# Flooring idea



## Jules (Sep 11, 2012)

Hi, My previous coop was on a purpose built concrete floor with soft bedding all over it. My new location is on my lawn. 2 weeks in and we have the mud bath. That's fine. The issue we are now having is that rats are now starting to bury under the enclosure and come into the run at night. We are thinking of putting down a steel mesh floor, membrane, gravel and then topped by rubber chippings. The rubber chippings do not contain metal and are chicken safe. The gravel will act as a soak away. What do you think. We have pets and kids and with the rat (s) getting into the coop poison is not an option. The food is removed at night and I'm just waiting delivery of a new treadle feeder so that will help as well. What do you think?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It would work right at the outside run area but they'll just relocate to another spot for access. 

I would talk to your feed store or ag places about safer poisons. Problem is I don't know what you have there to use. I've used the AG rated poisons around my birds for years. It wasn't where they could get at it. I've got no access boxes that the rodents can get in to but the chickens can't. 

You can also locate their tunnels and drop bait into those. Then cover the tunnel with dirt. 

What he have here is not a danger to the birds if they eat a dead mouse or rat. They'd have to eat a lot of them to have it affect them in any way.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

What Robin said. I would not do a steel mesh floor or the rubber. Use the steel mesh vertically and bury it in a slit trench all the way around the coop to stop the tunnellers. I have also used scrap siding.


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## imnukensc (Dec 5, 2020)

As others have said, the mesh floor, gravel, and rubber "mulch" is not a good idea. Put a good layer of wood chips, leaves, or mulch in the run and create a digging barrier as suggested. Most any tree service in your area will probably give you wood chips/mulch for free.


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## dawg53 (Aug 25, 2015)

Get a bucket and put a bunch of old rags in it. Then put liquid ammonia in the bucket and let the rags soak it up. Then after dark, hang the ammonia soaked rags around the enclosure and coop, even if they drip ammonia (dont put the rags too close to coop vents.)
Hang the soaked rags just high enough that they dont touch the ground.
Then go out the next morning and collect all the rags before letting the chickens out. The ammonia fumes will have already been dispersed by the time you let the chickens out, no worries.
Do this for about 3 or 4 nights in a row and it's bye bye rats.
Dont forget to wear disposable gloves while hanging the soaked rags.


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## imnukensc (Dec 5, 2020)

That's one I've never heard of dawg. Where/how/who came up with that? Certainly not saying it doesn't work. Just never heard of it.


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## dawg53 (Aug 25, 2015)

imnukensc said:


> That's one I've never heard of dawg. Where/how/who came up with that? Certainly not saying it doesn't work. Just never heard of it.


Ammonia does work. I had a rat and mouse invasion in all the chicken pens the year before last and a small scale invasion this past summer due to flooding rains. The rodents were flooded out of their underground holes and woods and they moved to higher ground, my chicken pens. 

How could I tell? You could see their footprints in the sand and rodent droppings everywhere including on top of the coops. One of the pens I nicknamed "the party pen." It was like they were partying every night, having a good ole time.

It took me 3 weeks eliminating the rodents. I used Tom Cat bait boxes with the poison inside them as well as PVC pipe with poison bait inside them placed all around the outside of the pens. The bait boxes were placed inside the pens at night while the birds were locked up in their coops and then removed the next morning prior to letting them out of their coops. I elevated all the feeders and swept feed crumbs off the sand in every pen each evening. I still elevate the feeders and sweep the sand around the feeders to this day.

I used Glue traps which somewhat worked against mice and one or two greedy inexperienced juvenile rats. Every rat hole I found, I shoved a poison bait cylinder down the hole and covered the hole with a cement paver, including inside the pens so the birds couldnt get at the poison.
Conventional rat and mouse traps were useless no matter what bait I used. I even wore disposable gloves putting the bait on the traps to mask my human scent.

Did all of this work in eliminating the invasion? No.

I watched a Youtube video of a lady who had a rat in her garage. She set out a pan with ammonia in it overnight. The rat was gone the next day and it never returned.
She explained that rats have very sensitive noses to sniff out food. They use their whiskers to "feel" their way around at night, "touching" a wall, to find their way around as an example. 
The ammonia burns the sensitive tissue in their nostrils and they leave the area simply because they cant sniff out food. She put the pan near a wall where she saw the rat, where the rat was "feeling" its way around.

I went to a local grocery store and bought all the ammonia jugs off the shelf. Ammonia isnt expensive, very cheap.
As I mentioned in my previous post, when all else failed, the ammonia worked. After three nights of hanging the ammonia soaked rags, no more rats.

This past summer I had a smaller invasion due to the deluges of rain again. I added another poison bait to my arsenal. "Just One Bite" poison bait cylinders. The rats love eating them, more so than the Tomcat baits and the Ramik baits I was using. Rats eat the bait and then go back to their holes in the ground and die after a couple of days. How could I tell they were dead? You could smell their rotting carcasses.

I baited the glue traps with the Just One Bite, the PVC pipes, shoved bait cylinders down rat holes, and set out the ammonia rags around the pens again for 3 nights. 
As of right now, no rats nor mice. 
Rat poop is dark in color and oblong in shape, no more than 1/4" long, usually shorter depending on the age of the rat.
Mice poop is dark in color and round, a bit bigger than a BB. 

The bottom line is that you cant completely eliminate rodents. They'll be back and I'm ready. I have 6 jugs of ammonia in the garage and plenty of poison baits with the PVC pipes in place and unopened glue traps on the shelf.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

dawg's setup for his birds is ideal for being able to tell what is going on in his pens. The rodents can't get into the coop with the birds and he takes his food up every night.


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## dawg53 (Aug 25, 2015)

Robin is correct. Nothing can get in my coops when they are secured at night, not even insects. All vents are covered over with window screen and hardware cloth. Their entrance/exit has screen strips hanging down and the birds can easily walk through it no problem. After the birds go to roost for the night, the entrance/exit hatch is secured.
So, consider using flexible screen on coop vents. A roll of it isnt expensive and can be bought at a box store. Mosquitos and flies are known carriers of diseases.
I've dealt with fowl pox a long time ago and it's not fun for the birds.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

This is where you need to post a pic of one of the pens so everyone gets an idea why it's so easy for you to spot the rodent activity. 

Just sayin'.


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