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Rats Eating Eggs

  • 07-11-2011 10:04am
    #1
    Jelly2
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭


    Hi,
    Looking for some advice about a problem that we have recently started to have with rats. When we got hens at first (about eight months ago), rats began to eat the remains of the feed that we left in the trough so we became very careful about ensuring that none was left lying around when the hens has had their fill. We also moved the trough further away from the henhouse, which was good as the rats didn't like to go to it when it was more out in the open.
    Unfortunately, the hungry and resourceful creatures then decided that the eggs were a good target. They are now eating eggs each day. But this is not because we leave eggs lying around in the egg boxes all day; instead, a rat seems to get into the nest box as soon as a hen leaves it, and even though I have taken to going out to check for eggs regularly all morning, I invariably find that one has been opened by a rat.
    We put down poison in bait boxes, but the rats ignore this. We also put down rat traps (outside the hen house and under buckets in the morning, because the hens need to be able to go inside to lay, and in the henhouse in the afternoon when the hens go outside their run), but so far have not caught any.
    Is there anything else that we can do about this? It's very annoying, and a bit dispiriting!
    Thanks!


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