The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Christoph262 on November 30, 2020, 04:59:24 pm
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I have a small rat problem ,I have 8 chickens in a small paddock and rats are burrowing in from field next door
I do not want to use poison as I have other animals,can anybody give me any ideas to the best erradicate them
Thank You
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Remove all feed sources, snap traps can be useful but obviously don’t work in a chicken run. You can buy a bait box that stops rats running off with the bait though (wire in blocks inside the bait box and no other animals should be able to access the bait). If you have a real rat problem poison can be the only thing to bring them under control and control them in the future.
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Thanks for that I shall start with food sources first
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Rat catchers tell us, and my own experience backs it up, that deterrents (along with removing the sources of attraction and the means of ingress) are helpful in stopping rats from taking up residence. But that if there is already a problem, deterrents will have pretty much no impact. First of all, the current incumbents have to be removed. Poison or terriers, or terriers followed by poison, are the only ways that seem to work once there is an active infestation. (And believe me, I have tried so many alternatives over the years! I hate having to use poison, but I have grudgingly accepted that it's necessary once the rats have moved in.)
Then, once there is no longer a resident rat population, the deterrents (coupled with sealing holes and removing all attractors of course) may help to reduce the likelihood of, or at least delay, another lot moving in.
Anyway, that's my experience. Just thought I'd share it; you will make your own mind up of course. (Everyone told me the same and I had to find out the truth of it for myself... I think most people do, no-one likes having to use poison!)
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With only 8 birds it should be pretty easy to just feed them a measured amount first thing in the morning and again pre roosting time. That way they clear up all the food and don't leave any for scavengers. I know a lot of people do it but leaving a feeder in the pen all day long is a sure way to attract rats and other pests. If your pen is not big enough to provide entertainment in the way of foraging for the hens then hang cabbages or other greenery up during the day which the hens will like but the rats wont be so keen on.
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With only 8 birds it should be pretty easy to just feed them a measured amount first thing in the morning and again pre roosting time. That way they clear up all the food and don't leave any for scavengers. I know a lot of people do it but leaving a feeder in the pen all day long is a sure way to attract rats and other pests. If your pen is not big enough to provide entertainment in the way of foraging for the hens then hang cabbages or other greenery up during the day which the hens will like but the rats wont be so keen on.
Totally agree. I used to have 6 ducks and 12 hens in my last home and had a really bad problem with rats coming from the adjacent railway and burn.
I only have 4 hens here, with a small coop enclosed in a weldmesh 6 foot high run, but with access to rough ground during the day. No sign of rats in a year but I know from neighbours they are in the woods behind their house, which is behind me. All farmland around too. So I scatter enough for the girls to eat in the morning, and keep them occupied, then they get a little more when they go inside their coop at night. I have a tarpaulin over the run per APHA recommendations for bird flu
The run is positioned below the balcony from my lounge (house is on two levels)so I will hang greenery from that soon as the foraging ground is almost trashed
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Unless your poultry house is a) on wheels and b) moved very regularly you will have rats living underneath - food or no food available - because it is warm and dry (same goes for your compost heap, though no idea yet how to put that on wheels). Only thing is to send a ferret down. Even if your shed is on a concrete plinth/foundations, the rats will just burrow under at the edge of that. If the floor is made of wood you will need to check it regularly, or the rats will chew their way in... we have lost goslings that way. All our chicken houses now have double floors with wire mesh bewteen them.
But we still have rats... you will not be able to eradicate them. And even if you do, others just come as quick to take up the residences vacated... you will have to learn to live them to some extent.
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I would work on the theory that you have a bigger problem than you think. A free food source always attracts rats. Garden bird feeders being a one of the biggest. You can never be sure that your chickens have eaten everything and as Anke says they like warm, dry places to nest. Lots of good advice above. It is possible to use bait safely.
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I cannot abide having rats around - I use cameras just to check when they are about and where they enter the chicken pen and where they go.
I especially keep a note of what time they turn up because they are habitual. I wait and shoot them if I can. Rats become very wary of snap traps after a few near misses - but putting two side by side sometimes gets them.
The worse is when they take up residence under the shed - I will empty the shed out and lift the removable floor to get at them(spade usually).
I never let them settle once I know they are in and i will chase them down every day until i have got them all.
More than once i have been around in the evening at the right time and panicked the rats into a trap
does that sound too much or did I forget to mention I dont like rats?
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I keep fen traps down all year around now. You must enclose them in wooden tunnels that no other species can access though. You can bait them or not, although I've had more success with baiting using grain
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I never had rats untill this summer. Now I see them every day. I caught some in traps. They definitelly have a nest underneath the chicken coop - flooded it with a hose. Another small chicken coop is moved every day. They dig underneath every day.
