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Mary : We're having rat problems suddenly after years of no problems. They've dug under our underground fencing. Can you offer some solutions about prevention and about trapping or poisoning? We don't want to harm our chickens or pets. One of our cats brings rat carcasses to the house regularly. Should we employ her in the coop? We don't harm to come to her. Thanks much

My Reply : There were a few suggestions for rodent problems in the August '11
newsletter from other subscribers which hopefully will help you out on pages
13 and 14:
http://www.keepingchickensnewsletter.com/Newsletter/August11/keepingchickensv2_pg13.htm
and also in the last few pages of the february '12 newsletter:
http://www.keepingchickensnewsletter.com/Newsletter/Feb12NL/keepingchickens_page12.htm

Using poison can sometimes be a bit risky because even if it is well away
from the girls and your cat both would probably eat any dead/dying rat they can find so may indirectly be affected. If you use live traps there may be rules where you are governing exactly how you can deal with the problem and what is allowed once you have caught them (for instance in the UK it is illegal to drown trapped rats or treat them inhumanely.) There is a report on the humane control of rodents from the UK based Universities Federation for Animals Welfare (UFAW) website which might be helpful for wherever you are as well even if not in the UK:
www.ufaw.org.uk/documents/GuidanceonhumanecontrolofrodentsFeb2509V19.pdf

We had trouble with rats biting though the electrics in our car and so put a battery operated sonar repellent under it which as far as I can tell has cleared all the rats in our whole area (we used to regularly see them under the apple trees and around the barns but haven't seen any at all since the sonar went down which was over a year ago).

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