimination you know?) It'll become abundantly clear in future messages. I have 2 sisters with farms in IL so any I peeps I don't keep, sell or trade will be going their way. More stories to tell later, just wanted to drop in, say hi and introduce myself so that when I come back here screaming and hollaring when the hatching starts, you'll have the background to make sense of what it all means!
Warmly,
Elaine

 

[Susie"J"]

Elaine, Nice to hear from you. Good luck with the

Jvl electric mat

Off to work, Have a great day everyone

Susie

 

[beckyschicks]

Oh jim I like the electric mat. LOL Could have used that in the nursing home.

Of course I'm kidding! Don't you just love when you fire up the furnace for the first time and all you smell for a week is dead mouse. We have a old field stone foundation, so that's were they go is the basement. The rat is in the barn. We have a pole barn and it can't get in the coop. That's sealed up tight. But I have a couple chickens that lay in the barn, by the tack room, and of course the rat is living under there. BL4-I'm probably not going to use posion. Don't like the stuff either and my cats or dogs would probably eat it if they found it. I'll have to research traps. Right now I just have a snap trap. Never seen a rat before I had birds. DH says it's because of the eggs and chicken food. I guess I will just have to get use to having to set a rat trap every couple weeks and see what I get. It's just sad when I get a mouse in it.

ElaineS585 Great place to find info.
Ok going to start the day. Take care all.

 

[Tomski]

Good Morning - Once again, Thanks for the warm welcomes!

I won an egg auction! By the end of the week I should have 6 Lavendar Orpington, 2 Buff Orpington, 2 Salmon Faverolle and 2 Dominique eggs in the bater....

Although I only paid 32 bucks for the above 12, It would have been nice to find some cheaper eggs for my first hatch. I'll be REALLY stoked if I can get 50%.

I'm working with a used LG9200 that a buddy gave me - still air. I'm thinking about "Polish Installing" a small 12v comp fan that I have laying around here.

Any special tricks or techniques that anybody has for this newbie would be GREATLY appreciated!

I also picked up a "like new" 5'X4' double pane piece of glass that I will be making a solar heater for the coop... I think I'm gonna go with the beer/soda (mostly beer) can idea - although I may go with the flex tubing depending on price.

Any special tricks or techniques that anybody has for this newbie would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[raimnel]

Quote:
go for it! thats what I use! and in 2 of my 'bators I use the fans with the LED lights in them so I can see in there when the big light is off. lol

lol electric mat

Elaine, gotta love the chicken math!

I think most (maybe?) have bad memories with poison. us, we use it over the winter in our camper, our first time back in the spring and we didn't get one pack picked up and our small dog ate it (at least we think she did) we found out that there was a vet about 10 miles away. in the end she lived. thankfully! however DHs memory of it isn't so good.

:sigh: these temps are going to be the death of me, I haven't messed with them. but shouldn't they come back to what they were before I added the eggs?

 

[Terri O]

Good morning! Hey Tomski--my DH put a computer fan in our still air. Somebody said not to have it blowing on the eggs so he positioned it to blow upwards. It is working OK but made the incubator REALLY noisy! He didnt put a piece of plastic under the washers and nuts on the top and they kind of "sucked down" into the styro...so he said he was going to fix that after this hatch. He says he used 10x2.5" nuts and bolts to mount it. Good luck!
DrH--you are still funny even when you are tired! And yes I figured that your BFF didnt spend the night! I just had to tease you cause I thought it was pretty funny! How nice that you will be able to shower and pee in the house again!

Becky--my vet told me that the regular(warfarin) rat poison (not the new chemicals) was totally digested in the body of the thing it killed so there is not a residual poison that can kill an animal that eats it after it dies. I noticed when I was buying the poison I used that some was labeled the carcasses WERE dangerous and some werent labeled that way. I still was cautious when I used it but I havent had any problems at all. I would do more research though....but ya think a vet would know. (maybe?)
Elaine--WELCOME and thanks for making yourself "visible" to the rest of us! Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on this chicken business! Glad to have another friend on here!
Jim--you gave me a chuckle this morning...actually your Mom did--trapped on the railroad tracks! Well, I guess it is funny thinking about it--I hope she wasnt too terrified when it was happening! I guess that could be pretty scary when you think it is real.
FM--a hatch already? How come your eggs seem to take such a short time and my time is dragging along??? It seems like you just posted that you set eggs...must be that getting old thing again--the weeks just fly by!
Well--seems that I have a book again! Gotta go and get stuff fed and off to work...being the "waitress" again today. Those old folks sure like to complain...if you pour the coffee first then it's too cold but they dont want the water too early or it's warm...sigh. Have a fantastic day! Terri O

 

[babylady4]

Try to be helpful and the comics come out......

Yes, give the poor old lady shock therapy for disobeying.......

They have alarm mats at nursing homes that let the aids know if a resident is attempting to get out of bed (like you guys did not know....) that is what I was talking about.

Welcome Elaine!!!!

I suppose I better get working; there is a thread on here in the Hatching eggs tab about someone who has a webcam hooked up so we can all watch an Emu hatch......... like watching your own incubator is not bad enough, now we can do it here too!

Later!

 

[jvls1942]

good morning all, looks like a nice day in wisconsin.
those temps are sure roller coasting.. March is coming like a lamb, so it will go out like a lion..

you have to be careful what and how you say things.. If I am in the right/wrong mood, something might just strike me funny.
I come from a wierd family that way..

DrH, TO said it is ok for you to pee in the house again,,, and just when we thought L had you paper trained..

I cannot go along with the vet who said rodent carcasses were safe to eat.. there is still poison in the stomach that is not digested... I cannot believe that just because it is digested by the rodent, that it miraculously becomes inert.. none the less, why take a chance?

there was a house and some old buildings and a lot of piles of wood and junk on the opposite corner of this 10 acres where we live.. many years ago the fire dept burned everything down.. So the rats had no place to live.. They moved across the field to our place.. we had hundreds of them.. some almost as big as cats..

we started putting out poison.. in one spot we were going through 5 pounds a day.. this lasted well over a month.. we found dead rats in the driveway, in the coops, in the garage, in the car.... and a lot of them we just never found.. but you could smell them... I even shot a couple of them.. I watched a pair of them grab a fryer sized chicken and kill it.. ever since then, we take drastic measures at the first sign of a rat..