# RATS !!



## Kirstylou82

How can I get rid of rats without harming my chickens ? I saw 2 yesterday. My chickens are spreading my compost area and the rats appeared there and 1 got into the coop !!


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## robin416

There are ag baits that are safer for livestock and there are containers the bait can be put in to keep the chickens out of. I have very good luck with it in keeping down the mouse population in my and around my birds.


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## dawg53

Put out rat traps, use cheese to bait them. Put them out after your birds go to roost for the night. Remove the traps before you let your birds out of the coop the next morning.


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## Longcrow

Catching rats in snap traps does not work very well. They are wise to them. Poison bait works best or I have gotten a number with the 7000 volt electric traps. The trick to them is to bait them without turning them on until they eat the bait every night. Then plug it in and zap.


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## Sylie

I never ever use poison anywhere on my property. There is far too much risk to my birds, I won't even use chemical insect repellents, flea granules, nothing. The bugs that my birds eat could have walked through it and bam, dead birds. I will only use snap traps and have never had a problem with them. I get my vermin every time. You just have to be smart about when and where to put them and also what to bait them with.

just my humble opinion


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## Thomas Lippert

Had one take up residence near my shed. Used snap traps after blocking up most egress holes. Got it the next day. Haven't seen one since.


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## robin416

Basically what it boils down to is trying different things. What works for one doesn't necessarily mean that it will work for everyone. If it doesn't hurt the birds or acceptable wild life then whatever is chosen that works is the right way.


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## Poultry Judge

Sylie said:


> I never ever use poison anywhere on my property. There is far too much risk to my birds, I won't even use chemical insect repellents, flea granules, nothing. The bugs that my birds eat could have walked through it and bam, dead birds. I will only use snap traps and have never had a problem with them. I get my vermin every time. You just have to be smart about when and where to put them and also what to bait them with.
> 
> just my humble opinion


Yes, you want to place them in a rat traffic area but away from your birds. I've had fairly good luck with peanut butter as a bait.


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## Longcrow

Well I guess neither of you have ever been invaded by about 100 rats in a matter of days. We suddenly got slammed, you could count 30+ coming out on the lawn to eat grass. They started breeding and were multiplying faster than I could trap them. Bought the good bait.

No more rats after 5-6 days.


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## robin416

Where in the heck do you live?


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## Poultry Judge

Glad you got them under control!


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## Jenny Erickson

Longcrow said:


> Well I guess neither of you have ever been invaded by about 100 rats in a matter of days. We suddenly got slammed, you could count 30+ coming out on the lawn to eat grass. They started breeding and were multiplying faster than I could trap them. Bought the good bait.
> 
> No more rats after 5-6 days.


What Rat killer did you buy please, I've had luck with snap traps, LIVE traps, i don't want to deal with dead or alive rats. Thank You


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## robin416

In the states Havoc and Tomcat are two of the more popular ag baits.


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## Poultry Judge

I haven't used Havoc, but I do use several forms of TomCat depending on the application. I have some similar issues, I don't want a barn cat (or a bird), to get a contaminated mouse or rat.


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## Poultry Judge

I also did try one of the five gallon bucket drowning traps last year with peanut butter as the bait and got the three mice in the basement.


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## Overmountain1

Poultry Judge said:


> I also did try one of the five gallon bucket drowning traps last year with peanut butter as the bait and got the three mice in the basement.


Could you expand on this one please? We do have a couple of bait stations out for the rats that kept coming around to ours too. We tried several trap types and baits and leaving in diff places for a few days each time etc. nada. Smart rats. Very. They dug underneath the mesh live trap to get the food out the bottom rather than go inside even once. So- we broke down after all else was failing, but I don't like having it around either, too many potentials for accidents no matter how you try. Anyway- I'm an odd one- I don't use chemicals on the lawn or for bugs etc- the worst I'll use is DE around the house in hot spots.  See, I also keep crabs, and I collect forage for them as well.

Point being, how do you set it up?