I never leave food all day any more. Only feed the chickens and ducks a bit in the morning a a bit in the evening. Try to feed them in different spaces - obviously birds see where i feed them so they follow me. Unfortunately rats are very clever. First they made their nest under the garden shed - were they had access to feed, which was soon blocked of course.
I'm setting up more traps now. Was thinking of getting some poison but was worried poultry might eat it too...
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Using bait doesn't have to be a danger to your other animals. Target carefully where rats are nesting so under huts and in walls, not putting out anywhere. They like to carry bait back to their nests so save them some work and take it to them. Nail blocks to wood and slide under huts. Push bait into their runs in walls, well back so nothing else pulls it back out. Spend sometime working out where they are nesting before you put bait out. Think of the term "rat runs". Bait until they don't take anymore. Most people don't bait for long enough.
Yes, more rats are likely to move in but usually it isn't immediate and hit them again as soon as you see the evidence.
Do the obvious stuff like not leaving food out and storing in rat proof bins but also don't give them cover. They like to stay close to buildings and love it when you put stuff against the wall they can run along the back of out of sight.
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If you can put your hen house on legs, or a few concrete blocks at each corner if its a big house, to raise it off the ground significantly (about a foot) then rats will not nest under it. All our houses are raised and there are no rats underneath. It also provides a dry area for the hens to shelter from the rain and to dustbath under.
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I keep fen traps down all year around now. You must enclose them in wooden tunnels that no other species can access though. You can bait them or not, although I've had more success with baiting using grain
Cant beat a well set fenn in a tunnel i have 4 permanently set around my hens and compost bins check them ones a day if any thing is creeping about they get snaped up some times I don't catch for months then get 3 or 4 adults in a row must be as rats looking for a new home
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Impossible task. When feed is not availabe they will eat the eggs, or worse have a go at the birds while they perch at night.
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Some people have success with a dry plaster mixed with hot chocolate powder, small amounts into plastic baggies, and poked into runs. The plaster activates with the stomach liquids and sets hard. A horrible way to die but nothing else that eats the dead rat will die of it, like they can/will after eating a poisoned rat.
Live traps work sometimes, then either drown or bag up/whack the rat.
A bucket trap is always fun but I usually only catch young rats that way. 28 in one week at my mum's last house. The best set up I had was a metal dust bin with about 12 inches of water in it and a 15 inch flower pot upside down in the middle. I fed the rats on the pot for about a week and then put a smooth metal bowl over the pot with a few grains of food on it. They would jump in and slip right into the water. To me a better way to die than poison or plaster.
I have heard - not tried yet - that, if you can get your car to where rats are digging in and living, take a hose from the exhaust pipe and shove it well into the rat tunnels. Let the car run for a good long time for the gasses to build up nicely under or in the shed or compost heap. First remove all livestock to safety and BE CAREFUL, carbon monoxide is dangerous!
Anywhere you stand you are less than 20 feet from a rat, I remember reading that somewhere. Not sure if it's true but dang, it sure feels like it!
Inch by half-inch, 16 gauge cage wire is what I use to make my cages, hutches, night quarters. Just somewhere to be safe at night for chickens and for the rabbits to be totally out of reach of rats, and where they can't reach baby bunnies to carry them away to eat later. Even so, I have had does make a nest where rats could reach the underside of the cage and pull all the bedding away from the babies and start to eat them piecemeal through the wire.
Yeah, I hate rats!
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Some people have success with a dry plaster mixed with hot chocolate powder, small amounts into plastic baggies, and poked into runs. The plaster activates with the stomach liquids and sets hard. A horrible way to die but nothing else that eats the dead rat will die of it, like they can/will after eating a poisoned rat.
Oh please don't do this. I too detest having rats around because of the damage and disease they can cause, but there is NO excuse for such out and out cruelty. Rats are highly intelligent creatures. There is no doubt that rats can feel fear and pain every bit as much as humans can and this must be an AGONISING way to die. I repeat, please don't do this.
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Some people have success with a dry plaster mixed with hot chocolate powder, small amounts into plastic baggies, and poked into runs. The plaster activates with the stomach liquids and sets hard. A horrible way to die but nothing else that eats the dead rat will die of it, like they can/will after eating a poisoned rat.
Oh please don't do this. I too detest having rats around because of the damage and disease they can cause, but there is NO excuse for such out and out cruelty. Rats are highly intelligent creatures. There is no doubt that rats can feel fear and pain every bit as much as humans can and this must be an AGONISING way to die. I repeat, please don't do this.
I am not pushing this method of control but from having watched rats die from poison, this at least would be faster and not kill any cats/foxes/birds of prey that ate the body, the way poisoned rats do.
We almost lost a cat to a poisoned rat.
Nothing will get rid of every rat, ever.
I speculated once online about birth control as a method of reducing the population, if the females make no pups, rats don't live long but someone went for me so aggressively for even suggesting it that I never went there again. A looooong time ago now that was.
Electric traps seem to work well for some people and not at all for others.
