We have rats in our chicken run
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chickens | 63 comments
Poultry and rats go together. The rats are attracted by the supplies of food and fresh water. We live in fat rat country. The village is surrounded by farms and studs that are a haven for rats.
Rats carry disease, in particular Wiles Disease. This is a killer. The disease is spread through contact with the excrement and urine of carrier rats. A garden pond can attract rats as they need access to water.
The disease can infect the tiniest scratch. So I always wear decent waterproof gloves when dealing with the chickens or pond and wash my hands well when I come indoors.
As soon as you spot evidence of rats around your chicken run, deal with them immediately. They breed rapidly and the longer that you ignore the problem the harder it will be to get rid of them as you will be trying to deal with many, many rats.
We don’t lock our hens in during the summer so that they can come and go as they please. The rats are generally out in the field around the village so are not a problem. After harvest, the rats will start to return to the village so we lock the flock in the hen house for the night to deter the rat invasion.
The hen’s grain feeder is permanently in the chicken house, to discourage small birds stealing the food. The hens also have a water fountain in the house. The rats are at their most active after dark. Hopefully the restaurant is closed when they decide to tootle out for dinner.
All this seems to work well but this year I have found tale tell gnawing of the wood at the base of the chicken run. These excavations can be repaired with flattened tin cans or fine mesh chicken wire (easily stapled in place).
We set the hen house on fine chicken wire so the rats can’t burrow in through the open floor. The canny vermin dug some open trenches under the wire and then shifted the grain from the feeder through the wire and into the trenches. I have stopped this handy drive-through by laying roof tiles over the floor. Bounty from a skip in Saffron Walden. The best tiles are slate as you can overlap them neatly.
We have used rat traps in the past (the ones designed for rats are a giant version of the mouse traps). We have caught a few rats but if you need to kill more than one or two it could be an extended waiting game as rats are intelligent.
Now we use the most effective rat poison that we can buy to control the rats. It’s expensive but does the trick. If you are going to go down this route you need to plan your strategy carefully. Laying down loads of poison once will not kill at your rats at once.
I put poison in every rat hole that I can find and cover the entrance with a brick or heavy tile. The bricks serve two purposes, they avert the disaster of the chickens or dogs eating the poison and also indicate whether the rats are still active as they will try and dig a new hole beside the brick. I keep on feeding the poison every day until the happy moment when I find that my tempting meal has been left untouched.
I wait a bit longer before I hang up my poisoning gloves. I check every rat hole each day for at least a week. If the poison is still untouched I have contained the problem. New rats will move in so it’s worth checking every week or so to keep on top of the problem.
Always wear gloves when you are handling poison. Store the gloves out of the way of dogs and cats. After pulling off your poisoning gloves always wash your hands at least twice. It’s lethal stuff.
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Hi Adam
I am no expert but I’d wait until the rats stop taking the poison. Then you know that they are dead or dying.
Then I’d fill the holes with quick setting sand and cement and secure each hole with a brick until it is set.
Check your boundaries every now and then to see whether they have come back.
If you put out poison seed make sure that birds/cats/children cannot access it too.
Hi Helen
It would be worth calling your local rat man back as he will have access to poison that an ordinary person cannot buy over the counter. If Big Daddy eats enough poison he will eventually die.
We are having the same problem too! Having called in the rat man with his poison the baby rats have gone (they also provided sport for local cat population) But Big Daddy rat is still around and won’t be fooled – he has now completed several escape tunnels in and around my hen house. 12 bore shotgun or crazy terrier might be only way to exterminate. I suspect you should probably block hole with concrete perhaps going down deep (I tried bricks but my rat mob just burrowed underneath so next time I’ll try concrete)Good Luck!
About 5 weeks ago we saw 5 baby rats scavenging in our back yard (walled with 6′ brick) – as brave as you like. On investigation 3 large holes in the corner of our bouncdary wall and a neighbours very close to our foundations (the neighbours had also seen one of the adult rats). It was later discovered that the rats had eaten a large sack of the neighbours dog food. Since then I have been feeding the rats that blue corn like stuff (poison), the first week 2 trays a night – now going down to half a tray evey couple of days.
Now some advice please, do I block the holes? (my worry is they will come up in the house – they are not there yet, but we live in a very old cottage, and the walls are not necessarily concrete). There is a temptation to block the holes with loads of wet cement, or should I just use a brick or two, or switch the hose pipe on and leave it to see if we can flood them out??
Thanks
Adam
Hi Karen
I’d be really interested in how you get on. Good luck.
thankyou so much for your help i will try all the abve and let you know how its going.
Hi Karen
If you have chickens, you will attract rats. The main thing is to keep on top of the rats. Rats are dangerous as some carry the deadly Wiles disease that can kill humans. It is spread in their urine, they urinate constantly (just a few drops here and there). Even though all rats don’t carry this disease I would immediately wear rubber gloves when dealing with your chickens and wash your hands well when you come indoors.
We put a fine heavy duty mesh under the chicken house. So when the door is closed they are safe at night from a rat attack.
Traps are a good idea. In a couple of weeks you should see the size of the infestation (set the traps in the rat runs and secure them behind heavy duty wire netting so that the chickens can’t access them). If you have seen 2 rats in the day you probably have a large infestation. You will see holes in the ground in your chicken run. Bait every hole with rat poison and secure with a heavy brick so that the chickens can’t eat the poison. Keep on putting down the poison until the rats stop taking it. Some people always lay poison as the rats will always be back, attracted by the food and water.
If you find a small hummock in your garden, near the chicken run this is probably a rat hotel. Poison all front doors and secure with heavy bricks. A rat catcher with dogs is another option to consider.
I do hope that this is helpful.
I have seen two smallish rats with the chickens they come out during the day quite fearless we have bought rat traps and are going to slab under the coop is there anything else we can do to get rid of the rats without hurting the chickens i am quite sickened by it all
Thank you v. much for your quick reply – it has put my mind at rest as I was a wee bit worried they might be rats. Haven’t seen any, just being a bit paranoid I think. Thanks again.
Hi Jeanette
These sound like mouse holes to me. We have quite a few in our pond garden. The Min Pins are very interested in them.
Frogs and toads also dig holes to hibernate during the winter but I suspect that these are mouse holes.
Rat holes are generally bigger. As I am on constant rat alert at the cottage I can spot one easily. The entrance to their den is roughly 2″ and there is usually evidence of underground mining. If you have a bad infestation the level of the ground around the holes can be raised by about 3″.
When we cut the grass on our lawn (it was quite long prior to cutting), we discovered two holes close to each other; both about 6″ from a dry stone wall. The holes were about1.5″ wide. When we cut the grass back we discovered some narrow criss-crossing “runs” leading to the holes. They look like patterns in the grass. Does anyone know what these might be? Thanks.