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## Jenny Erickson

Overmountain1 said:


> Could you expand on this one please? We do have a couple of bait stations out for the rats that kept coming around to ours too. We tried several trap types and baits and leaving in diff places for a few days each time etc. nada. Smart rats. Very. They dug underneath the mesh live trap to get the food out the bottom rather than go inside even once. So- we broke down after all else was failing, but I don't like having it around either, too many potentials for accidents no matter how you try. Anyway- I'm an odd one- I don't use chemicals on the lawn or for bugs etc- the worst I'll use is DE around the house in hot spots.  See, I also keep crabs, and I collect forage for them as well.
> 
> Point being, how do you set it up?


They sell a Rolling log type system. You drill 2 holes in the bucket, have some water in it. You put the bait at the middle of the log, and 2 ladders/ramps to get up there & the metal rolls them off into the bucket. I only use DE also. Thank you


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## Longcrow

Jenny Erickson said:


> What Rat killer did you buy please, I've had luck with snap traps, LIVE traps, i don't want to deal with dead or alive rats. Thank You


I used the Havoc-XT and DeciMax Softbait ( they love the taste of this). They are quite expensive but for the softbait I found an European E-Bay seller selling 70 sachets for US$20, item came in about 7-10 days.


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## Poultry Judge

I used about five or six inches of water in the five gallon bucket trap I made and then you can buy or make a either roller or a small piece of wood as a teeter-totter.


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## Overmountain1

My husband is super handy, so was thinking he could prob make something like that without much issue. Thanks everyone!


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## Jenny Erickson

Poultry Judge said:


> I used about five or six inches of water in the five gallon bucket trap I made and then you can buy or make a either roller or a small piece of wood as a teeter-totter.


Thank you, I seen these rollers, on Amazon for 9 bucks, but i wasn't sure if the rats would jump out. Thank you


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## robin416

Poultry Judge said:


> I used about five or six inches of water in the five gallon bucket trap I made and then you can buy or make a either roller or a small piece of wood as a teeter-totter.


Picture is needed. dawg might like to check your contraption out.


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## dawg53

It's not necessary. I'm no good at that kind of thing. I can build a pen and coop, and hog pen, that's it. I can weedeat and mow a yard too!


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## robin416

Yeah, well I might like to see it. It might be something the Guineas to make a mess of.


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## Firstman

Well I am having the same problem from last 9-10 days..
I tried snap traps / glue traps / water buckets . But to no success.

But finally today I put plaster mixed with maize flour . Donno does it work or not.. 
There are around 15-20 of them


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## robin416

All I can suggest if all those attempts have failed is to try one of the Ag baits that you can pick up at the feed store. I've used them for many years without any issues.


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## robin416

Wait a minute, remind me Firstman. Are you in the states? 

I don't know what kind of rodenticide is available in other countries but it's worth checking to see.


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## Firstman

robin416 said:


> Wait a minute, remind me Firstman. Are you in the states?
> 
> I don't know what kind of rodenticide is available in other countries but it's worth checking to see.


No I am not in States. I live in the tenth corner of a third world country.. .
With fall started rats try to get indoor for safe stay till spring.


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## robin416

Well then check to see what might be available to you that is safe to use around your birds. Where ever they sell feed is the best place to start. If there's going to be anything they'll know what it is.


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## Firstman

robin416 said:


> Well then check to see what might be available to you that is safe to use around your birds. Where ever they sell feed is the best place to start. If there's going to be anything they'll know what it is.


Have already checked. 
The sell poison, which can be fatal for my bird's as well. Then they sell snap traps. Which either do not snap or fail horribly. The glue ones have only rat poop on them. 
Finally today it's the turn of plaster and cookies.. 
Still waiting for morning to check if they are gone


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## robin416

They won't be gone. It will take time for the concoction you made to finish them off. 

Do a google search, there are other things you can mix up that are fatal to them if that one doesn't work.


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## Longcrow

Of the DIY solutions I found a 50/50 mix of baking soda and powdered sugar (icing sugar must be a fine powder so they can't see it) worked fairly well as they ate tons of it.


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## dawg53

I've tried everything here that has been mentioned, and then some.
We've had record flooding rains that forced rodents out of their tunnels and nests. They went to higher ground, my chicken pens because they are built up on sand.
I was dealing with an infestation. I'll tell you what works and doesnt work to save money.

