Help! Big rat problem in barn

Cats won't do it. They like smaller game.[QUOTE]

Someone didn't tell that to Bo, my cat. He loves to leave half eaten rats lying around. My border collies love getting them too. They had fun when dad was bush hogging the field.

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Just wanted to let you all know that I think we've won the war. No activity for the past three days. My husband found several dead rats per day over the last week or so, but none recently. We put out $110 worth of poison over the past two weeks, and they ate most of it. For the last three days, no poison is being eaten. My husband plugged up the rat holes and they are not digging them out or making new ones. So in a few days we will begin cleaning the barn out. I want to make sure all the poison is gone before we bring in some animals again (pigs, steers for beef). One sad note, a banty chicken we owned died from poison ingestion, we think. She would not be contained with the other more domesticated chickens, and she often 'pecked around' the barn,so we think she picked up some poison. It was our last banty hen, so it's sad. But the dumb cat is still in there, unharmed. The smell in the barn is still nasty, but I'm sure in time that will go away. A lot of the rats must have died underground. I guess that means there is poison underground, too, which is not good, but what could we do? Hopefully we got them all, and there isn't a breeding pair still alive. I hope we never have to go through this again. We've been here over 10 years and never had rats before.
Thanks for all the advice!

I'll give an update as well. Put out 2 boxes another night and they were both gone. The next night I put out another 2 boxes and they were gone. I then put out 1 box, and only part of it was eaten.

It's smelling pretty bad now. I'll have to put out the 1/2 eaten box to get any lingering ones around.

Soapmakermom, to keep up with the problem, from time to time, put out more poison. If it disappears keep feeding it until the problem goes away. If it isn't eaten, put it in ziplock bag to keep fresh, and put out some time later.

It seems that any animals you have, the rats take up residence. You don't notice a few, but when you start seeing them is when you know you have an infestation. I think poison is about the only way to go. Traps & such (unless you use the water bucket method) they get too smart around. Poison does the job for sure, with the drawback of the darn smell of decomposing bodies!!!

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Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

Well I have Lucy the rat terror and she goes into the chicken yard with me, never bothers a thing except the mice. I also have three huge tom turkeys that roam the yard, she will run them away from her food dish, but that is as far as it goes.

Just like any other dog, you have to train a terrier, but man are they good ratters - hence the name. Lucy can catch a rat in a New York minute and she's about the proudest little thing, she also catches moles when she can dig them up and will spend time digging in rabbit burrows, but she can't catch the rabbits yet. She did get a chipmunk yesterday though.

Now if she could just get these bats..

anybody know how I can deal with bats? It's against the law to kill them, I called two different orgs about removing them and they refused (said it was the wrong time of the year..give me a break, these things are ruining my barn wall where it connects to my house...)

I gotta get something done fast...they don't multiply very fast thank goodness - but already I found one baby on the aisleway floor..very dead..

nothing that moves lasts long in the barn except the bats..the cat can't get to them and neither can the dog and I don't think any decent snake would bother..

Help me...

Sidepasser
did not mean to steal the thread...

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I am glad you were able to rid your place of the rats, very hard to do. The worst thing to have is rats. Someone once told me he live traped rats and set them free on a farmers property because he would not let him hunt on his property, my opinion. it was a nasty thing to do, hope nobody ever does that to my place.

I wonder about rats getting intolerant to stuff.... I mean, I feed the just one bite stuff and they are instant history, but if I use the dcon green stuff, I have scat that looks the color of the poison forever.... and no dead rats.
I just dont bother with the decon anymore. I think our infestation is up in the barn/feed area. I just got rid of all the ones that come in last winter... yuck...
Does anyone have problems with rats taking new chicks/eggs? or is this just a snake problem?? I killed a 5' snake in the coop not long ago, it was feasting on eggs, but still having chicks/eggs disappear...... cant figure this one out.

I knew I shouldn't have read this thread! I'm sitting her with the creepy willies. I'm freaked out because 4 mice have taken up residence in my chicken coop. I got to have hubby take out the chicken crate so that our terrier or calico cat can take care of them.

I don't think I could deal with rats. I grew up on a dairy farm and lost a dalmation dog to a pack of rats. He would hunt rats with his father. The father died of old age and the rats ganged up on poor Winston. As a pair, they kept the farm pretty clean.

I have a Toy Fox Terrier. Very similar to the Rat Terriers. She is only about 14 pounds and loves to hunt rodent. She hasn't bothered my birds but I don't let her out of the backyard fence without me. She was adopted from a shelter at 14 months and wasn't socialized around animals as a puppy. She doesn't bark except if there is trouble and is great with the kids. She is calm and love to cuddle.

We have had Great Danes for years but she is much more econimical and does such a good job that I think we will always keep around either a Toy Fox or Rat terrier.

Jennifer

My border collie is a hunting MACHINE! Last winter we moved a feeder pig feeder into my duck pen so that I could feed without it getting wet and unfortunately it wasn't long before the rats started moving in. I've been putting out a small amount of poison as well as a live trap and it's working but I need to be more diligent with the poison. I like the butter tub idea. Some also use 2" PVC pipe to form a poision center. Anyway, back to Belle the BC, she will go out day and night and dig at the rats holes, she has killed quite a few rats, then Kali the goofy great dane takes the dead rat from her and runs around with it in her mouth so very proud of all of her hard work. Belle will even use her teeth when digging for rats, Kali's best effort is to stick her nose in the hole. lol At any rate, that's one reason I don't get too serious about poison because I don't want the dogs getting into it when the happen upon a rat. We have a feedyard nearby so we'll always be 1/2 step away from a rat problem if we're not pretty diligent.