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Starting Member
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Last Login: 9/2/2010 3:41:25 PM
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| In light of this recent salmonella outbreak- i heard on the radio that it is transmitted by rats/mice. We've seen them going for our chicken food. We've tried traps to no avail so far. It doesn't seem to be bothering the chickens- we've just been going through a little more food than we were before (before we were using a 'tractor-coop' and now we have it stationary). My hubby tried building one of those feeders that the chickens stand on to get it to open but for some reason the darn thing stays open once it's open. I have only seen 1 US vendor that sells them and they are over $100. :( Anyway, should we be worried? We wash our eggs (no idea if that is related anyway)....
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 2/8/2012 5:59:45 AM
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We had a problem with rats in the barn where I milk because I had sacks of feed stacked up. We had to put out poison and store the feed in rat-proof containers.
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Junior Member
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 5:44:00 PM
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| I have come to the realization that you are going to have rats and mice if you have livestock. I don't think you will have a problem as long as you don't get over run with them. I have a steel shed where I store the feed. I foamed all the places I thought mice could enter. I have the feed in steel garbage cans with tight tops. I am very careful about cleaning up spilled feed but I still have mice. They are also in the barn where I feed the livestock and they are in the chicken coop and run. I set out traps where I can so as not to catch chicken toes or beaks. I do catch the occasional mouse but nothing in great numbers so I don't really worry. You have to understand that the places in question have hundreds of thousands of chickens in rows of nest boxes in an enclosed building that is difficult to keep sanitary. You are bound to have problems. Most of the time we never hear about the diseases that sweep through these huge chicken houses but it does happen. Ken
Deep in the South Carolina Lowcountry
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Advanced Member
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 6:38:37 AM
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| Our problems with them is when the rain sets in for days on end and they come into the sheds for a dry place. If you use that crazy foam, they will eat through it. What works best for you glue traps, the live mouse traps, snap traps? We found ours get smart so we use combinations of traps and posioun.
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New Member
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Last Login: 10/27/2010 5:26:34 PM
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| If you have stock in general you are going to have rodents...that's just the way it is. You just have to try and keep them in check and under control. Chicken coops are popular because of shelter, loose food and they are generally pretty pourous as far as security goes against small critters. Keep a tight lid on your feed and put out traps is about all you can do. Move your traps though. Don't just keep them in the same spot day to day or they will get wise to them. When you go out in the morning and gather eggs...move the traps. That will help a lot.
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 1/25/2011 2:46:54 AM
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I have chickens, ducks, and geese and yes, rats. I have poison bait stations out where the rats and mice can go in, eat the poison and come out and then die. You need this kind of bait station to ensure that the chickens, etc. do not eat the poison. You can make home made ones by buying pvc pipe, a cap and a T fitting. (Make sure the pvs is big enough for rats and mice to go into it easily. Cut the pvc to 1-18 inch piece, and 2- 1 foot pieces. The T fitting goes in the middle with the longer piece as the trunk of the T,the other 2 pieces are the arms of the T. You then turn the T upside down. Use some wire and thread the poison bait (you want the ones that look like spools with the hole through the middle) on your wire, Make sure you have a curve or L at the end so the spools/bait will stay on. The wire goes all the way down to the bottom of the T and you can put a hook or bend the wire over the top of the pvc and then put the lid on it. The rats and mice will be able to go into both sides of the T arms and eat the bait. Once the bait is eaten, the next bait will come down, until there is no more bait left. Make sure you check each water container you have if it's not a chicken waterer because the poison drives the rats to look for water and you don't want any of your animals to drink fouled water!! Dispose of the dead rats.
Nalani Lloyd, Hawaii
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