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I think birth control is a wonderful idea, I've no problem with that at all. What was your aggressive person's reasoning that it was wrong?
Truly I'm not being in any way aggressive about your mention of the plaster method, I just want to point out that it is actively cruel because it causes so much pain. I agree that some poisons may also be painful, and we should be aware of that before choosing to use them, but I don't think that the use of Warfarin-type bait which causes bleeding is painful. I once very nearly bled to death myself and it wasn't painful at all, just like falling asleep - it was also caused by Warfarin!
We are stumped here with our overdose of rats, which seem to arrive in waves from a neighbouring farm, where they are removing some buildings, presumably previously the rats homes.
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I think birth control is a wonderful idea, I've no problem with that at all. What was your aggressive person's reasoning that it was wrong?
Truly I'm not being in any way aggressive about your mention of the plaster method, I just want to point out that it is actively cruel because it causes so much pain. I agree that some poisons may also be painful, and we should be aware of that before choosing to use them, but I don't think that the use of Warfarin-type bait which causes bleeding is painful. I once very nearly bled to death myself and it wasn't painful at all, just like falling asleep - it was also caused by Warfarin!
We are stumped here with our overdose of rats, which seem to arrive in waves from a neighbouring farm, where they are removing some buildings, presumably previously the rats homes.
They said it would get into the water systems and cause all kinds of problems with endangered species. There was also quite a bit of effing and blinding and, well, you know the kind of thing.
It seems as safe as anything else to me and should work pretty well.
Never have liked the plaster idea but poison is so dangerous to wildlife, second hand, as it were. Wouldn't it be lovely if one could get a small, killer robot to be a rat killer? Now THAT is a product I would buy, a 24/7 rat killer.
I mainly try to have rat proof cages and housing for my animal's safety, keep the food in rat-proof containers, and keep things as tidy as possible. Not because it deters or drops the numbers at all but so I don't get blamed for there being rats! It makes me mental to be blamed for a problem that is ever-present.
There are always rats!
In Florida, I would find stashes of baby bird bones stuffed into the roofing on my rabbit cages. The death those poor birds suffered being eaten alive.....
Just horrible.
I don't know if it is better than the other options but the rats in the water trap didn't seem to suffer much, they just swam a bit, got cold and sank. But even killing so many didn't make a dent in the problem.
Shame the UK has no nice big rat snakes, now those are good for getting rid of rats! :love:
Nice to know that bleeding out is not too bad, I can add it to my friend telling me all about when she drowned and how lovely it was. Living and learning, I love it.
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Clearly the delivery of a birth control drug to rats would have to be targeted very caefully, and would have to take into account the high intelligence of rats, and their natural aversion to being tricked. Nano bots could be the answer, and perhaps once we have passed the worst of this human virus then the researchers might settle on rats as suitable subjects for interest.
The argument that hormones would get into the water system is all too true, but it's not restricted to rats - human birth control hormones are found throughout the river systems of the UK and probably throughout the world, and do affect aquatic life unnacceptably. All pollution is one of the factors endangering the future of life on Earth, so invention just has to take that into account and find ways to avoid it.
It is horrible to be attacked by invisible internet users, who seem to find it OK to act towards other users in such aggressive and shameful ways. Don't let it stop you saying what you think though.
Actually I'm quite pleased that Britain doesn't have nice big rat snakes - I think I might rather have the rats :roflanim:
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Thank you Fleecewife, you are nice! I learned long ago to only go where I can find the help I need and that is an open ideas place.
This is one, so helpful and, now I have gone from the subtropics to Cumbria, help is sometimes needed.
Ratsnakes not your thing? I had a big one get into a cage, through an open J-feeder, with a doe and her 10 eight-week-old kits that was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
Rabbits say hello by bumping their foreheads against the face of who they are saying hi to so each one of the kits was bouncing up and face bumping the snake's nose while it was trying to figure out who to eat in the milling mass and every time it drew a bead on a target another rabbit was in its face saying BUMP HI! :roflanim:
I just lifted the snake out of the scrum and put it on the top of the cage roof so it could find somewhere to calm down.
Given full access to unlimited rabbit and chicken food, rats will still choose to carry off baby rabbits as a superior source of protein.
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That's a lovely tale - who would imagine friendly bumping rabbits could reduce a snake to total confusion. I know snakes are not really so bad, and I discovered when I was young that big scary spiders were far more scared of me than I was of them, after watching a big one on our kitchen floor, haring off, banked over like a bike at the races, all 8 feet scrabbling frantically. I have lots of spiders in my house, far nicer than the flies they catch for us.
Not only will rats take your baby rabbits but also chicks and ducklings, even pulling them down through wire mesh covering the floor. My little, late terrier Lucy got that particular big momma rat when she was just a tiny puppy, almost smaller than the rat - flip, crack, dead rat. She was the best :love: