What do you do? (Vermin!)

Stanley

Stanley

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Seem to be posting alot...
But anyways, some/most of you will have had a problem with rats, theyve always been on our property as its full of fields and animals, and no matter how much you tidy up theres always that one bit of feed, whether it be horse or chicken, on the ground, thatll keep them coming back
but this year its been quite bad, not only do we think that they could have taken our gosling and egg, theyre just everywhere, theyve been trying to chew into the chicken coops for months, but the other night, overnight chewed through the other door, clean through with a tennis ball like hole by morning.
no idea what to do to keep them away, as much as i dont like killing animals, id rather kill the rats than my poor chookies, so weve been out with the guns (OH taught me properly yesterday :D ) but im trying to clean up properly so they dont think theres anything around, but now theyre going for the sheds!
so, after that essay, what to you do, or have you done?
i literally have bought a bag of cement and bricks, and im bricking the outside and layer of concrete on the floor on the inside!!
which is todays job, and a few other bits and pieces to upgrade their home! :)
 
Main thing is to deny them food, which it looks like your trying to do, proof your housing, which it looks like your doing, 1/2 inch meshing folded at right angles is an alternative to bricking things up. Beyond that your looking at traps and if your animals won't have access to the dead rats then poison, you could also get a terrier in if you know someone who owns one. Given the increase in numbers do you think the rats may have access to another food source close to you? just wondering as just a few bits of food lying about shouldnt sustain such a big increase in colony size.
 
If the infestation is really bad and you think they are breeding, could you call in the Council's pest control officer? I don't suppose that now they offer free treatment any more, but they might have valuable advice on where they are coming from and what you could do about it in your particular situation.
 
I live in the country and last winter I saw loads of rats in the run one evening and was horrified! I put an 18 inch mesh skirt around the run to keep them out, and set Fenn traps to catch them. I tried baited snap traps too but they are a waste of money, the rats are too clever. Usually they end up just catching mice, then after the poor mouse has been caught the rat comes along and cleans off the bait! Fenn traps must be in a tunnel by law, which keeps other animals safe from them, but also has an added benefit: rats love tunnels! I've trapped loads and also shot a few, but being in the middle of the countryside I can never be completely on top of them, and I keep discovering new tunnels that they have started.

I'll keep going with the Fenn traps and shooting them for now. I'm also going to build a new run this weekend which will have a mesh skirt from day one, and I'll be building some new Fenn trap tunnels with any leftover wood.

To be honest, if it wasn't for the threat of Weil's disease, and also any threat towards my hens, I wouldn't mind them taking the odd scrap of food. But it is important to remember that they pose a real threat to human life, let alone poultry life. I know more about Weil's disease than my girlfriend as I am a Civil Engineer (used to working with sewers etc) and I keep trying to impress upon her the importance of washing your hands after touching anywhere a rat could have been, or wearing gloves if possible. The disease lives in water and with the amount of wet weather we are having (and not just here in Scotland for once!) the disease can survive for a long time in damp areas.

Also, I am an animal lover but understand the need to control vermin.
 
Hi Rosco. You've reached the same solutions as me really. Friend of ours died from Weils disease -felt a bit ill and went to the doctors and by the time he got to hospital his liver was destroyed! I've posted something about rat hunting (great sport) in 'any other stuff' section a while back. Never use poison. the rats can move it and it can be eaten by your chickens or your dog (as I have heard -fatally). I use 45 degree roof ridge tiles as tunnels -too heavy to be moved by accident and enough height for a Fenn4. Set them up on rat runs with 100% success by burying them under the tile with a small square of agricultural fleece covering the mechanism so thin ;layer of soil on top doesn't jam the mechanism. Shoot a few cheeky ones that appear in daylight as well. Best results are in a humane rabbit trap in Winter or Spring baited with apple. Catch a few Magpies as well! We do have rats but they are now the clever ones that won't go into a standard cage trap or a baited snapper. They are pretty big as well, coming off the canal beside us. Happy hunting.
 
Thank you everyone!
dinosaw said:
Main thing is to deny them food, which it looks like your trying to do, proof your housing, which it looks like your doing, 1/2 inch meshing folded at right angles is an alternative to bricking things up. Beyond that your looking at traps and if your animals won't have access to the dead rats then poison, you could also get a terrier in if you know someone who owns one. Given the increase in numbers do you think the rats may have access to another food source close to you? just wondering as just a few bits of food lying about shouldnt sustain such a big increase in colony size.
Click to expand...

