Rats making trouble in my coop, how do I get rid of them?

[chicks4polo]

Some rats have recently made a nest in my coop and they have been really irritating. At first they would just eat the chicken food, and recently they have been eating eggs too! Does anyone have any solutions for how to get rid of the rats without poison or anything that can hurt my chickens? Thanks.

 

[The Moonshiner]

@Al Gerhart

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[Al Gerhart]

@Al Gerhart

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Thank you sir.....

 

[Al Gerhart]

Some rats have recently made a nest in my coop and they have been really irritating. At first they would just eat the chicken food, and recently they have been eating eggs too! Does anyone have any solutions for how to get rid of the rats without poison or anything that can hurt my chickens? Thanks.

Look up the posts from Howard E. on this specific sub forum. The short version is you have three methods, listed in the least expensive and most effective long term to the most expensive.

First, Sanitation..... bulk feed in metal barrels, a proper treadle feeder with a narrow and distant treadle and a spring loaded door to prevent rats from just pushing the door open. Clean up any food sources, trash, compost. Also clean up all pathways the rodents use to get to and from their burrows to the feed or water. No cover, they risk their life from natural predators every time they make a food run. Might not help in your case if they are nesting there but do it anyway. Get any junk or debris up off the ground, again so the natural predators can do their job.$$, probable can be done for less than $200, assuming you have a small flock and a 12 pound $65.00 feeder will work. With shipping you will have spent half, use the rest for clean up and buying a metal trash barrel or steel drum. You are done short of dealing with a huge colony, then they swarm and will trap themselves a few times in the feeder before learning not to use the feeder. At that point, they will starve out as most territories cannot support a large rat colony and even a low number of rodents will be thinned out or wiped out foraging for natural food.

Next method, exclusion, AKA a Fort Knox style coop. Hardware cloth under, over, on all sides, no opening bigger that a nickel or dime, including the door. No free range obviously. $$$$ You gonna spend some bucks but it will work.

Third method, elimination. Poison and traps. Initially it works well until the rodents wise up on what is killing them. Some folks claim that rotating poisons or traps works a bit longer. Most report that the rodents figure out the traps and poison quickly and both become ineffective. But, assuming it works, as soon as the colony is wiped out another batch of rodents will move right into the now vacant territory. Colonies defend their territories from outside rodents and once a territory becomes crowded rats will scout out nearby areas to expand into. In short, both poisons and traps become a never ending expense with decreasing efficiency. Unless, you have used Sanitation or Exclusion to remove the human provided buffet and they are starving, they are far more likely to eat the poison and be trapped if they are starving. One might survive living off your eggs, other than that, with the chicken feed safely out of the way they will hustle for natural foods and their numbers will remain small.

Or, you can try all the old wives tales. Pepper in the food, baking soda, plaster, essential oils, no end of "advice" that someone heard worked from a friend of a friend of a third cousin's incarcerated uncle. Or set up at night with a pellet rifle.


TLTR, stop feeding the rats and they leave.

 

[Penpal]

I like old wives tales. Rats and mice hate peppermint. You put 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint essential oil or extract to 8 ounces of water. Use a spray bottle to spray around the feed. They will have to find another source and may move out to find food. They will keep going back to their original nest, so make a wider sweep with the peppermint every day. At some point you will come to their nest (I'm assuming you don't know where it is).

If you know where the nest is, use a shovel and remove the nest. Then, spray all around the perimeter of the coop. If you find more rat/mouse poop, spray the floor of the coop and the run. When you get a rain, respray the perimeter of the coop.