rats pulling birds down holes what have you tried

[Sea Wolf]

I sure could have used these foggers back in the day when I set the woods on fire.

They will kill rats, gophers, woodchucks, skunks .... anything hiding down in a hole.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Poison.
Nothing else will kill them faster then they can repopulate if you have more then a few.

 

[Lizzy733]

Rats - particularly the older ones are very wary of new things in their environment. We put out one of the pneumatic traps baited with chocolate attractant and it was at least 4 month before we got a confirmed kill. Now our strike counter has gone off at least 14 times and we've been stacking up bodies.
We leave 'no' food out overnight in the run and I found the only thing that kept them from digging under the wire skirting was to backfill the holes with steel wool. They gave up pretty quickly after that. I still do a spot check from time to time, but they'd rather go for the compost bins and leave the coop alone.

 

[Bcampo]

Really, only poison in bait stations will get the entire colony. Lock up your cats and set out bait stations, and replace the bait until it no longer is being eaten. put any dead rodents in the garbage. Most rodents will die in their tunnels, so won't be available to be eaten by anyone else.
Every other trap, and rodent killer, won't eliminate them all.
Close off any tunnels, and hardware cloth and/ or concrete everywhere possible.
Mary

Hi Mary- so which poison do you recommend?

 

[Howard E]

If you are looking for a solution in 10 words or less......good luck.

If you are willing to spend a few moments doing some research to make a plan of attack......then this thread was created for you.....

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/rat-control-101.1283827/

Your rats likely are part of a large colony and trapping, shooting, dogs, cats, snakes, etc. are not able to do much more than dent the surface. They can breed faster than you can pick them off a few at a time.

So to get on top of it requires 3 things.....

Eliminate harborage..........the place they live. If in the ground, that won't be easy. Best you can hope for is to eliminate any way they can get into your coop and access to the birds. That means rat proofing and it isn't easy to do.

Eliminate sources of food and water from the coop. Aside from taking up food, which isn't always practical......best food option is a rat proof feeder that birds can eat from and rats cant. Also eliminates spillage the rats can dine on.

Do those two and rats will now be hungry and likely to accept poison bait blocks......safely served up from secure bait stations. Start off with one, then in a few weeks switch to another, and if that doesn't get them all, go back to the first or even try a third.

Then long term, keep doing all the above, including leaving the bait blocks out on a permanent basis.

Rats are not an easy problem to solve.

 

[Folly's place]

I've used broudificon (spelling?) and bromtheilin (again, spelling?) , and had to alternate them after ten days or so to get all the rats. Mice aren't as smart, fortunately.
The anticoagulant products are more treatable if the wrong critter eats them, so 'safer', although nothing is really safe.
Some poisons are pretty much deadly, with no antidote, and better avoided, IMO.
None of this is 'nice', but having rodents in numbers out there is very bad...
Mary

 

[Howard E]

One other intermediate step to try.....one shared to me by me by my late friend John, a professional exterminator.

Before using the bait blocks, start feeding the rats the same food they are stealing, but move the food source..... and thus the focus of the colony..... several hundred feet away from the target area......say your coop. Move the easy food source off in the distance.....and get them used to eating out there. Once there is evidence they are chowing down out there, then....and only then....replace the feed with poison bait blocks.....out there.

John told me that trick worked for him almost every time.

 

[Howard E]

John being an exterminator, used this commercial grade product.......which is available from commercial sources, and through Amazon, etc, but not likely to be found locally.

https://www.belllabs.com/bell-labs/product/mx/pest-control/contrac-blox

Active ingredient of Contrac is Bromadiolone.......so I'd start with a bait that used that one.

Baits do differ in the formulation of the food part of the ingredient too......some they eat freely and others they do not. So if they don't eat it.......try something else, or make sure they are not still getting to your feed and are not hungry.

 

[Howard E]

And if I was looking for a bait station, this is what I'd get.....also available from Amazon. This exact one........

https://www.belllabs.com/bell-labs/product/mx/pest-control/protecta-bait-station

 

[aart]

As a teenager, I had a similar experience with Norway rats and I got rid of them by pouring gas in their holes and lighting them with a match. But I also caught the neighboring patch of woods on fire. It seemed like a good idea at the time.