Rats eat chicken poop

[All Ball]

I am in the midst of a rat-eradication effort and am doing research. I read that rats will eat cat and dog poop, so it is recommended to clean up after them.

Well, last two days, a roof rat has decided to spend part of the night sitting on my roo coop - and the remains in the morning include not only rat poop but also chicken poop. The rat is apparently carrying poop up there to snack on.

This could be a problem for people like me who backyard free range and are trying to remove any rat attractants around the property.

 

[Rickba]

Rats eat anything. If you have chickens you will always have chicken poop. All you can do is put out some kind of rat traps. I try not to use poisons, the chickens always seem to find a way to get to it.

 

[Zoomie]

Could your rat be a pack rat? They do collect the oddest things to take back to their nests, including the scat or dung of other animals.

 

[Sara Ranch]

It is a concern!

Do you have a way to dispose of the chicken poop in a closed composting bin?

Or a way to get rid of the poop far, far away from the coop and house?

 

[RonP]

Posted to another query.
Hope it helps.:

My understanding is that rats/mice are everywhere.
They will congregate and breed where there is available food, water, and shelter.
Look closely around any fast food restaurant and you will see rat bait stations.

They will eventually come, the idea is to prevent them from establishing a colony.
If you see 1, there are probably fifty.
If you see two or more holes, expect dozens.

Keeping a rat trap/bait station baited 24/7 hopefully keeps the population from establishing near your food source. Once established, they are very difficult to eliminate.

Remember, chickens don't attract rats, food does.

That said, I fabricated black 4 inch circular x 18" long drainage plastic pipe as a bait station.
Placed along the outside of my coop, looks like drainage pipe (not unsightly).
I put a t fitting in the center, capped, for easy viewing once a week.
Inside I maintain commercial rat poison.

My run has food scraps 24/7.
My coop has food access 24/7.
Water access 24/7.

11 years, no sign of rats or mice...

Hope this helps.

 

[Antwan Kee]

Rats can eat anything. Rats are large rodents. Getting rid of rats can also prevent you and your family to catch diseases carried by these large rodents. Diseases like the bubonic plague, leptospirosis, rat-bite fever and other harmful illnesses are carried by rats and usually are left behind by their saliva, urine, and stool. One can call a professional pest controller which one can find online for their help or can go for natural and helpful tips in eliminating rats like cleaning up crumbs and keep food safely stored away, block the rats possible passage ways, use preventive tools to repel rats away, use proper gear in handling dead rats, use suitable methods in getting rid of rats.

 

[Birdinhand]

the grain chickens eat does not get 100% digested, so there are nutrients left that rats seem to like to dine on. I am not sure how big an issue it is though. my understanding is that it's when they can get to the feed that the population tends to explode. my father had a big issue with rats in his farm house and in our barn and a friend had big issues with rats getting into their house from their coop. since getting back into chickens, I take signs of rats very seriously. I have snap traps set for them pretty much 24/7 and I seem to go through phases with catching them. so far, only one has made it into my coop by digging down the 2' below my hardware cloth. I dug it out and replaced the dirt with 5/8ths gravel and have never had another one make it in. as for a background population, that is normal, they are part of the ecosystem, so I don't get too worried if I see one away from the coop.

 

[SE_Gardener]

Posted to another query.
Hope it helps.:

My understanding is that rats/mice are everywhere.
They will congregate and breed where there is available food, water, and shelter.
Look closely around any fast food restaurant and you will see rat bait stations.

They will eventually come, the idea is to prevent them from establishing a colony.
If you see 1, there are probably fifty.
If you see two or more holes, expect dozens.

Keeping a rat trap/bait station baited 24/7 hopefully keeps the population from establishing near your food source. Once established, they are very difficult to eliminate.

Remember, chickens don't attract rats, food does.

That said, I fabricated black 4 inch circular x 18" long drainage plastic pipe as a bait station.
Placed along the outside of my coop, looks like drainage pipe (not unsightly).
I put a t fitting in the center, capped, for easy viewing once a week.
Inside I maintain commercial rat poison.

My run has food scraps 24/7.
My coop has food access 24/7.
Water access 24/7.

11 years, no sign of rats or mice...

Hope this helps.

I've found TeraD3. It's effective poison that is calibrated Vit D3 levels toxic to rats. No secondary kill, safe for organic operations, chickens, dogs, cats and predatory animals/birds.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

If the rats are eating chicken poop they're doing you a service. Enjoy the circle of life

 

[Al Gerhart]

Rats eat their own poop, supposedly the juveniles need to for some odd reason, I believe the consensus is for the bacteria for their digestion system. And they will eat chicken poop and get a tiny bit of nutrition out of it but not much. Chickens are some of the best animals for turning feed into meat and eggs. The vast majority of nutrients in chicken poop is tied up as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, NPK, with the majority of the nutrients being in the nitrogen.

However, NPK is plant fertilizer, not food for mammals.

Some animals can get some nutrients out of chicken poop and the litter, it can be used as cattle feed, but they have to be a ruminant, with an extra stomach system, a regurgitation process that allows them to re grind the litter, and a gut bacteria that can convert the litter and the nitrogen in the chicken poop into something the ruminant can use.

Bottom line is that chicken poop alone will NOT support a large colony of rats. The majority of flock owners here on BYC do not have a rodent problem which should make it obvious that chicken poop alone isn't the primary factor for rodent colonies to develop to the point that they have to be dealt with. People get by for years without rats, until a few find the food source and in a few months they explode in numbers.

What is the primary factor is having a feeder that doesn't exclude rodents, poor sanitation and leaving cover for the rodents to use for safe traveling to and from food, water, and their den.

So, if you want to control rats, you control the feed. There will be natural sources of food but the vast majority of environments cannot support a rat colony of any size and the natural foods available require a lot of work and travel and come with heavy depredation from natural rodent predators. Plus rats are like most animals, they fight for territory and will defend their territory to survive.

In short, rats can only build up in colonies when humans set out a buffet for them. Stop doing that and the rats either leave or starve.