Thursday, January 28, 2010

Re: [CHICKENS-101] Rats

 

Kelly - you've heard the saying 'where you see one rat, you're not seeing the rest of their family' (ie: many, many more), right?  You need to eradicate the rats considering especially that a female will produce hundreds of babies each year.  Remember that wild rats are huge carriers of disease and parasites and pesitlence.
 
I put poison low, very low down in the burrows and cover the openings completely with flat river rocks (10" or more in diameter).  That way there is NO way the chickens can get to the poison.  AND the rats will ingest the poison in their nests and hopefully die there too.
 
I've had over 25 years experience doing this and have never had a chicken suffer for it.  But have lost chickens to rats eating them through the night, even while locked up in their houses.
Cindy
'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.' Psalm 51:10-12


--- On Thu, 1/28/10, Atomicblonde <atomicblonde@sky.com> wrote:
Hello - I have 4 hens with a coop and run attatched and have noticed that rats are burrowing into the run enclosure at night - they aren't attempting to get into the indoor coop with the chickens and despite me removing the chickens food at night from the run enclosure the rats are still continuing to burrow in almost every night!

I have been out and destroyed the rat burrows with a spade and put stones all around the edge of the coop and run to prevent more burrowing but the sods are persisting - and yesterday afternoon I saw 2 of the cheeky blighters with their heads poking from their burrows next to the chicken enclosure staring at me with no fear!!

Again last night I destroyed the burrows with a spade and covered their favourite entrance spot with a paving slab and this morning saw a rat in broad daylight sniffing around the edge of the run enclosure without a care in the world!!!

If the rats arent harming the chickens or doing any damage other tan their burrowing is it ok to let them be?

Many Thanks

Kelly - Teignmouth, Devon , United Kingdom
(Cuckoo Maran, White Sussex, Bantam and a brown hen!)

__._,_.___
To post a message to the list go to
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
.

__,_._,___

No comments:

Post a Comment