SNAP!

 ...went the trap, two nights in a row.  Figured there would be at least two rats, and we got two.

It was rather a rocky start to the war, with me dumping chicken feed all over that grid outside the door, which took the rats two nights to clean up.  In the meantime they ignored the trap under the plant pot.  Then the next night I went and left a ice cream pail of feed open in the greenhouse, which is where the young rooster gets fed.  I remembered that at 1:30 in the morning, and I sure wasn't about to get up and stagger out there to put the lid on.  I would be imagining rats running over my feet out there in the dark, yuk:(

So the next day I came up with a rather brilliant idea.  This is the first hole the rats chewed, and the rock that Larry had plugged it with, until they made the hole bigger.  This hole happens to lead right into one of the nest boxes.  

So I got a shelf from an old fridge.  Yep, we keep all sorts of junk, you just never know when it might come in handy on a farm.  Well actually it's me that thinks we might some day have a use for things like that, other family members would have got rid of them long ago.  I tried a few other things that we had hanging around, but this worked the best.  It fit pretty well over the front of the nest box, and the slots were small enough to stop a big rat from getting through.  They were also small enough that a hen couldn't stick it's head through, to try and eat the bait, which was peanut butter with chicken feed stuck on top of it.  It was open enough that a rat would think, when coming through the hole, that it could get over to where the feeder was, which was actually not there, but in the white barrel outside.  The rock was there to partially block the hole so no little birds would go in.  Yes, birds go in the chicken coop to eat the feed.  Just don't tell the CFIA, it's that whole Avian Flu fiasco.... I digress.

So I set the trap, banged in some wire staples and we were in business.

And next morning we had our first victim.  Just be thankful I spared you that photo.  And that became Larry's job to dispose of.  

Tuesday morning, same thing.  'Oh Larry, there's another rat for you'

This morning he went down there to let the hens out and put the feeder back in.  I asked him if there was a rat, and he said 'yes, and this one's yours'  

'Really, there's another one?'

'Yep'

I was really impressed.  Three nights in a row.  I thought rats were smart, you'd think that after seeing bodies in the same spot two nights in a row, that a smart rat would avoid that spot.  So I went down there this afternoon after the hens had finished laying.  I was just going to pull the laying boxes out from the wall and go in from the back, instead of dismantling the grid.  

Before I even got started I noticed that the bar on the trap was still in place.  I thought maybe Larry had decided to be a gentleman and spare me from having to deal with the rat, so had come down and disposed of it after all, and reset the trap.

I yelled over to where he was pruning the apple tree.

Nope.

Turns out the trap hadn't been set off after all.  What he thought was a rat was the grey rock at the back.

I'm not sure whether I'm happy about that or not. I raked it all smooth in the green house where the rats had been digging holes, so will check for activity in the morning.

Maybe there will be another SNAP!

Oh Rats!

Damn, we have rats.  I guess on the bright side, they are causing issues outside, and not in the house.  Not that we've ever had rats in the house, shudder.

There is a rat or rats hanging around one of the chicken coops.  I guess they've settled in for the winter somewhere, and have figured that the chicken coop has an endless supply of food for them, and what the heck, what more can they ask for.  The door is closed at night, well no problem, we'll just gnaw a hole through the wall so we can get in and help ourselves.  Since the walls are made of that OSB stuff, and it is rather weathered and old now,  they aren't much of a hindrance.

When we had this same problem a few years ago, we found that the only way to solve it was to take the feeder out of the coop each night.  We tried a trap, which killed a bird, but the rats ignored it, and so ended up using poison.  Which, I know, I know, can be really dangerous with other animals around.  What we did was to put a block of poison in an ice cream pail, with a lid on and two holes cut in the side.  The rats would go in to eat it, but didn't seem to try to drag the block out.  We would put the bucket out at night when all dogs were safe inside, and pick it up in the morning when we went out.  The only way we could get the rats to eat the poison was if we put the chicken feeder somewhere they couldn't get at it.  What we did was to put it in the blue barrel outside the coop that we use to store the bags of feed.

This time around, that barrel is full to the top with feed, so nowhere handy to put the feeder. (The thing weighs 45 lbs when full, and is awkward, so not something you want to carry too far).  Larry figured if he jammed a thick piece of plywood over the hole, it would stop the rats from getting in the coop.  It all looked good from the outside, but the next morning I noticed from the inside that there was still space to get in.  So I changed the board, but yesterday I noticed they had gnawed more on the underside and got in once again.  Meanwhile there was a trap set up outside under a propped up plant pot (to keep the birds safe), but it seems that they prefer chicken feed to cheese.  I was going to use peanut butter, but ours was really runny and messy, so I went for the easier cheese.  So last night around dark, we are out there getting the chickens in so we can shut the door.  We came up with the idea of bringing another barrel down to the coop, and putting the feeder in there.  Those feeders are a central tube that suspends a tray underneath by means of three wire clips.  The clips attach to some slots on the tray.  You put the clips in whichever slot works best for the food you have, to allow gravity to make it fall down the tube and keep the tray filled. The whole thing must be hung up by a handle, and gravity keeps it all working.

Well, as I am heaving the 2/3 full feeder out of the coop, one of the clips gave way, the tray dropped on that side, and feed poured out all over the aluminum grid that is outside the door, as well as some falling under the coop.  We scooped up what we could, swept up some more, but there was no way we could get it all.  We even encouraged the hens to come out and peck up some of the feed.

  In the end we had to leave it, hopefully the rats feasted on that instead of chewing another hole into the coop to get to the feeder, which of course wasn't in there.  We had blocked off the hole with some bricks, both inside and outside.   The trap was set again, but it will probably ignored.  Unless of course they want a little wine and cheese to finish of their meal.

Now that we have a solution for putting the feeder somewhere safe at night, we WILL get those rats.  It's up to them whether they go for the quick death of the snap trap, or the maybe unpleasant death of poison.

This morning when we went out, they had gnawed around the first hole they had made, which Larry had jammed a rock into to block it, and got into the coop again.  At least there was nothing for them to eat in there.  They had been around the spilled grain outside, which now is just wet mush, and eaten some of that.  Hopefully the chickens will clean that up today.  The trap of course was untouched, but I might try baiting it with chicken feed tonight.  Larry saw one of the rats in the greenhouse last week, he said it was pretty fat.

Just add the job of replacing some of the wood on the coop and making it more rat proof, to our long 'to do' list.

Sometimes a house on a lot with no farm animals starts to seem really appealing.