When I build coops and pens, I build Ft Knox. The weakness in building my pens are in two areas:
1. Not completely enclosing pens in hardware cloth. I use 1/4" and 1/8 hardware cloth, 36" in height on the bottom half of all the pens using fencing nails. The rats and mice climb up the hardware cloth and go through the chicken wire. I've seen them do it early in the mornings. The cost to completely enclose a pen with hardware cloth is too expensive.

2. I always lay field fence down on the outside perimeter of my pens using fencing nails hammered into the pressure treated 4x4's going around the base of the pens.
Animals cannot dig through the field fence barrier. Rats and mice dug tunnels through the gaps in the field fence and gained access into the pens.
2a. I thought about covering the field fence with hardware cloth to prevent the hole digging. However, what's to stop the rodents from digging through the soil further out from the width of the hardware cloth? There are holes outside the field fence leading into the pens as well.

I've never had a major problem with rodents in all my 40+ years of off and on chicken keeping up until now. Only snakes could penetrate my defense against predators.
Large predators such as dogs/coyotes, ***** and possums couldnt and cant dig through field fence. I wasnt thinking "small" predators, only the obvious "big" predators.

The good news is that predators cannot gain entrance into any one of my chicken coops, including rats and mice. If so, there wouldve been signs by now.

What are the signs of mice and rats? 1. Droppings. 2. Footprints in sand or dirt. 3. Nickel, dime, quarter sized holes inside and outside of pens. 4. Chewed wood.
Rodents like to walk along edges of obstructions, ie; wood posts laying on the ground, the sides of coops and pens, bricks and pavers. If there is a break, loose, or unstapled area of hardware cloth, no matter how small, rodents will go through it, guaranteed.

Coops: I have window screen on the pop door entrances to deter flies, mosquitos and gnats as well as all the vents including hardware cloth. When the birds are enclosed in their coops at night, it's total lockdown and they are safe.

Rodent treatments: Now the fun part.
1. Standard rat and mice traps did NOT work, period. I used peanut butter and cheese and glue traps.
When I lived in Georgia, the rat traps worked great and I always recommended them. But not here where I live now in northeast Florida, they were completely ineffective.

2. I removed all feeders and waterers from the pens each evening and swept up spilled feed around the feeders and disposed of it. No food, no rodents...WRONG ANSWER. I also scoop poop several times a day in each pen. I am a micromanager when it comes to chickens. Rodent droppings and footprints were still in the pens, generally in the same areas. I nicknamed one pen as the "Party Pen" as droppings were everywhere including on top of the coop. We know what kind of "nasties" are found in rodent droppings. I scooped it up or vacuumed it off the tops of the coop.

3. In continuance with #2 above, I bought 2 Tom Cat bait stations with extra bait, then eventually a bag of Ramik poison. I also went to Home Depot and bought a dozen 2" diameter PVC pipe about 2 feet long each to put the Ramik marble sized bait inside the PVC pipe.
I put the pipes outside the base of each pen. The rats and mice could walk into either end and eat the bait. The bait in the Tom Cat bait stations had to be checked often due to fire ants eating the bait. I mixed Sevin dust in the sand around the bait stations to deter the ants and it worked.
Both the Tom Cat and Ramik baits worked in knocking down the rodent population. It took about 7-8 days to know it worked because you can smell the rodents decaying carcasses around the pens.
I also put the baits down the holes around the outside of the pens and a couple inside the pens. I then covered the holes with sand or dirt and placed a paver over each hole. I didnt want the chickens digging up the bait and eating it, the pavers work great.

4. Keep in mind we're talking about an infestation. I was still seeing rodent signs.
It was time to use other products to deter the rodents. Youtube is your friend. I mixed up a batch of baking powder, fine sugar, and some other ingredients as directed on several Youtube videos to get rid of the rodents. It did NOT work, even given time, the smart rodents wouldnt touch it.

