Are rats inevitable when keeping chickens?

[OsbegaEthelwulf]

We will be moving in a couple of weeks to a fab semi-det. house with 100 ' garden- after 12 years of being in a terrace with back yard. I cannot wait! I am looking forward to growing veg(we currently have an allotment) there etc and would like to get a few hens for eggs. DH has been talking to various folk about this and they all say we will be over run with rats which has put him off (not me though)

Is it inevitable or do you have ways of avoiding the horrid little buggers

cheers all

^ this. I really wouldn't worry about it.

I see them. I also see their droppings in my chickens' feeder in the morning.

Not sure what we can do about it, I don't want to use poison in case they die somewhere the cat finds them - and traps, well, not sure if they work.

It's a nightmare and they have also dug a load of tunnels into and under the run.

We've got chickens and I've never seen any evidence of rats. We do have a cat though who's a good hunter (come to think of it I found a few random kidneys in the flower bed the other day) and there are lots of cats in the local area.

We are quite clean with their food, keep it in a bin with clips on the handles, make sure any excess is swept up etc.

I've never seen one, we have a million local cats though. We have food everywhere as DS2 tips out the bowl several times daily.

we keep our feed in a metal dustbin and have another metal dustbid where we place the feeder at night. This keeps the rats at bay as they cannot get to the feed.

We also sit the feeder in a big tray so that the feed does not go all over the ground near the chicken coop. This also means that there is no food for rats at night.

Good place for metal dust bins with lids is wilkinsons. V V Cheap

Yes they will come in your house and nibble your toes off :( i said no to my kid (josh) and he started to cry. so i let him have a chicken and of course the next day he woke up and he had no toes!!!!!

Apologies! I have discovered that it is never wise to remain logged on when not using the PC if a teenage nephew is in the house!

I do keep the feed in a bag in the conservatory (no rats). and some corn outside in a metal dustbin with close fitting lid.

I wasn't sure about the food thing - our farmer said always top it up when it's empty, so if they go to roost in the shed and it's empty, I top it up.

Is that wrong? Maybe I should just feed first thing in the morning and not overnight.

Ha ha @ moonstone's nephew.

We have mice, not sure what, if anything to do. They are only in the garden so far.

Yes it's true that mice and rats are in lots of places. We have had a problem but used live humane traps to relocate them to woods far away from houses. But nature has a way of redressing any inbalance and at night, we have cats and an owl who hunt in our garden.

People are scaremongers! People with compost bins or who feed birds (like most of us) are at just as much risk of rodents as chicken keepers.

Thanks everyone; hopefully cat next door and owls hanging about will pick a few of them off. Will ensure feed to kept secure and I'm not poncing about like a Timotei advert scattering grain from my white linen apron (woven by nuns etc)

Henrietta et al...here we come!

Dh now says he want to call 'his' Paxo- the brute...

don't let them nibble your toes off though!!!!!!! :)

We have one residual rat who will not be caught. I have sprinkled hot chilli powder outside and around the aviary - near where I have seen tunnelling.

Overnight, no rat poo.