Nacktschnecken omlet Cube

[luckyhen]

I am having trouble with rats getting into the run and eating the chickens food from their feeders. Anyone got any ideas how to dissuade them?

 

[TXSuzy]

I wrapped the entire run with hardware cloth at the bottom and chicken wire above that....I thought the small openings at the bottom would be a perfect ladder for rats, mice and oppossums to get up to the larger openings.

[Beantree]

The first thing to say is that rats shouldn't be able to get into the run. A rat proof run would be clad in 10mm weldmesh, with a door that closes tightly and sides that fit to the ground. Normally the edging would be slabs so anything has a long way to dig.

Feeders should be removed at night. Ours can be hung on hooks from the roof of the runs in a place that can't be reached; rats are very agile and can climb then jump to reach a feeder. In our case we have mice at night so the feeders are lifted when the chickens are shut in the coop at night and snap traps are set where the feeder was. These are removed in the morning before replacing the feeder and letting the chickens out. We have caught nearly 20 mice over Winter and 36 the previous Summer.

If you have rats during the day you have a very big problem because, in my experience, if you see one you have ten. Shooting them won't put much of a dent in the numbers and takes a lot of time, so you would need to look at a Grandpa's feeder and train your chickens to use it. Another type we have is a Trigger feeder, but all you buy is the 'trigger' and making a stand for a feed bucket and setting it up takes time and is a bit 'hit-and-miss' with the pellet control. Very effective once they have been trained to use it (we had a massive sparrow problem).

Be careful with traps. Not only do you need to be sure that the chickens or wild birds can't reach them, but they can trap hedgehogs. To be safe you need to use a cage trap and then humainly despatch the rats.

So good luck with your rat problem Luckyhen. Once you have them they will probably stay with you, so this may well become a continuous battle.

[Nan Roger]

I also have this problem. I ended up covering the entire run with hardware cloth and fastening down with zip ties. The rats were still digging in around the skirt so I had to fortify the whole ground level, too. It's been nuts and I wish the eglu was designed with smaller holes. Right now my coop and run look like a high-security prison.