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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Some great advice here – thanks to all. We live in a suburban area, with a relatively small garden. Have had three Rhode Island Reds since september, and they have been laying well for a month. I looked out my kitchen window this evening at the girls (the side of the run facing the house is made from clear perspex) and saw a rat directly under where they were perching. It was quite big, but seemed nervy, running underneath a roof tile for no apparent reason. I felt a real primeval fear when I saw it. Will definately be wearing gloves from now on – thanks for the warning – I hope I have discovered the problem in it’s early stages……
Hi John
Our Min Pins are great ratters but we find that poison is very effective in the chicken run (the dogs don’t have access to the run) They tend to kill the ones that are dying. You have to watch your Paterdale as a poisoned rat can be quite dangerous if eaten by a dog.
Hi everyone!
What excellent advice. I’ve now got my deadly brickettes and it’s full scale war! We’ve got a Paterdale terrier who is more than enthusiastic to get at the little beggars – trouble is she is so fat that she would produce a Channel Tunnel sized hole to get at them and all the mud from the excavations comes into the house………This should be cleaner and probably more effective.
Hi Richard
You need to be ultra careful when putting poison down in the chicken run. If the hens have access to the poison they will eat it and die slowly.
Follow the advice in the post above. You need to put the poison underground in the runs and put a tile or brick on top of the hole that you’ve made. Keep on checking the poison every day until the rats stop taking it. Never let your chickens near the poison.
Just found some rats in my chicken run; will chickens eat rat poison and if so what will happen to the chickens.
Thanks for all the contributions. I just found the first rat running out of our chicken run this morning and it really upset me. Operation Rat Removal now swinging into action – taking on board all the advice.
Will let you know how it goes.
Hello j haddad
It depends on the size of the rat and the chicken.
Rats are known to eat chicks and eggs. If it was a big rat and a small hen, the rat could easily kill her.
But the main problem is the rats could kill you. They urinate almost constantly – a drop here and there. This urine often carries a Wiles Disease if this comes into contact with eczema or even a scratch it can enter the blood stream. This has killed several people around here. I have heard of a child who survived the disease but it took a year to get over it.
Always were gloves in the chicken run and wash your hands well when you have finished handling anything in the run. You may not even know if you have rats.
what damage would a rat do to a chicken
Hi Lyn
This is a tricky problem. You cannot starve rats. If you remove the bird feeders they will evtually move into your neighbour’s gardens and plague them. They might kill you as many carry Wiles Disease so make sure that you cover any scratches and wear gloves in the garden now, whilst they are about and when they have gone.
It sounds as if you have a large infestation. If they have set up a community they will not necessarily move on if you remove the bird food they will just venture further away for food and return to your garden to sleep. 8-10 large rats could mean that you have a community of around 100 (including the young). This is a serious health hazard for both you and your neighbours.
There are humane traps for rats but what would you do with them when you have caught them? Dumping them anywhere could cause problems even if it’s ‘just’ to local wildlife.
I’d be really interested to hear how you solve the problem.
On Saturday we saw the first of the rats, huge one run around the bird table, we now see up to 8 or 10 big ones out feeding in broad daylight and they actually chase the birds away by running at them. We are buddhists and dont want to kill them but wondered if starvation is the answer i.e. removing all bird feeders, and water for the time being as there is no food in either shed either? Help, we cant use rodent repellants (plub in) as we have a bat population here too?