Chicken bald back

[merlina]

Just been out to my compost bins and am somewhat mystified as to what creature has been tunnelling in.

 

Something has dug a hole about 6in wide, perhaps 3in deep. There's a big pile of compost 'behind' the hole, if that makes sense where it's been excavated out of the way.

 

I've had a rat problem in the past and the holes they made were nothing like this - they made neat little tunnels about 2in wide, and never left piles of excavated dirt behind (this is quite a big pile)

 

This is much wider and about the same depth as a 'rat tunnel'

 

So have I acquired mega-sized rats? Or something else? Couldn't find any other clues

[soapdragon]

How intriguing! Given the time of year could it possibly be a hedgehog trying to find a cosy place to hibernate?

 

Do let un know if you discover the culprit!

[Chucky Mama]

I'd say a big rat

[merlina]

I'm hoping it's a hedgehog and not a rat!

But I shall be going and setting the rat traps this morning in case

[soapdragon]

What did you catch, Merlina? Dying to know who the culprit was!

[merlina]

I have caught one rat since - and seen one in the other compost bin! grrrr! (that was the 'guaranteed rat proof compost bin....)

 

No sign of rats in or near the site of the digging - although that could be because I've circled the bin with rat traps

 

So there's still at least one rat out there, although I've seen no signs for a couple of weeks.

 

Am not entirely convinced the digging was a rat (maybe that's wishful thinking!) and there was more digging, but it's stopped now (again, perhaps due to the plethora of rat traps)

 

Mind, my garden is a complete swamp, can't imagine that even a rat would want to be around in the weather we had

[Lavenders_Blue]

What is underneath your compost bin? We had to stand our bins on weldmesh after we found rats had tunnelled into them. The weldmesh still allows the worms to get in from the soil underneath but stops Mr Ratty digging in. We've had a couple of tunnels under the weldmesh, but nothing in the bins since.

[merlina]

Well somehow a rat (one more than one occasion) has got in my 'guaranteed rat proof' bin which has a plastic bottom (with holes for worms etc). I suspect if I lifted it up (not in the near future - it's huge and very heavy!) would find they've chewed through the base, they already chewed a hole in the door which I had to replace.

 

The others are just on the ground. Hadn't thought of putting weldmesh underneath, but that's an excellent idea - so that's a job for the weekend if the rain holds off long enough!

 

I was somewhat nonplussed that something had pushed one of the rat traps out of the way to rummage around outside the bin. I'm starting to think the rats are laughing at me

[chickencam]

We put a rat trap out last week and they managed to bury it without setting it off we then called the council and they have baited two areas and are due back tomorrow to check on progress. I thought that activity had stopped yesterday until I spotted a new hole in the chicken run three feet from the original one.

 

We have been shutting the hens in each night removing all food and s"Ooops, word censored!"ing up any loose soil dug out overnight just In case it has any traces of bait in it. It looks like they have taken the bait from the other side of our summer house under which they are living, because there were traces of the blue bait bag in the run on a couple of mornings. The run is built up against one side of the summer house and the rats have gnawed through the wooden frame on which it was built. This is the first time that we have had a problem, I am worried that the chooks will get some bait, but I also want rid of the rats. We have thrown away the eggs from them for the past week and they all look ok up to now. The group that live in this run are my older girls who range from 2 years old to 7 years old and only two of them are laying at the moment. We have been as careful as we can be so we shall have to see.

[Valkyrie]

Have found toads making a nice walkway in ours before now!