Your experience with rats?

[ChickenCrazy4ever]

We caught one big rat in a trap earlier today since we know we have them and want to get rid of them. My questions are:

How do you know when you've gotten rid of all the rats?
About how many are there living together?
How long wil it take to get rid of them?

 

[silkiechicken]

Rats like:

I had a female feral colony cat do a great job at controlling them, she was brave and would catch ones so large that they would drag as she went back to her group to eat them....

That said, securing food so they could not get to it was the best way to get "rid" of rats. We had some stubborn ones like in the pic that we trapped and shot.

Haven't seen them or evidence of them... so not sure if you can really ever know if you got rid of them all. They hide well and grow families fast. I found one nest on accident with a dead female in it, stepped on 4 baby rats, shoveled the dad flat and 3 or 4 others got away if that is an indication of how many there are.

 

[ChickenCrazy4ever]

How did you make a feeder that your chicken can get to but is inaccessible to the rats?

 

[silkiechicken]

Now that I have a coop with a solid floor and have discontinued use of the tractors, I just keep the feed indoors and haven't had any evidence of rats going into the coop during the day hours when the chickens are awake.

When I was using tractors, I just brought all the feeders into the house after closing up all the coops. Hung feeders high and used pellets so there was almost no spillage.

I bet there are still some rats out there, but I'd hate to think how many I'd have if I left food out in their feeders at night.

In short, the feeders are not rat proof, just not set out when rats are generally out.

 

[dandydoodle]

What did you put in that trap that actually made a rat go into a live trap?

Quote:

 

[poultrycrazy]

They are nasty! They will eat your babies if they can get to them, and cripple juveniles to. Try rat pellets were the chickens cant get it... make sure they always have it... I had rats in my coop that took my chicks and decapitated my juvenile chick... They are nasty. Also try fly bait called golden malrin and put it in a pie pan and put coka cola in there, it will kill them almost instantly... Good luck

 

[aprophet]

you don,t really get rid of them it is more like a maintenance thingy I trap and kill a coupla each night the small cages work fair I use muskrat size body grip traps as well as steel foot traps they act just like a body grip trap because of the size I use 1 1/2 SLS I also shoot them with a pellet rifle I put lye down a coupla times a months in their runways they lick it form their feet and they die

 

[silkiechicken]

Quote:

A good trap placement along what looked like their travel trail, and crumbs of corn leading to the back.

 

[NewToFarming]

I had a horrible rat problem at my old place. I had a converted stall in the barn as their coop and I could not beat the rats at all. They won! I used poison where the chickens could not get to it, I used traps, I used moth balls, I used peppermint oil as well as steel wool in where I thought they might be getting in at and nothing was effective for me. I also had a cement floor but found since this was a very old barn that they actually dug through where they were small separations in the cement. The poison killed a few but it wasn't enough. I wired walls, floors, ceilings and they still got in and got babies. I am so glad to not be there anymore!
I wish you luck in getting rid of them but being I had a big old barn, they lived in between the ceiling of the bottom floor and the floor of the upstairs of the barn and I never could get them all. It got to the point I had to keep the moms, chicks and youngsters in cages also lined with hardware cloth at night because they were able to squeeze through the cage wire so I had to also put hardware cloth over the cages. But I would even see an occasional rat in the coop during the day. I had cats that caught some but some of these rats were huge and would have given the cats a run for their money!
They also bring disease and my chickens look so much better being out of that place! Good luck! I hope you are able to get it under control!

 

[theFox]

Quote:

A good trap placement along what looked like their travel trail, and crumbs of corn leading to the back.

The same trap setup works for all animals (the trap size and bait might need to change, but in general it works).