[dugless]

Do rats bother chickens or do they stear clear like the mice.

I have noticed we have rats under my compost bins at the bottom of the Orchard.

[ANHBUC]

They would attack a chick but think hens would be too big.  They will be more interested in any split food or any left out overnight.  Not sure what diseases they can cause in poultry.  Better to get rid of them if you can.

[Sassy]

Definitely try to control them they carry some very nasty diseases which can be fatal to humans.

It is that time of year when they will start to come near to human habitation for shelter and food

[ehs284]

Whilst they may not attack the hens, the hens will be afraid. Generally the rats will try to find the eggs.
Use a rodenticide or get local council to treat, but try not to disturb the rats; you want to keep them in the compost and not be looking for a new home.

[dugless]

I have bought some Big CHEESE all weather bait.

Set up a length of 4" drain pipe near the run and another on the track to put the bait in,  so other animals should be safe.
will keep checking each day and topping up.

[alaj]

I stand my feed bins etc on an old pallet so I can safely poke some of that Big Cheese underneath to help with the ever present rodents. It does seem to help. Horrid critters. Otherwise it's a monthly full clean out to discourage the little beggars.
Ah the fun and mischief.....

[Mrs Bee]

We keep spring type rat traps baited with peanut butter around the chicken pen and in the garage where we store veg from the  lotty. We keep the feed in metal laundry bins from Ikea. They are cheapest.

We trap the little blighters regularly.

It doesn't help that the old lady next door leaves out food for the squirrels and foxes. The rats have dug  a hole under the gravel boards of the fence and come into our garden.

Or used to before we put traps all around the hole.

Joyful recommended keeping some plastic gloves in the feed bin and wearing those when you set the traps to take away the smell of humans which might put off the rats from exploring  ( coming to get their necks broken).

[dugless]

I gather they are pesistant little beggers, apparently when you clear one lot out another lot takes over the terratory.

[dugless]

Now they have ruined my Lord Lambourne apples

[ANHBUC]

Was it done by rats or the high winds we have had?

[dugless]

Was it done by rats or the high winds we have had?

OH yes it is Rats  when I came back from hoilday all my pears and all the fallen apples had dissapered no trace  at all .
the dammage you see on the photes was done monday night no high winds then.

[nuzuki]

Maybe a passer by relieved you of your apples and pears? Could that of been a possibility?

We have lots of apples on the ground presently but none go missing and suprisingly there doesnt seem to be many wasps hanging around either.

I do have problems with mice in the barn hiding in an old exhaust backbox though

[dugless]

Maybe a passer by relieved you of your apples and pears? Could that of been a possibility?

We have lots of apples on the ground presently but none go missing and suprisingly there doesnt seem to be many wasps hanging around either.

I do have problems with mice in the barn hiding in an old exhaust backbox though

I do not think anyone would would pick up ALL the fallen or eat half of each apple on the tree I do have Rats in the orchard under my compost bins so to my mind they are the culprits

[dugless]

They are getting very brave out in the open at 16.30. 
To cleaver though to get a good shot with the air rifle.
I am looking on e-bay fr some stronger poision I just seem to be feeding them with the BIg Cheese blocks

[kopperdrake]

Get rid of them. We've recently had an outbreak of them after harvest time, coming in from the fields. We've a neighbour with a really overgrown large garden, two ponds and windfalls - perfect haven for rats. In one night they had travelled from his garden, across our allotment and stripped 25 sweet corn plants bare - it was as if a plague of locusts had descended on them. 6 months of hard work down the pan. The night after, all the peas. The night after we pre-empted them and figured they'd try for the courgettes and squash. We went down at 10pm to pick anything we had left growing (a wheelbarrow full), and you could see them running through the plot in the torchlight. I saw 6 but could hear more. We spent a week catching and dispatching them, 27 in total, but they were just the young inexperienced ones. We then had to resort to the council and poison. It upsets me that despite locking all our chook food away, using treble feeders, tidying up, it takes one neighbour to not think to lose a lot of your produce I hate killing animals needlessly, but when it comes to feeding yourself or them, then it's a slightly easier choice.