Hi there! Dawn here.
I have a rat in my coop storage that is crapping the largest rat craps I have ever seen.
I first saw them there on the floor I truly didn't know what they were. At least not until I bent down and upon further inspection (which by the way) is when the stink of their special morsels hit my nasal passages as well.
Then I started looking around. Little nibbles here and there munched into bags of treats there on the shelves. One discovery lead to the next. The scene of the crime continued to unfold.
Eating Oyster Shell? Are you kidding me. I know this stuff is good. It's the best actually. It's REAL OYSTER SHELLS. But, come on. There's bags upon bags of treats too. Why oyster shells?
The umbrella for the girls umbrella dust station.
It's laughable. Go ahead and laugh. I did. How can you not?
Next up: the fabric shade for the ladies to summer under... ripe with the stench of rat urine aka: the stagnant smell of subway urinal on a hot summer night. They clearly need to hydrate more b'cause that aroma is hideous.
Even my handy dust pan and hand broom: they ate a zillion of the spiny broom bristles and left them there on the floor. Genuine A Holes.
The final straw was opening my cabinet doors..both of my hands on the handles, pulling the doors toward me to reveal:
At this point you'd think I'd be ready to burst into flames furious. Yes and no.
Charlie usto manage all this rat, mouse, rodent, gopher nonsense for me. Boy do I miss him. And, there is no way Jose I'm letting Sparky and Bruno up in here. As close as they get to the chickens is sitting on the porch letting out the occasional walrus bark when they see my feathered friends doing their thing in the run.
To date: Sparky + Bruno want to eat the chickens.
So it takes me a few hours to sift through dust pans full of rat shit and chewed up this-and-that to get things looking human-habitable. Then, since it's "spring" I went ahead and took this forced upon me "opportunity" to rearrange a few things, make a donate pile (feeders, fountains, buckets, metal water cans: stuff) and I set a series of traps in.all.the.right places.
Here's the situation: even though I am a good human, an animal loooooover and overall am hoping to have access to the pearly gates when my time comes......I am going to kill these MF'ers.
Or so I thought.
This is what I walk into the next morning. Did Head Rat call a team meeting so they could all pontificate in this one spot adjacent to the trap and have themselves a craptastic hoedown of sorts? One rat can.not crap that much crap. Can they?
So where does this leave us?
Below is my list, an arsenal of suggested, recommended rat-be-gone products and strategies that I've used in the past, am using now or have been recently suggested to me because my friend......if you have chickens you have gone through this or will in the very near future. See links below. Not sponsored btw.
Wishing you all the best in health + happiness and simple rat eradication!!
