Yesterday evening when the coop door had shut and I went to take out the food, I heard a bumping on the roof. I shone my torch up and a rat ran across between the corrugated plastic of the roof and the chicken net below it. It ran from our side and out again on my neighbours side. I went in and told my husband and he returned with me to take a look. As we were both in there the same thing happened again with the rat running under the plastic roof and out. We felt encouraged that it was on the outside this time rather than inside. We thought that now we had blocked it’s latest entry hole that it was looking for another way in.
This morning we inspected where we had seen the rat the evening before and found a hole chewed through the nylon chicken net in the corner under the roof. We realized that it was our torch causing the rat to run out the other side. We felt really disappointed because if it can chew through the nylon chicken net it can get in anywhere overhead.
A hole chewed through the chicken net in the corner
I patched it up with bits of spare chicken net. It was a messy and temporary job but I needed to go out on my deliveries and just wanted to keep the rat out while I was away.
A messy patch up
While doing this I stupidly put all my tools on top of the storage cabinet, including the pot of coloured drawing pins. Bluebell who is always really nosey flew up on to the cabinet and knocked the pins over the floor. I told her off and pushed her away while I quickly gathered them up as I was afraid she might swallow one. In turn she showed her displeasure by strutting around shouting “boc boc” as loudly as she could. She really wanted to get to those pins and the whole job took me twice as long, as it always does when a chicken tries to help.
I continued, with the pins inside the cabinet, taking one out at a time as needed. It struck me afterwards how funny the two way conversation was between me and Bluebell. I told Bluebell off and she loudly told me she was not happy about it either!
When I came back at lunch time my husband had been in to inspect my patch up and told me I had wasted my time as he had just seen a rat squeeze through the patched net. We think because the net is flexible they can stretch the holes to get through. We needed another plan.
Off to the D.I.Y. store we went again! We bought a roll of chicken wire with much finer holes and a staple gun to fix it. My husband fixed the wire underneath the net. We only bought one roll to start with and thought we would go as far as we could (which was most of the roofed area), for now. We will wait to see what happens next and if they chew further along (which they probably will) we will continue to do the whole of the run. It doesn’t look great but if it works we will try to do a better job in the summer. We used the net in the first place because we can pull it tight for a neater look and because we were advised not to use anything too heavy such as weld mesh because if it gets heavy with snow in winter it would bend inwards.
Chicken wire underneath the chicken net
Close up of the chicken wire
When I went up to take out the food this evening there was no sign of a rat this time. Once again we may just slow them down. The problem is if they come in during the day then just removing the food isn’t enough and we feel we need to keep up the battle to keep them out.
I know our problem is small compared to some peoples. I looked on the “Down The Lane” forum and some people are having a really bad problem with rats. One person said they had seen about forty rats in the run during the day. Some people said they were laying concrete to keep them out and one person said the rats were eating the chickens eggs.
Compared to that our problem is small but we are as determined as the rats to win the battle.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
I must admit, when you first said that you had solved the rat problem I wasn’t 100% convinced. You have to remember, rats are pretty much everywhere, and this is because they are extremely successful. I think this is going to go on for a while as they are so persistent.
Good luck with your struggle against the rodents! You’re doing a good job of documenting this and I’m sure others will be able to use some of your ideas when they have rat problems.
Thanks. I know it’s going to be an on going battle but we will keep trying. We can’t have them coming in during the day and I wouldn’t want it to escalate into the problems that I’ve read other people have. They are determined critters though, but so are we!