Controlling Rats
Chicken keepers can't stop hens scattering feed but you need to protect the stored feed with metal sealed containers and use rat-proof feeders suspended on chains. (Chains are cheap from InExcess).
Our experience is that snap-traps only catch the young ones that have not yet learned to avoid them. Hence the older big fat rats seen running around.
Poison works (with mice as well) if suitably protected from other wildlife in a bait box with a clear entrance and straight through exit. Blocks of poison bait are available from Ray at the Trading Hut - catch him onsite most mornings before 10.30.
Some traditional home-made rat-killers have been used with some success. Bicarbonate of Soda or Plaster of Paris mixed with powdered drinking chocolate or peanut butter may work - again in a protected bait box. (Any sealed plastic box with a rat size hole, about 2" diameter, cut in each end will do.)
Apparently raw (preferably rotting!) sweet potato mashed into something attractive to rats like chocolate powder is a more natural poison for rats that will not affect other wildlife so doesn't need to be protected in a bait box. (pestweek.com/sweet-potato-kill-rats/)
If you can afford it, electronic animal scarers with flashing lights work well especially in enclosed spaces like sheds (- and chicken feed stores?) but will scare off our helpful hedgehogs if used in the open.
Our experience is that snap-traps only catch the young ones that have not yet learned to avoid them. Hence the older big fat rats seen running around.
Poison works (with mice as well) if suitably protected from other wildlife in a bait box with a clear entrance and straight through exit. Blocks of poison bait are available from Ray at the Trading Hut - catch him onsite most mornings before 10.30.
Some traditional home-made rat-killers have been used with some success. Bicarbonate of Soda or Plaster of Paris mixed with powdered drinking chocolate or peanut butter may work - again in a protected bait box. (Any sealed plastic box with a rat size hole, about 2" diameter, cut in each end will do.)
Apparently raw (preferably rotting!) sweet potato mashed into something attractive to rats like chocolate powder is a more natural poison for rats that will not affect other wildlife so doesn't need to be protected in a bait box. (pestweek.com/sweet-potato-kill-rats/)
If you can afford it, electronic animal scarers with flashing lights work well especially in enclosed spaces like sheds (- and chicken feed stores?) but will scare off our helpful hedgehogs if used in the open.
