citychicks99
Songster
I posted here recently about a bad rat problem I'm having. It took me a few days to process what to do and come up with a plan but here it is:
Step 1 - secure chickens
From the advice of another member here I'm going to apply hardware cloth to the walls and floor of my coop and cover the floor with exterior grade plywood and seal up any remaining holes with steel wool
Step 2 - kill rats
From the research I've done I think dry ice would be the most effective to kill the rats from under their coop and a few places with rat burrows. I'll seal up the holes from around the coop and crush up dry ice and stuff it into one hole and cover it with dirt. I'll do this in the day time when the chickens are not in the coop.
Question - will this be safe for the chickens to get back in or should I put them somewhere else for the night?
Step 3 - maintenance
I'll pour sand in the remaining tunnels so new rats can't take over. Then I'll build the chickens a run with a hardware cloth skirt so they can be contained and rats won't be able to get in and bother them again. I'll continue leaving rat traps out and maybe even poison since the chickens won't be able to get to it after this
What do you think of my plan? I don't have any experience with building things and there's no one to help me so I'm a bit nervous but excited and I think I can do this.
Step 1 - secure chickens
From the advice of another member here I'm going to apply hardware cloth to the walls and floor of my coop and cover the floor with exterior grade plywood and seal up any remaining holes with steel wool
Step 2 - kill rats
From the research I've done I think dry ice would be the most effective to kill the rats from under their coop and a few places with rat burrows. I'll seal up the holes from around the coop and crush up dry ice and stuff it into one hole and cover it with dirt. I'll do this in the day time when the chickens are not in the coop.
Question - will this be safe for the chickens to get back in or should I put them somewhere else for the night?
Step 3 - maintenance
I'll pour sand in the remaining tunnels so new rats can't take over. Then I'll build the chickens a run with a hardware cloth skirt so they can be contained and rats won't be able to get in and bother them again. I'll continue leaving rat traps out and maybe even poison since the chickens won't be able to get to it after this
What do you think of my plan? I don't have any experience with building things and there's no one to help me so I'm a bit nervous but excited and I think I can do this.
