rats and poultry

[sage and onion]

hi all

new to this, apologies if in wrong forum.
following the loss of 2 beautiful cats to the quiet but fast road at the front of the house we started keeping a few free range chickens. the kids wanted cats but the risk to cats on the road was clearly foreseeable.
The kids love the chooks but are less fond of the rats that we see even during the day. Obviously with the chooks free ranging and lots of food about and a large hay field adjoining our garden it was expected that we might get this problem.
Any ideas how we might deal with this. not a fan of executing living creatures but have a fear that they might eventually come into the house.. yuk...
we already have a few bats in the loft (hooray) and lived with one or two glis glis. Can't afford any more occupants

Has any one tried those batterry repeller things? advice from non-retaillers of these products would be gratefully received

Sage

[Badger Watching Man]

Hi there - I'm new too, so I don't know if this is the right place or not

I sympathise with you and the rat problem. I had loads of them around my chickens at the start of the year. It brought it home to me when it snowed and you could see a well trampled path from under the chicken house to the outdoor feeder and back, where the rats were regular commuters!

I started a ruthless campaign of rat genocide using the old-fashioned 'big mousetrap' traps. I only put them where the chickens couldn't go, such as inside the compost bin (it has a lid on it and the rats loved it) or right underneath the coop (too low for the chickies to get under even if they tried). I was catching a rat a day for a while, and after a few weeks it put a bit of a dent in the rat population and they haven't been nearly as much bother since.

Follow the usual precautions - gloves, antibacterial handwash etc, and you can keep the numbers down. OK, so it wasn't very wildlife-friendly (at least not to the rats), but it seemed a far better way to me than poison. I never caught anything but rats.

Like you, I'm not a fan of killing animals for the sake of it, but things were getting out of hand, and the health risks couldn't be ignored.

[Kayleigh]

Hi sage and onion,
I heard the electronic devices can interfere with bats, but not sure.

As to the rats, I have tried a humane trap it was useless it kept tripping and caught nothing..
So i got a none humane rat trap and put some chocolate on it. Next morning the rat was dead..
Killed out right and quick.
The trouble with poisons is they cause a slow malingering death.

[northenige]

Rats are always i the area and will pass by, there is nothing wrong with that but you must prevent them being given free food, I have chickens myself and have no problem with rats because the chickens only get the feed they need, feed in containers and if there is any left at night move it till the morning and give them less the next day but it is better to judge the food. If they move in residence under your coop then you will have to poison then or other means available

[sage and onion]

Thanks North

We keep the food in dustbins in a shed. Haven't noted any evidence that the integrity of them have been affected by knawing rats. If I do I will replace them with metallic bins.
I am going to get a metal bin and put it in the enclosure around the coup and place the feeders in it at night, hadn't thought of that....daaa (i'm scarily thick at times) I will also control the feeding of scraps. The kids love to watch the chickens fight over spaghetti and stuff, but i guess this is providing our furry freinds with a delicious food supply especially if the scraps are thrown in just before the chooks go to roost.

I have seen a couple of barn owls in the garden recently (or perhaps the same one twice). I am going to see if i can encourage them into the garden by providing better perching areas. I was hoping that it is the rodents that have attracted them as i think they would be a green way of control. We also have a few Red Kites circiling around but I think (or tho not sure) that these beautiful birds prefer meals that are already dead

Thanks for your help

[HPC]

One of the best non toxic approaches to remove a rat infestation is to remove the facility for rats to obtain water from your property, Rats need to drink a lot of fluids, this is sometimes hard to achieve but implemented with the excellant advice you have all ready been given, you will be on your way to eradicating the problem

[witham]

we have kept poultry for many years and rats seem an ever present problem despite adopting various methods of getting rid. we stopped giving scraps altogether, for years we have kept our assorted animal feed in plastic lidded dutsbins, always cover the pen feeder up at night with a plastic dustbin with a couple of bricks on top to weigh it down, we have a trickle drinker with a ball cock which we disconnect from the water supply at night and empty it out and which we refill the next day , we lifted the hut up on big blocks as this discourages them from nesting underneath as they like the dark so there's not a lot more we can do to keep the blighters away but as we live near the river and a network of field dykes and drains they are always about, we used to have a very good cat who was always bringing babies home that were not much bigger than a mouse, we have also used dogs, traps, poison, double barrel shotgun but still see them and I spotted a small brown female, or half grown young one in the pen one morning this week so it's sometimes a case of live and let live even though we don't like them as they can spread disease

[HPC]

It sounds like you have been fighting a losing battle Witham....excuse the pun,

The main problem with rats, is that they are very intelligent and also suffer from a condition called neophobia, this is the fear of anything new being placed, or moved in their habitat, this sometimes can explain why when you know you have a rat problem and set a trap even though you have removed there alternative food source the rats will steer clear of your traps, which I know can be frustrating especially when a customer wants to see me get instant results!!

Whenever I first start a trapping program, I place the cubby’s as we call them (basically a tunnel to protect the trap from catching non target species) along a rat run with the trap not set, I bait the trap for several weeks so that ratty gets used to feeding in that spot (always use what they are eating) on your property, If I am dealing with a rodent infestation at a local curry house then I use curry!!

When I see that the bait is getting eaten I allow this to continue for a few days then set the traps, remove the dead rodent immediately and reset the traps as a dead relative in a trap tends to make their friends and relatives trap shy.


Anyone who has a rodent problem, get in your shed and get your traps ready, it’s that time of year and the rats are coming.

“Remember pests are smart, but you have to be smarter.”

I hope this will help and explain why you don’t get instant results, be patient....

[HPC]

Oh I forgot to add, please dont buy chinese traps,

they are not made to a good standard and wont last, aswell as the fact that I consider them to be in humane, utter cr4p,weak springed, rusting piles of poo!! Rant over

right I am off to help a paralysed woman who has a rat infestation in her loft

[witham]

we have used rat boxes which we have put in their runs and concealed them so small birds can't gain access, don't know if it's true, but we were told if you use poison you have to put water for them out as it makes it work faster, another old method if you have no poison apparently is anti freeze it has the same effect