Blackrocksrock Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I buy the Mouse & Rat killer pellets from poundland, If I see a hole pour half the contents in and cover with a block of wood to keep the chickens off then do the same thing every night untill they stop taking it..thats when their all dead. Works for me. Ian. I have 2 cats who would bring home dead rats and have eaten part of them so my cats would die having eaten rats which have eaten ordinary poison so have to get the organic stuff to try it out - the other stuff is vile/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prudance Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 We have really struggled with rats this winter. We live in an old house and normally get mice in the loft every winter that we have to deal with. This year the noise was so loud that they've been keeping us awake more than the kids so figured out that we had rats. They have also chewed through our hosepipes and house alarm cables. Hubby killed one with a shotgun in the garden. Have always taken precautions keeping the chickens food too high for the rats to get at in the run (have seen one try), and the rest is kept in a metal bin. Don't understand why we are infested. We have spent over 300 pounds on bait, bait boxes, different types of traps inluding an electronic one, and we think we've only succeeded in killing a couple! One or more of the vermin curled up and died somewhere under our floorboards and the stench... Couldn't invite anyone round for nearly three weeks. Smell went, then just when we got the snow we got invaded by bluebottle flies. At it's height, I killed 100 in one day alone. Disgusting. I imagine that they were all larvae that fed on a dead rat then looked for warmth and came up through our skirting boards... If it helps anyone else, I have read somewhere that chicken food is normally fairly high in vitamin C, which acts as an antidote to rat poison. Make sure that they can't get it and that includes during the day in the run. They are very bold and don't appear to be scared of chickens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chook n Boo Mum Posted January 24, 2010 Share Posted January 24, 2010 Heckythump Prudance, what a nightmare.......I can confirm that dead rat smells stomach-churning, we had one die in our lean-to greenhouse & I was convinced there was a dead body inside the house, turned the utility room inside out, went outside to inspect the snow & ice around the garden & discovered the frozen body in the G/H...........DH was detailed with it's removal!!!! They are also indeed very bold in daylight as one was tootling around the WIR as I went in to check on food levels.....one of the chooks was simply watching it!!!!!!!!! I screamed...so did the rat & everyone jumped!! How high is too high for a rat can you tell me? My girls let themselves out in the mornings as the tension in the house would be too high to shut the door at night-time and I don't like to leave them without food & water when they get up. Sha x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henriette Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 How high is too high for a rat can you tell me? My girls let themselves out in the mornings as the tension in the house would be too high to shut the door at night-time and I don't like to leave them without food & water when they get up. Sha x In the past have tried to find out how high is too high but with no real luck as some varieties of rats can jump higher than others. The only really safe way is to remove the feeder completely. How long do your chooks have to be without food after they get up and before you would go and see them? Can they wait a little while? With regard to dead rats/mice in the roof we often have this problem - smell and all, but last summer our homesitters were due to arrive and I noticed maggots falling from a tiny hole next to the light fitting in the utility room. I was horrified. Loved one tried to get at them via a small hatchway we have in the ceiling in there but couldn't reach. The beam of the torch showed a brown mound so we presume it was a rat who had eaten some of the bait we had put up in the other part of the roof. The two rooves are separate, but obviously rats and mice can filter through. We sprayed goodness knows how much fly spray up there, but they still kept falling. There were hundreds of them in the end. We let them fall into a big basin then filled up the hole. Luckily we managed to sort it out before the homesitters arrived Rats are the only problem I have about living in the countryside (oh, and the snakes, but luckily we don't see too many of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandyhas3chucks Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 My friend has watched a rat climb down the chain of her bird feeder attached to a tree.. It hung from rear end earing the seed upside down She was getting through sooooooooooooooooooo much wild bird food until she used eradibait, in a bait box. I have seen mice leap up into the chooks food when at a height that ONLY just enabled the chooks to get it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chook n Boo Mum Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Am off to get the last slabs needed to fill in the middle section of the WIR now, I've had enough of thwarting the not-so-little (unmentionable word, please fill in as your sensibilities allow!!)....the chooks will have to put up with the pink dustbath again rather than their own-made versions!! Sha x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackrocksrock Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 I got my eradibait this week and they are eating it - tying it in latex gloves and putting it down the big hole - will have to move the girls run tomorrow as think they are coming up under it - I will move them first of all down the garden to the hard clay soil which the rats will not be able to dig under - I dont have slabs - not looking forward to moving the eglu tomorrow as really scared of rats real phobia and if I cannot get on top of this the girls will have to be rehomed as I will not have the rats. Hopefully the eradibait will work = seems to be much more environmentally friendly than the other stuff! Edited to say the eradibait dehydrates the rat and it does not smell as it mummifies it from the inside out so seems better that way - no smell and no maggots! Yeuk they are as bad as the rats Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henriette Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Oh I so hope this works for you. It would be sad to have to rehome the chooks It sounds like good bait though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
