[chloe]

How do you deal with rats when you don't want to hurt your chickens? We havn't tried anything yet, and i don't like the thought of killing the things, but is there any other way of getting rid of them? How does everyone else get rid of their rats?!

[orchardlady]

I think you rather asked for that Chloe! Tomshooter is right the basic idea is to kill them, no question. The local pest control come here and put poison down in boxes that the dogs and hens can't get into.

[Casey76]

You can buy Eradibait (I think that is how it's spelled!) which is a raticide, but will not harm chickens (or cats or dogs).

Unfortuantely for rats, the only effective method of control is to kill them.

[New shoot]

There are a couple of other things you can do to deter rats. 

If you can, raise the coop off the ground.  Mine in the big run is up on 2 breeze blocks at each corner.   Means rats can't tunnel underneath and the chicks like dust bathing under there.  Also make sure you take the food hopper out at night.  I have also nailed a heavy rubber strip along the base of the door and the wire of my run is buried, but I have also run a strip about 4 inches down right round the edge so anything digging down hits that - works with the fox as well.

My neighbour chucks a ton of bird seed round her garden each day attracting the world of scraggy town pigeons and has rats under her falling down shed.  I obviously can't do much about that, but I have managed to keep the rats out of the run and they seem to stay in her garden 

[chloe]

Oh! Well my dog is too old to be able to catch any now, so i guess it's up to my cats! I will try and find some of that stuff that doesn't harm any other animals apart from the rats and hope for the best! Thank you

[uktitan]

Getting rid of rats is easy..Well for me anyway hehe, what you do Is you get yourself a Huge Mainecoon Cat that is slightly Mental and it will Kill all the rats for you, and the mice, shrews, seagulls, crows, Fox's and even chase the Neighbors Dog, For some reason they don't touch the chickens ( i think its the Fact that he Got Pecked in the Head while he was sleeping in the garden in the summer hehe ) And he wont touch Hedgehogs ( they don't fight fair you know...all those Spikes and all, that's just not sporting hehe    )  

[hillfooter]

You all missed the services of this guy!  make sure you lock your kids up first though.



HF