Poorly chicken

[sleepymummy]

The biggest rat I have ever seen was stealing food from my hens' Grub feeder yesterday in broad daylight. It is soming up in the home built run under a fence. I wondered why the food was going down so quickly. I have found the hole. How do I go about poisoning the rat without poisoning the hens? My mum suggested a bag of poison down the hole, block and wire up the perimeter fence where it is coming in. Is that enough? Will it get in somehow and leave traces of poison?

 

Any advice will be gratefully received.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Redwing]

thats will be a start

 

Apparently the rats go underground to die when they are poisoned how true that is I dont know but I have two big poison boxes at the stables and have never seen a dead rat

 

A bait box on the outside of the run will keep the levels down going forward

[Egluntyne]

Advice about dealing with rats **here**.

 

Bringing the food in at night makes a big difference.

[sleepymummy]

Thank you, that's really helpful. I was worried about the poison being inadvertantly spread around by the rat(s) and affecting the hens but if I really bury it down the hole and wire/brick it up then hopefully we'll be ok.

 

Much appreciated as always.

[sjp]

best to use bait boxes it'll take best part of a month for the rats to get use to a new food source and you need them to only take the bait fot it to be effective.

I've got 8 boxes on the go down the allottment took nearly 3 months to find a spot were 2 of them were used. once you find the right spot leave them there but keep them with bait in but put a brick or a slab in front of them ( to form a tunnel) to keep your chickens away from them just to be on the safe side

[patsylabrador]

Do you know if bait boxes are safe for other animals like hedgehogs and squirrels. I picked up a couple on saturday but ran out of courage in case other creatures could get in. Our new neighbours are gutting their house and I think they must have disturbed a nest. I saw five at one time yesterday in our garden. We have blocked off their tunnels into the chicken run with gravel and bricks which has worked so far, but I don't like seeing large numbers of rats. It looks quite creepy when they drop down off things.

[Egluntyne]

I use bait boxes and have nevr noticed the squirrels nosing round them, not have I ever found a corpse. I think they and hedgehogs would struggle to get in them, and the bait holds no attraction for them.

[tara]

Hi l had a very big mouse problem in our WIR l needed to put the bait boxes in the run as that was there entry point.I had left it so long not wanting to kill them but in the end the smell of there wee and poo every were l just had to do somthing.I have got to in there one at both ends were the holes were l put one bait box between a wall and a table leg and a brick on top a brick on it side at both ends of each bait box to creat a tunnel very small and then l put bricks on top of them laying flat down so the ducks and chooks wont get there faces in there every day l check them to make sure there are no green bits out were the girls could eat it.Since the weekend lve not topped there food up as much and l have been sweeping the mouse poo up but there is hardly any now and thats just a week.So good luck

 

l used http:

 

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/Weedkillers+Insecticides/Rentokil-Fast-Action-Mouse-Killer/invt/0263233?htxt=77CmmXZHBj3Hjgbwj9d2861pmhnPWpiCbcKQWd83VSmoDjP2tz3KyNUY%2F8UvDz5Q2kVBInlKF9IL%0AZOjZIj2bbg%3D%3D

 

hope this helps

[Silkiemum]

Have been fighting an ongoing battle with a rat (or more than one?) for just over a week. We noticed a tunnel into the WIR under the perimeter wiring and found that the little so-and-so's had then installed themselves underneath the Eglu (which was then on the ground in the run - it is raised up now, needless to say). To add insult to injury they had been pulling straw down out of the nesting box through the hole in the bottom of the Eglu (presumably to make a nice nest for themselves). They had even been tying to gnaw round the hole. We have now raised the Eglu off the ground on pieces of wood to prevent tunnelling underneath and we have wedged a flowerpot underneath the hole to prevent the rat terrorising the girls at night, should he break into the run again. They have dug in three different sites in the last week: whenever we put up defences in one place, they have simply relocated to attack another weak point!

 

We had made the fatal mistake of not under-digging the wire on our WIR. Needless to say, we have now rectified that and have wire AND bricks below ground level. We hope this will do the trick but we check every morning. Taking the food inside at night is sound advice.

[winnienel]

Hi

I had that problem a few months ago so I took the food out of the run each night and put down some poison on a small plate. Each morning before I let the girls out, I removed the remaining poison and replaced their food. Each night a bit more poison was eaten and then when the plate was empty I topped it up. After about 4 nights, no more poison was eaten, so I assumed the dirty deed was done! I've not seen any signs of them since!