5. Rodents have a superb sense of smell. I laughed at the thought of using cayenne pepper on the rats and mice. Wait til they get a whiff of that stuff lol! I figured they would also wipe their faces using their paws and possibly getting the pepper in their eyes.
The laugh was on me...sort of.

I lightly sprinkled the cayenne pepper in each pen, including in the feeders. I also sprinkled the cayenne pepper on top of the carport pen coop. Since the rodent numbers had declined due to the poison baits, I left the feeders inside the pens, but hung very high up and suspended on clothesline tied to a metal "S" hook. It works great and saves me from completely removing the feeders from the pens altogether.
BTW: Cayenne pepper works great getting birds to lay eggs. It somehow "kick starts" them into laying eggs. Chickens have very little taste buds and doesnt effect them when they eat it other than laying eggs.

I used the cayenne pepper and refreshed the pens every evening. Needless to say I started sneezing and my face was starting to burn around the edges of the face mask I was wearing, then the coughing. UGH. I backed off the cayenne pepper somewhat.
The results of the cayenne pepper was 50/50. It did NOT completely deter the rats, but is VERY effective deterring mice. I suspect mice have their nose closer to the ground than rats, and makes sense to me.

6. Remembering the rodents sense of smell, I turned to ammonia. There was only one Youtube video of a lady using ammonia in her garage to get rid of a resident rat, and it worked.
A jug of ammonia is dirt cheap, $1.19 at Walmart, $1.99 at a Winn Dixie grocery store.
Our local Walmart limits 1 jug of ammonia. I went to Winn Dixie and bought 5 off the shelf no problem.

I had small plastic containers with low sides. I put a bunch of old T-towels (used to dry dishes, pots and pans) in a 5 gallon plastic bucket and dumped ammonia on them.
Wearing disposable gloves and a mask, I put the ammonia soaked rags in each plastic container and set them inside each pen near where the feeders were hung.

I also hung the ammonia soaked rags on the chicken wire outside each pen, 2 or 3 rags outside the rodent infested Party Pen. I used the wind to my advantage to blow the ammonia smell into the pens.
I did NOT put any rags near any coop vents and was aware of wind direction as to affect the chickens while roosting at night.
I put the ammonia soaked rags out only after the birds went inside the coops in the evening. I removed them before letting the chickens out in the mornings.

The results of the soaked ammonia rags were immediate. NO more rats! NO signs whatsoever!
However, it seems that mice are not that affected by the ammonia. It's a 50/50 deterrent with the mice. BUT, that's where the cayenne pepper comes back into play as a mice deterrent.

I most strongly recommend wearing 2 pair of disposable gloves when handling poison baits and always wear a mask. If you handle the poison, dont do it where your pet dogs or cats have access. Dogs and cats lick their paws and they could ingest poison crumbs. The same with handling ammonia soaked rags, keep pets away. Same for chickens.

A quick summary of what worked for me getting rid of the rodents.
Poison baits, cayenne pepper, and ammonia.
I currently have one mouse visiting on top of the coop in the carport pen. He doesnt like cayenne pepper. He missed his visit last night  makes me wanna cry (the cayenne pepper lol.)
I forgot to add that rodents can smell and detect "human scent," and will deter them from approaching a bait station or other trap. When setting out bait stations, wear disposable gloves so they cant smell your scent.

Robin had encouraged me to put this in the forum sooner. I didnt want to at the time because I wanted immediate results to end the rodents invasion, and I was bound and determined to do so. I decided to post all this now with successful results and a finish to it all.
She knows the whole story as I have related it to everyone here. She also offered ideas and suggestions for which I'm grateful.

It has taken almost 3 weeks to eliminate the rodents and I'm sure I'll have one or two incidents here and there. I know what works and doesnt and I'm prepared.
It was flooding rains that caused all this in the first place, so far we havnt had the flooding rains as before.
Be aware of people trying to sell feeders that deter rodents. The rodents still hang around with or without feeders.
Here's a pic of a mouse I killed crawling up hardware cloth early one morning. He didnt quite make it to the chicken wire. I quickly crushed it with my hand and released it.


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## robin416

The great thing about this is dawg has a documentary in so many different techniques he tried, what worked and what didn't. And that baits can be used around chickens safely.

