Rats, rats EVERYWHERE! ☹️

[Ursuline Chick]

I can snap pics tomorrow if that a good idea?

That would be great, thank you

 

[Al Gerhart]

I apologize, I had meant to be ridiculously humorous in order to lighten up moods a bit. I had no idea & don’t mean any harm to anyone here.

MamaSug, you have nothing to apologize for, I was joking and thoroughly enjoyed the meme and thought it very appropriate. I understand why you apologize, there are some very thin skinned people on this board. But it was ridiculously humorous and I laughed out loud and totally appropriate to the conversation.

 

[Al Gerhart]

.Your response is somewhat antagonistic in tone, I'm not at all sure what I did to provoke it.
Not everyone is able to purchase expensive equipment and as I wrote, mine is not a one tool only attempt to cure my rat problem. While rats can get into the opening, by keeping an agile and aggressive cat out in the run during the day they don't try to feed. At night I remove the feeder out of the rat's reach. By not spilling or allowing spills they are not lured in by easy food. If you have a better and economical solution please post it or link to it I'm sure all of us are interested.
Chicken keeping is not "just" a rich man's hobby and some of us require affordable solutions that we can do our selves.

I think the first thing one learns when you get on the internet is that it is impossible to have "tone" on a written message. Especially when the message ends with "not being disrespectful". The answer isn't what you wanted to hear, okay, then don't ask for advice or participate in a discussion if you don't want to hear all the answers.

And when one enters the arena of ideas and gives advice expect others to point out the fallacies of the advice. Sound advice comes from a multitude of speakers and ideas, which is why as a society we protect Free Speech.

Now specifically, please allow me to reply to just three sentences in your post:

"Rats are an ongoing, eternal war for me. They burrow into the soil, under the coop, under the edge of the house, under any solid object or rock." and "But the fight never ends and is constant, once I get one den cleaned out another breeding pair shows up and it starts all over."

You were being honest and I thank you for that but it should be obvious from your own words that bucket feeders and even cats simply do not work.

It is usually the rich that can afford to waste money although they usually do not in my opinion, they buy luxuries but in their minds that isn't waste. To me it is. If one is of limited means it is all the more important to save money, so if you have rats they are there eating your feed and cannot survive without an unnatural source of food. Stop feeding them and they are forced to leave. Build you own wooden treadle feeder if you don't have money, problem solved. Then you will save enough money to replace it with a better unit some day as wooden feeders are also not the perfect solution. But they do work short term.

 

[chickencoop57]

Wish I could help but this is way beyond my pay grade!

 

[Geena]

Your response is somewhat antagonistic in tone, I'm not at all sure what I did to provoke it.

It's not you, just Al peddling his treadle feeder as per usual. Not being disrespectful but those are the facts.

 

[The Moonshiner]

It's not you, just Al peddling his treadle feeder as per usual. Not being disrespectful but those are the facts.

 

[Geena]

View attachment 2689567

 

[Lady Clucks-a-Lot]

Do you keep your chickens in the coop? If there are chickens in the coop in day time the rats won't dare to come out in the day (but they will after it gets dark, and chickens definitely would prefer free ranging in your yard). I have two solutions to blocking out rats in your coop.
1. (this one is kind of hard but this way you'll probably NEVER EVER again have rats in your coop) You move out your chicken coop somewhere else first, than use a shovel and dig a really deep, wide hole (I'm can't think of any better words) that's just a little smaller than the size of your chicken coop (it has to at least be 5-6 inches tall), than use some rat-proof wire or net (I suggest you use wire since rat's have really sharp teeth, they might still be able to bite through your net) and put those wire (you'll in total need 5 pieces of wire that fits (only if you have a coop that's a rectangle or a square)) on the sides of the hole you dug, than the 5th piece of wire on the bottom. After doing that, you use dirt and fill up the hole again and move your coop back. It would be best if you could connect the wire and the coop, that would be best. How it's going to work is that when a rat tries to dig it's way in, it'll be blocked by the wire.
2. This one's lot easier than the last one. Just find bricks and cover them in side the chicken coop floor and cover up any place that rat might be able to dig it's way in. But I wouldn't really recommend you to do it, since that you'll have to clean the coop rapidly and your chickens won't like it (since that they won't be able to scratch any more.)

 

[electrycmonk]

That would be great, thank you

Delay of game..... here’s the edited down screenshots.


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