Rats in the chicken run
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The rats are back. The harvests are in and they are looking for a decent source of food and water for the winter. What better than a spacious run with layers’ pellets, fresh vegetable scraps in the morning, and the possibility of bagging two plump one month old chicks.
Mice are around all year but rats are generally seasonal visitors in our run.
“Let’s winter at that cosy cottage down the village,” must be the Rat Master’s cry when the threshers arrive to harvest the corn.
“Yes, but after our annual sojourn in the grain store, we’ll move on before the terriers arrive,” is probably the response. They always arrive now. Even though they don’t get clean towels and all that I would expect from a top class hotel they are gnawing through the chicken house walls to get in.
If I don’t keep up to speed on the killing stakes, the small waves that infiltrate our place quickly become a flood that can easily take over. Past rat invasions have turned winters into a nightmare of rat like bumps in the night and a massive expenditure on poison.
I have a giant bin of rat poison, enough to polish off coach loads of enemies. These are always rats. Why treble your investment when a short sharp shock to the first holidaymakers can do the trick?
Act immediately when you spot the first evidence of rats in the chicken run. Dead or dying rats in the maze of runs beneath the soil tend to turn back the marauding hoards. Rats, like us, prefer not to live in a morgue.
Evidence of rat winter tourists is pretty obvious. Soft earth indicates that runs are being built. Small front doors appear, generally near the hen house or grain bins. This is when you have to move fast. Rats are canny, living near a good source of food with a nifty underground run for speedy access without traffic lights.
Take great care if you are laying down rat poison in a chicken run. Always wear gloves. I have a special pair of poisoning gloves that live on top of the poison barrel. Always protect your stock. Pour rat poison down through Rattie’s front door(s) and prevent any possibility of a chicken eating the poisoned grain with a heavy brick or tile. The rats are attracted to the poison and so far haven’t twigged that a tasty free meal and an immovable brick over their front door might not constitute a wonderful gift from a mystery admirer.
Mice are pests. They are around all year and can do a lot of damage in the chicken run. Even though the doors are open to the main chicken house they spend weeks trying to gnaw through the wooden walls. This can be accelerated by rats who continue the excavation with meatier jaws and burst through with alarming speed.
Remember that Rats can kill you. They carry the deadly Wiles Disease in their urine. They pee a little all the time. So even if there is no evidence that they are prospective winter residents, always wear gloves (24/7 and all year) when dealing with your chickens, their food and water. It could save your life.
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I too have rats that love to eat my chicken food but I have thwarted them by laying a a layer of concrete slabs under the chicken house and the short run where their food is kept. This has stopped them digging in underneath and saved me the trouble of poison. I will still keep an eye out for further activity but my next move will be an air rifle which will serve the dual purpose of dealing with the wood pigeons which decimate my crops.
When we kept chickens our problem were the rooks (crows). They would fly into chicken house and eat food and gave the chickens some kind of disease where they would slowly shrivel up, not eat and eventually die (not fowl pest). Vet was consulted. In the end we fooled the rooks by building a different maze with old petrol cans next to the pophole before the chickens were let out in the morning. The chickens found their way out but the rooks could never figure their way in quick enough.
We have put patio slabs down in our run to stop rats from digging under. I have seen one rat and found the tunnel and door, but touch wood he/she has not managed to get into the chicken’s run.
Haven’t Dixie Chick and Beatyl grown? The changes in just a month are incredible and their feathers and colouring are just lovely. Dealing with pests as big as rats is horrible but at least they mostly just disappear to die elsewhere having gorged on the poison. My mum’s neighbour Frank (he of the bird-watching story)currently has a squirrel trap on the wall at the bottom of his garden as a large grey squirrel has been seen around on a regular basis which puts the reds (Timmy and Creosote) off feeding. Dave from the Key Park, who supplied the trap, advised Frank to bait it with Mars Bar, although my nephew G thought that a Snickers might be more tempting! To date Grey has been seen sitting and dancing on top of the trap surveying the gardens and Creosote has been caught twice. On release Creosote shoots up the tree and, according to my Mum, swears at them. If Grey does eventually get trapped he will be going to the Key Park for Dave to deal with as Frank doesn’t think he could to the deed. Apparently if you trap a grey squirrel it is illegal to release it alive.
I live in South West London where we have major rat problems, particularly since the council has pushed re cycling of food. The bins can be chewed through easily and most sport 2″ wide holes. We keep our house and garden rat free by having a Norfolk Terrier who terrorizes the local rat population, she would get rid of that squirrel too.