It's how I dealt with them, still do to a small degree, with more success than anything else out there.


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## Overmountain1

Sooo the poison is def working... of course... We found one yesterday; looked like it had filled its belly up so far it got drunk and rolled off the edge of the porch, literally belly up... and I'm 99% sure that is also what went under the deck to die in about the exact same spot.  Now gotta live with it for a week or two. Joy. But, no rats in the coops (yet.)


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## robin416

LOL Rarely do they die out in the open like that. I guess you're special.


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## Overmountain1

Well I must be doubly special, bc one day (before I ever even put poison out) I found one halfway between our bush and the coop, in the grass, dead. No visible marks either, so I rly don't have a clue on that one! 
Seriously, only me... the recent was a little funny, bc I hate to admit this, but the 'big' chickens found it first! I was still poking around at the run and they had gathered in a semi-circle, with my roo pushing the girls back from it... he rly is a stellar guy.


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## robin416

Dang it, are you like me? Don't have a camera handy when those things happen?

I did not know chickens would do that. I knew Guineas would since they do it all of the time.


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## Slippy

Take a 5 gallon bucket, drill 2 holes in the top so that you can place a dowell through the holes. Add a plastic water bottle and drill a hole in the bottom of the bottle.

Run the dowel through the bottle and place it over the bucket. Put a dab of peanut butter on the bottle. Rats and mice will be attracted to the peanut butter, climb on the water bottle, it will spin and dump the rodent in the water to drown.

(Skin and cook over low heat and highly season. Pairs nicely with a sweet Merlot!

..just kidding!)


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## Poultry Judge

Poultry seasoning.


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## Firstman

I have a bad news. 
My 70 day old chick disappeared??
Yes disappeared. 
I normally put my 3 ( now 2) baby chicks in a wood box with a net in front.
Today morning I found that net was down and only 2 chick were roaming around the coop along with the 4 month old chicken .
Tried to find the 3rd one but could not. Nor could I find any blood or any other trace of it. 
I wonder what happened to it. 
I have lots of rats in the coop which are my prime suspect.


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## robin416

Can you post a pic of this net? It doesn't sound like it provides any type of protection. 

I'm not so sure a rat was the culprit. If there's no blood either the peep left on its own or something carried it off. A rat doesn't usually carry things away.


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## Firstman

robin416 said:


> Can you post a pic of this net? It doesn't sound like it provides any type of protection.
> 
> I'm not so sure a rat was the culprit. If there's no blood either the peep left on its own or something carried it off. A rat doesn't usually carry things away.


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## robin416

How was it down? Did something rip it down?

What is that material? It doesn't look like it's metal.


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## Firstman

robin416 said:


> How was it down? Did something rip it down?
> 
> What is that material? It doesn't look like it's metal.


It is metal. 
Donno how it was down.


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## robin416

If the wire is not sandwiched between two pieces of wood stronger predators can pull it down. Racoons here in the states can actually tear through metal poultry netting.


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## Firstman

robin416 said:


> If the wire is not sandwiched between two pieces of wood stronger predators can pull it down. Racoons here in the states can actually tear through metal poultry netting.[/QUOTE
> 
> Thankfully we don't have racoon here.. even stray dogs / cats don't have access to this net. They will have to cross the Galvanized iron coop first to reach anywhere near this net.
> There is no way in or out during the night .
> In the day time chicken have access to run which is again covered with hard iron net.
> So loosing my chick seems unbelievable. The only possibility which I can come up is that rats have taken it in their hole...
> I have an infestation of rats. Other day I put the glue traps for around an hour and I got 4.


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## Poultry Judge

I would put down some more traps!


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## robin416

Start searching the pen and coop for holes. If they're inside you're going to lose more. 

What did you find out about poison baits?

Something pulled that wire down or it wasn't secured well to begin with.


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## Biring

Sometimes these problems sort themselves out!


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## dawg53

Biring said:


> Sometimes these problems sort themselves out!
> View attachment 35602


Easy meal for a chicken.


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## Poultry Judge

My Emus used to love mice and snakes.


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