Rats digging under coop

[Henrietta23]

Quote:
The ones we had here were coming right in the front door of the coop.

 

[jjthink]

woops - see below - nothing showed up here!

 

[jjthink]

Quote:
The ones we had here were coming right in the front door of the coop.

How polite of them!

I found they didn't do this with my coop because the door was only open in the daytime and they tended to be in hiding then. Also, once the hardware cloth was in place, there was no insulation/wall they could crawl into so they just bailed, off to greener pastures!

(Naturally, after all the work invested in tearing out old insulation, putting in new, installing all the hardware cloth, then one of the chickens died (internal layer ) and the property owners wouldn't allow any more so I had to get the one remaining chicken off the property and to a place where he could have feathered friends - he was so lonely without his hen friend. The property owners got a really nicely insulated building reinforced to the hilt with hardware cloth! They had stopped caring for the chickens but allowed me to come in and take care of them....)

 

[Henrietta23]

Quote:
The ones we had here were coming right in the front door of the coop.

How polite of them!

I found they didn't do this with my coop because the door was only open in the daytime and they tended to be in hiding then. Also, once the hardware cloth was in place, there was no insulation/wall they could crawl into so they just bailed, off to greener pastures!

(Naturally, after all the work invested in tearing out old insulation, putting in new, installing all the hardware cloth, then one of the chickens died (internal layer ) and the property owners wouldn't allow any more so I had to get the one remaining chicken off the property and to a place where he could have feathered friends - he was so lonely without his hen friend. The property owners got a really nicely insulated building reinforced to the hilt with hardware cloth! They had stopped caring for the chickens but allowed me to come in and take care of them....)

Ah yes, we had nice polite, friendly rats who visited the coop during the day. It was a site to behold. I could sit on my deck and watch them every morning and evening.

 

[Black Feather]

One of the other things I worry about with poison is them getting eaten by other predators that find the dead/dying rats. My barn cat eats mice, so I suspect he would eat a rat too.

Is there a poison that has a short lifespan that will just kill the rats, but not anything else that eats the rats?

My coop has concrete floors which they are burrowing under. They can't get in except through the run doors, which I usually leave open 24/7 as the building has settled making the run doors nearly impossible to close at the moment.

I suspect I will have to employ a combination of moving the birds from the outdoor runs into the main coop building. This way there won't be as much of a food/water supply available. After that has been done I will have to try to get rid of the rats themselves.

*Sigh* These are probably one of the worst pests to try and get rid of

 

[claud]

Quote:
I have problems with rats burrowing under my coop too. I use a poison called Wipe-Out which is not supposed to cause secondary poisoning(if something eats the rat or mouse).

 

[Windy Ridge]

I have a friend who had a rat problem, and he tried everything, too, and finally had to resort to poison. Beware--rats don't only eat eggs and feed. One rat actually ate into the side of one of his poor pullets! She died, the poor thing. It was heartbreaking.

 

[johnnyjack]

make one of those pvc pipe bait stations. i keep mine inside the run.if you see one rat i would bet ya got 50 lol.

 

[Black Feather]

What is a pvc pipe bait station?

UC

 

[johnnyjack]

this is my pvc bait station inside my runn. i made it out of 3 ft of 1 1/2" pvc pipe cut into 12" sections. 1- 1 1/2" tee. 1-1 1/2" cap.2-1 1/2"x1" reducers.the reducers keep the mice from dragging the poison out into the run.take the cap off and drop the bait stick down the pipe mice go in and eat the bait.i had a bad problem with mice and this fixed it. mice carry alot of things i or my chickens dont need.i know alot of people dont want to kill mice.but if you dont they will overun ur coop.keep the bait station full for about 4 weeks .they will eat more than you think.and i use the stick bait so the mice eat the bait inside the tube and cant drag it out to leave around the run.dont want my chickens eating the bait.iv been useing this for about 6 months now.