We have rats :(

We have finally seen a rat (and a brave young adult one) in and under our coop. We have a new muscovy mom who has just hatched some babies yesterday in there. I think that we have then determined who was eating eggs here and there. Now, the mom has already attacked it (or another...there are always more than one, right?). My husband took a shot at it last night and must have just grazed it because I can still see it running in and out this morning.

My question is, how do we get rid of it without the ducks, ducklings or chickens not eating poison or otherwise getting hurt with another method? We would like to take care of this as soon as possible.

I thought that might have been the culprit! I think you can buy metal traps that have small openings the rats can go into and it traps them inside, I have seen them at UFA. We have a small one for mice. I think they are in the twenty to thirty dollar range.

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Rats can be tough as they are very smart. Best trap I found was a big bucket of water. A piece of dowel to go across the top. A can with lid and bottom removed, so it is just a cylinder placed over the dowel (the dowel through the middle of the can, get it?) and then the dowel fastened to the top of the bucket. Sometimes you will need a ramp up to the dowel. Smear the outside of the can with peanut butter. When rat climbs up on to dowel and to can, can will spin and drop rat into water of half full bucket.
There are different versions of the same idea, find what works best for you. This is the only way we cleared up the rats at one place we were at. And there was WAY more of then than I thought there was!

I found out quite unintentionally that water dishes are quite useful in eliminating unwanted young rats/mice. We had an infestation of the critters this winter in our coop as I had started insulating the walls but did not get all the walls covered with plywood. In one pen I had up a vapour barrier but no plywood covering and the critters found a nice warm nesting place. Needless to say, they found the food/water to be easy picking - until they fell in that is - I must have got nearly a dozen of the part grown babies within the period of a week or two. Never knew how effective a pan of water is for controlling rodent populations.

You sound surprised but I thought that every province except Alberta had rats.

Ducks?

My ducks think drowding mice is fun...... This last year before the cats came, we would see ducks walking with mice and putting them in there water dish

Yes, I was surprised. I know that they are in Manitoba, but it was the first time that I've seen a live one and it ran quickly past my feet, and just after I had a mouse do that. I was in sandals. Next time I'm wearing BOOTS.

I have only ever seen live rats in Mexico.

Dan Smith wrote:You sound surprised but I thought that every province except Alberta had rats.

I always have to laugh at this as what happens at the BC border and the Sask Border and the US Border do they all have shock collars on that stop them from crossing LOL or is there someone that shoots them as they try to cross

Sorry for the Hijack but I always get a good laugh when I hear or see that Alberta dont have Rats