Will – if the squirrel were at ground level my mum’s Shitzu would have it (he keeps the garden free of cats for her) but Grey is crafty and stays on the 5′ high wall or up the trees. But one day he will make a mistake and then it will be curtains and the Reds will rule again!
My daughter’s boyfriend’s ex-dog that is now our dog can dispatch a rat in 30 seconds, which includes the time it takes to reach the rat. Chipmunks and squirrels are also on notice. The dog is a jack russell/foxhound/whippet type thing and the rodents tremble in fear.Has climbed trees to pester cats too.
Our staffordshire terrier does the same thing.. chases anything that moves… including the hen, but they make a game of it & sometimes the hen chases the dog…
Flocks of smaller birds are in big trouble though.. we dont have a rat issue here (that I know of) but Xena would send them off…
Rats are a pest in our house in Italy. They’ll climb up trees and vines eating tomatoes, grapes and oranges and leaving the perfect peel still hanging on the tree.
In Luxembourg there are plenty of mice, voles and moles, and not just around my compost heaps. Bulbs disappear, roots of any plants are eaten, and even rat poison sitting on the top shelf in the garden shed gets nibbled. The damaged is only visible in spring when plants don’t appear or keel over in their prime.
Sounds like you might need a rat catching dog or cat there Fiona. I didn’t realize about that disease they can carry. Thanks! I always find your blog posts so informative.
I agree the chicks sure are growing!!!
Have you tried Eradirat, rather than poison? We’ve used it with a good success rate. The great thing about it is it ONLY kills rodents & is harmless to all other species so if your chickens or the dogs picked it up, it wouldn’t harm them. Also, because it works as an internal dessicant once the rat dies the corpse doesn’t smell so much as there’s less liquid decomposition.
We also have the added advantage of Moriarty the Merciless – our massive Maine Coon cat who is a fearsome killer & single-handedly (or should I say pawdedly) keeps the farm’s rat population in check.
In all the time we’ve been here I’ve only seen a live rat, once (in the poultry shed, typically) but have found a fair few despatched by Moz’s mighty jaws. Ironically when I saw the rat Moz was hanging around the door of the Dairy Complex in the upper yard, hoping to beg some goats’ milk from the evening milking, which he loves to the point of obsession. If he’d been with me at the time I suspect the rat would no longer be alive….if indeed it still is, as hopefully he’s already despatched it.
TIP. I decant rat poison into small (6×4) plastic bags and seal the top. These sachets can then be forced down the rat holes, our thrown into inaccessible places such as behind the wood pile or under pallets, where normally it is practically impossible to lay bait safely and the bags keep the bait dry..
The big win is that the sachets in the rat holes disappear. I am told the bag is used as nesting litter, so the ‘stay at homes’ get a takeaway brought in, and a new pillow.
I too had a rat problem which was made worse when we had chickens. It was a real problem to solve here in Australia as poisoned rats are ingested by our local wild birds with disasterous results.
When we moved I vowed to try and stop the problem before it started again as I knew it was connected to my scattering seed to the poultry and always giving too much just in case.
Now I have an automatic metal feeder which has proved very effective. We trained our young chicks to stand on the foot pedal which causes the lid to swing open so they have access to the pellets. When they stand off it closes.
Our 3 ducks use it too and it means we can go away for a day or 2 without having anyone come to feed them.
Best of all, there is minimum left over grain to attract sparrows, mice and rats.
I still scatter seed each day but only enough that it will all be consumed knowing if a bird needs more it has access to it at all times.
Hi,
I have had burrowing rats in Adelaide South Australia too but think I have them under control. Now it’s the chicken run that is smelling to high heaven (3 bantams two larger rhode island type birds). They have been in this new run for two months. I can’t believe thewre’s that much poo in thaty time to stink so much. It’s winter and we’ve had a lot of rain. I have been putting straw down to stop the muddy conditions but am worried about my neighbours who are on the other side of the fence.
Sanda
Hi Sanda
How big is the run? Ours doesn’t smell at all even in summer. The flock runs on gravel.
The run is 2m (6ft)wide and 6m (18ft) long. There is a large robinia (deciduous tree) in the middle,to provide shade in summer and two bushes, and some perches but apart from that it’s a garden bed – no gravel. I have been putting straw down to counteract mud. I recognize I may just need to a good muck out.
S