One of our coops is a proper shed, so unless i mesh all the wood around it wil still let them in, concreted the entire inside today so even if they re chew the wood i fixed they may need a dentist after they chew the concrete!!
posion and over ground traps are a no no, chickens, geese and soon to be ducks are free range, and so are the dogs! we have a large terrier (staffy!) but our weimaraners are fab rat catchers :)
definitely a possibility, but living on 10acres, and next door having treble that in hay fields theres so much space for dead rabbits ect, but again not enough for them to sprout like they have
theres 2 main tunnels, one at the top of my yard, one at the bottom, ones at the top are going into the 'shed' chicken coop, and also i assume tried to get into my other ones in the garden, and bottom, slightly more agressive type which again i assume killed the gosling and tries to get into the goose stable..
definitely going to look at the underground traps, so thanks for that!
and may speak to the council, need to speak to them about a ragwort problem anyways
we can kill upto 5 or 6, well shoot them, not sure if they die or not, but in an hour at dusk!
 
We had a serious rat problem a few years ago. Luckily one of my mums relatives is a "hunter" and brought along his ferrets. They did a fantastic job.
The rats came back the following year and we decided to move the hens further away from the house. Burned down the old coops in situ where the rats where living, found a nest of young which we dispatched put poison down where the livestock had no access.

We had polecats living on the yard last summer. Not sure if they have moved on, but they kept the rats away last year and so far this year, the only tunnels out in the hen runs are mice tunnels and vole. There are "millions" of them. Have even caught some of the hens killing and munching down some vole or mouse for supper.
 
It's like any management problem Gavin, you have to stay on top of it or it will just run away from you. We've been actively keeeping rat numbers down for 4 years now and think we have it under control. But there was a very large rustling noise on the canal bank last night so we may have a bigger visitor?
 
Gavin1985 said:
so far this year, the only tunnels out in the hen runs are mice tunnels and vole. There are "millions" of them. Have even caught some of the hens killing and munching down some vole or mouse for supper.
Click to expand...

Yummy!
 
Indeed Marigold. Everytime I visit the hens during the day, I can hear squeaks coming from the grass, and you can even see the mice or voles scurrying along the fences to their holes.

We also have horses which means double possibility of attracting rats. The best you can do is as mentioned. Try to keep as tidy as possible. If it gets too bad, then you def want to call someone in with either a terrier or ferrets, or both.

The ferrets will get down through all the rat runs and kill everyone they find. We dug up a nest after seeing a white ferret emerge covered in blood, it had bitten the heads of a dozen of so rats.
 
Our geese will kill the rats if seen, regularly find them where they live, a few a day sometimes, altho none recently, and since posting havent seen so many!!
made it harder to get in the stables, but only a temporary fix, and the main shed where they chewed through overnight was gutted and concreted next day and left open to dry so they could go in and find no food, so hopefully theyll give it a rest for a bit, if not they can chew through concrete!!
we also made the doors metal lined as they tried to chew that too!
with the horses does make it almost impossible to keep things too clean, but we do have some mice which are no problem and they live in the stables, and do a very good clean up job, so the rats dont get a look in! they also dont cause a problem
hopefully were getting on top of it again, last summer we had no problem, even tho they were present, but with this weird winter and summer its all a bit odd!
 
A wee update on the use of Fenn traps... Please make sure that the tunnel entrance is small enough so that only rat sized animals can enter. I was shown a photograph today of something caught in a Fenn trap that ought not to be... by its leg, and it was knawing and scratching at it's surroundings to free itself. My friend who found it by chance took it to a vet and called the SSPCA but the poor thing died. The SSPCA never went any further with it though as it was a genuine mistake, and the trapper had simply forgotten to close the hinged entrance to the expertly made tunnel.

The problem is that for the tunnel to work it needs to be about 6" square or 6" diameter. But if the entrance is that size then larger animals can enter the tunnel, animals too big for the trap to kill instantly. The entrance to the tunnel should therefore only be a couple of inches squared, which is enticing for a rat to enter but very offputting for a bird, squirrel, or polecat.

If you are after bigger quarry then a Fenn mk6 is available, which is bigger. I'm not sure of the tunnel size requirements for those though.

I also realise that this is probably not news to most of you, and that you know what you are doing, but after what I saw today I have been shocked into lecture mode!
 
Hi Rosco. I close the entrance to the ridge tile down with bricks in case a chicken decides to stick it's foot or head in there! Need to be careful what you buy with the Fenn 6. There are some copies out there that use the spring from the Fenn 4 and are therefore useless. I have bought the genuine article having compared the springs -we're expecting coypu in France.
 
Hi Chris, my post wasn't aimed at you by the way, and I had suspected that you and everyone else on this site would close the entrance. I just wanted to add a little bit of advice as I had been advocating the use of these traps without explaining what was required, and then coincidentally my friend told me his story and showed me the photographs.

Those coypu look big! Mk 6 required for sure!
 
Thanks for that, as I have no previous experience with them!
not really seen many other animals near the tunnels we have, we have a few small birds but none would really go down the hole, i dont think?!
 
The small animals are too light to trip the trap Stanley. Mice, voles and smaller rats pass through without harm. This is great because the small rats use the run and the big ones think it's OK -wrong!!!!
 
Thats ok then, have a few mice around, but are harmless, and actually far less now the rats are out in force, theres some pretty hefty ones around too!
 
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