Burrows in my hay???

[Olivia67]

O.k., now that we're getting to end of our winter supply of hay I've found these tunnels, about 3 inches across in and out of the stack of hay. We're in northern Illinois and so it's still pretty cold up here. I've seen woodchucks in the neighbors wild section of their property and of course we have mice and ground squirrels. I have never seen a rat yet but do you think this could be rat's tunnels? Do rats tunnel? Our corgi and our english shepherd are climbing the hay and poking their noses into the tunnels and I think my corgi got nipped on the nose because he yelped and backed off but I saw no blood on him so it wasn't an attack or anything. There is no food left out, we don't have chickens only geese and I feed them outside and they usually eat bread, what they don't eat my dogs clean up. All goat and sheep food is in metal garbage cans or these plastic canisters that seal so tight that no smell of whatever is inside can escape. So, what do you think it could be?

[MO_cows]

Mice would be my bet. 3 inches is a pretty big hole for a mouse, but mice do tunnel into hay in the winter. When we used to feed square bales, you could kick the bottom bale toward the end of winter when the hay got low, and mice would fly out and the dogs would run around snapping and get some of them.

[Danaus29]

Mice. I bought a few bales to use to insulate the crawlspace and mice jumped out when I moved the bales. That's when I knew it was going to be a long hard winter.

[coffeekittie]

Possibly wild rabbits? That's the size my own rabbits make in their straw stack. They can nip and claw which would explain the dog yelping.....

[Wisconsin Ann]

3" diameter? I doubt it's rats. We have a ton of field mice and their burrows are smaller...a couple inches at most. Although in hay, they could be nibbling larger areas. The nipping of your dog tho...that doesnt' sound mouse-like, do you think?

It might be rabbits, like coffeekittie thought. The wild rabbits around here are ground nesters, but they DO dig small tunnels to nest in. (we find them quite often). The "tunnels" are fairly shallow..maybe 9" deep, but only 3 to 4" across.

Shine a flashlight down in one. (carefully)

[Olivia67]

Yes I thought about mice but when my dog almost got nipped I was thinking rats, they are more aggressive. However, my corgi dog is a whimp and so may have yelped just because he got close to it and didn't know what to do. I'm trying to teach him to kill the mice but he just isn't getting the message yet. Ok, so I guess I'm going to have to put out some Rampage or something to kill off a few of them. There are tunnels everywhere in the hoop barn, there must be thousands of them in there and it isn't that big of a barn. At least it's not rats-thank God! Thank you everyone who posted!!

[Wisconsin Ann]

oooo. You have that many tunnels? If you haven't seen any rats (they come out and are pretty obvious quickly) you're probably right that it's mice. Rats do make larger tunnels..at least ours did. icky things.

[backachersfarm]

could be a number of rodents. This can especially be a problem if there are seed heads for them to root around after.

[vallyfarm]

Coons!! We get 'em every year. 3" holes always. Most go in about 2 bale lengths, tho some seemed to go in forever. They sometimes will eat the twine on the inner bales, I think so they can easier make a turn-around for themselves. Keep an eye out for their scat. Sorta like little pieces of tar to dry pieces of large dog food size. Mike

[kirkmcquest]

Definitely a rodent. Put out some traps and find out.