How Quickly Does Albendazole Work?

[BethK]

Everyone I speak to about getting chickens, warns me against it, saying it'll attract loads of Rats!

 

So what can I do to prevent this? I have a young child and can't have a rat problem in the garden.

 

I can't put poison down as I have cats and we also have a lot of birds of prey here so I don't want them picking up a poisoned rat.

 

My cats will catch the odd rat but not if they're big ones.

 

Does anyone have any tips?

 

Does anyone recommend a trap? Maybe an electric one?

 

Thanks x

[Beantree]

Rats are attracted to spilled food and need water BethK. So if you use one of those collecting 'meshes' (seen a large plate arrangement with mesh cover you stand the feeder on, being sold at Country Fairs, perhaps for pheasant rearing) under the feeder and empty it at night. Plus hang the water or empty it at night, you stand a good chance of avoiding rats completely. Also if your run is completely secure the rats can't get in, but that is difficult to achieve.

 

Trapping rats isn't simple. We used a trap called a Fenn4. It has to be carefully buried in rat runs and covered over to prevent anything else getting killed. It must be checked daily. They are strong traps and setting them risks broken fingers. Not all rats are killed and they have to be humanely despatched. We use a full power air pistol. You can't catch them in a humane trap and release them, they have to be despatched. Disposing of the bodies in Summer means double bagging them before putting them in the bin to avoid maggots. We had a major rat problem and it was a lot of work controlling it. We had 6 traps set all the time which were moved when they stopped catching rats. Unfortunately you do get the occasional hedgehog.

 

We have never used poison for the reasons you mention. Chickens will eat poisoned mice and rats with obvious consequences. I've never seen an electric rat trap.

[Chickabee]

We had rats before we got the chickens. They were attracted by bird food. I stopped feeding the birds but my neighbour continued. We didnt see any more rats til we got the chickens, but we had them eradicated, that was 2 years ago, havnt seen one since. Im now also feeding the birds again, but not nuts or bread.

 

Good luck with your new hobby. Its very rewarding

[BethK]

Thanks for your replies.

 

We're planning on putting the run on slabs so that nothing can burrow underneath but they may well squeeze through the chicken wire.

 

I'll definitely keep an eye out at the country fairs for one of those mesh feeders.

 

In the mean time we'll be feeding layers pellets/crumbs in the grub & glug and will be taking it up every night.

 

Fingers crossed we don't get any problems

[JellyBean2605]

I've been lucky and have so far had no trouble with rats. I keep my Omlet feeder and drinker on a stand (you can buy these separately) so they are easy to bring in at night after I've locked the girls away.

[jackian]

I saw rats last year ( first time in 4 years ) and quickly phoned my local council who sent a man up. He told me that chickens do not attract rats but food left around does .That could be from bird tables for example .

He left traps for 2 weeks and never caught one in my garden but then he discovered that they were not in my garden but a neighbours .They had a nest under their decking .

 

You won't regret having chickens in fact they will change your life for the better .

 

Jackie x

[gavclojak]

I...touch wood...have had no problem with rats, I had mice getting in to the enclosure last year and spent ages filling all the tiny gaps in the fence but think I am fighting a loosing battle as my two neighbours have massive compost heaps and I am sure the mice live under there.

Just make sure the food in put away in container rats/mice cant get to, rake over the run and you use a good ground sanitizer. you cant do more than that.

 

And people love to be so negative some times don't they!!!

[Olly]

I've kept hens since 2008 and have never had a rat problem, although of course it could happen. In my experience rats are more commonly attracted by 'easy pickings' such as compost heaps and bird tables, and as noted above they often live underneath decking and similar. Of course if spilled food is available that may attract them but it's easily solved.

 

If you do get them, poison in proper bait boxes is the best route because it prevents other animals from getting them. While I can see it is possible I have yet to hear of a chicken eating a poisoned rat, and air pistols are not a solution for a back garden. However, you may never have to go down this route so please don't be put off.

[LolaLayla]

I have kept hens for 4 years and fingers crossed I have not had any problems with rats. I bring the feeder in at night so there is no food about for them. A relative of mine had rats in her garden and saw one on her bird table but that was because she put food there. I think as long as you are careful with food whether it is put out for the birds or deposited in the compost bin you should be fine.

[LunaKiw1]

I am sure I read somewhere that none of us is ever more than (some surprisingly small number) of metres away from rats - we just don't normally see them in the daytime and so assume they're not around. It is essential, although a bit of a pain, to take the food and water in each night. During the day do make sure you put the grub/feeder up high enough so that your chooks have to stretch to put their head inside to get the food - otherwise they seem to toss it out everywhere (hence the feed collector tray idea). Rats will live out of sight somewhere - we did find signs of tunnels under the compost bin that we had kept near to the Eglu Classic for ease of empty the poo tray each morning so we moved it and put wire mesh under it so that they couldn't burrow up into the composter. We also once found tunnels under the Eglu Classic where it curves a bit - so again we put down strong mesh underneath and under the run itself. this is why people do recommend using slabs (ours was on bare earth with wood chip on top). We also did see rats come into our garden to eye up the chooks food from under our neighbours fence but discovered they were actually living in undergrowth on the other side of it. We put down rat bait in covered containers, which seemed to work. I was paranoid the first time I saw a rat but I have come to terms with the fact that they exist everywhere and so you just need to take as many precautions as you can as the benefits of the chooks outweights the risks from rats. We used to be able to see the girls' run from our old kitchen window and so did notice the odd rat but since we moved the WIR is out of sight - and to be honest that is good as I don't worry so much. We do check and to date have seen no signs of any activity/tunnels under the adjacent summer house and shed (we don't have decking but that is always a risky area) so I genuinely don't think we currently have a problem. If we did see any signs of tunneling we'd just put down bait etc as before.

[LizzieLloyd]

Hi Bethk

We have experienced a rat problem but that is mainly due to us and neighbours feeding the wild birds which attracted them into the area in the first place. They tended to come in when the weather got really bad and snow was on the ground. Our girls live in a coop in a WIR which we thought was secure but the rats were tunnelling up under the fence and getting into the run to steal food. Its not very nice to see them scurrying around amongst your girls although the girls seemed completely unperturbed. Our solution was to empty the WIR and lay patio stones to completely floor the WIR and then put the coop etc back in with wood bark on the floor. Solution achieved with no more ratty access. They did have a good go at tunnelling but soon gave up when they realised it was futile. Have now been rate free for two winters. We had tried bait boxes but the rats in our must be immune - a problem I understand is becoming more common.

 

At the end of the day rats are everywhere - especially when food is being left out for wild animals but you can safeguard your coop/run to minimise the problem

[LizzieLloyd]

As an addition to my previous post our rats would come in daylight so taking the food/water out wasnt a viable option. Pesky little blighters!

[UKMARCH]

Hi, I think there are rats and mice everywhere we had a rat coming through our garden before we had chickens and it came to eat my strawberries! It took months to trap it. We also had quite a lot of rats coming through all of a sudden and I was worried but our next door neighbours had an infestation in their loft and had taken action so they were finding other places to go. I have children and pets but use lockable bait boxes as a precaution and if you're worried about poison you can use snap traps in them that way nothing else can accidentally set them off the rat/mice have to go right inside. If the builders haven't ordered the materials yet you could get the smallest gauge weld-mesh and rats won't be able to get through I think ours is 1cm x 1cm. I use an eglu run on a temporary basis when I need to and I do put the food in at night as the run has large openings.