Whole house renovated in one day!!!!!

[skier-hughes]

I have today done a whole house renovation in under 8 hours!!!!

As we had rats moving in with the chickens, buy burrowing underneath and gnawing through the floor, I cleaned them out, cut out some sections of old floor, filled holes under floor with concrete, put down new floor, put new floor covering in place and fitted a storage heater with a solar pv panel, to try to keep them warm and laying over the winter.

I stopped at KK curtains on their window as they have a shutter and that works good enough.

They have some routes out from under the shed so I've put some poison powder down these holes and lightly covered them with plastic tubs to stop other wildlife getting at it.

Now to see what the little blighters do next!!

 

[Jellyfire]

They'll probably just move in, it sounds lovely in there!

 

[robgil]

Buy a cat.
A cat that doesnt like chicken.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh well done Graham, that sounds good. Love those days when you really feel like you've changed their lives for the better ( the chickies, not the rats!) Mine got a huge pan of warm mashed potato, carrot and mince today.

What floor covering have you used? I keep mine on a good 3 inches deep clean dust extracted wood shavings, which are great for insulation and keeping mites down.

And you have shutters! Mine will be jealous to hear that, as well as the solar heat! I've just been thinking about whether it's time to drag in the extension leads and plug in radiators ( I've got two big sheds of fluffs which makes twice the work). I don't find extra heat makes a scrap of difference with the lay, as far as they're concerned spring starts in Jan and that's when they go back into lay. I've got two Light Sussex laying all through - they're a great winter bird, but the Orpingtons, certainly not! This is vital feather growing time and they need all their energy for the huge winter duvets they wear.

Like you I've been busy poisoning rats, horrible horrible creatures.

 

[robgil]

Rats are lovely animals, Did you know the Gambian pouched rat is used for detecting land mines and is also used for detecting tuberculosis?
They laugh when tickled (although then human ear cannot hear it), Beatrix Potter, the author of Peter Rabbit, was one of the first owners of a pet rat - an albino bred by none other than Queen Victoria's royal rat catcher Jack Black,
Rats very lovable animals. They love being in the group of their own species or humans. They like playing collectively and love to sleep curled up together. They take care of the injured and sick rats in their group. When rats don’t have friendship, they can become lonely, depressed, anxious and stressed. A group of rats is called a mischief.
Rats are a very clean animal; they spend several hours per day grooming, rats have a dry bite due to the placement of their teeth, so a rat bite is less dangerous than a cat or dog bite. Rats were not responsible for the black death, if anything dogs and cats were more to blame.

 

[Flyfisher]

Rats are a very clean animal; . . . .

. . . but have no bladder control so leave a constant trail of urine behind them, which is handy for marking their territory but not so good if they happen to be carrying Weils disease.

Rats are lovely animals, Did you know the Gambian pouched rat is used for detecting land mines . . .

No I didn't, but it sounds like an ideal use for them.

 

[tycarregydwr]

How does the cleanliness jive with the whole spreading Vile (haha see what I did there) diseases thing then. And the assertion that rats were not responsible for the plague - in terms of harbouring the fleas that carried it - seems to go against general consensus... I certainly don't want them in my house, and will try everything to keep them away from my chickens when I get them!

My brother said that large poultry operations that he's seen use lime - about a foot of lime down under static runs to prevent rat intrusion.

 

[JoceAndChris]

If rats take care of their sick then why did they eat their babies off the traps I set? That wasn't very kind!
Must say though, mites and worms have killed my birds occasionally but rats never have, agree they need aggressive extermination but don't think they carry a serious threat to poultry ( but do to the poultry keeper!).

Lime is meant to be very good for sweetening the soil, but as with all chickeneering tasks you have to do these things over and over. I haven't tried it for rats. The problem with a big old shed is you can't get under, which is why I'd strongly advise any new chickeneer to buy a house with wheels that can be moved and surround it with electric poultry netting on a battery - not set up any kind of permanent structure.

 

[skier-hughes]

Shavings no, I got one like this, just loved the rooster, seemed so appropriate, bit smaller to fit shed and a fraction cheaper thank goodness

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMAZING-PERSIAN-PICTORIAL-ANTIQUE-RUG-ROOSTER-PORTRAIT-/220932126954#vi-content

 

[AMc]

Did you know the Gambian pouched rat is used for detecting land mines and is also used for detecting tuberculosis?

Misread that as Poached Rat which put into mind lobbing dead rats into minefields.
Guess I'm not properly awake yet

 

[88v8]

Rats are lovely animals....

Not denying the positive aspects of rats, indeed I think we have them to thank for our sudden dearth of mice.... I had been in the habit of lobbing the daily deceased mice out of the east door over the edge of the terrace into the flowerbed (sounds ghastly but the garden slopes steeply and they just vanish) until recently at the lobbing point we found a deceased rat. Plump, sleek, no apparent cause of death, but there it was... and a mouse left on the terrace in the new and overzealous trap that had pretty much cut it messily in half, the mouse vanished overnight..... so putting this together I deduce that the sudden absence of mice from the attic and the garden is down to rats. Thankyou, rats.

Also, I gather from research in Hornblower that rats taste like chicken, which pretty much closes this Topic's circle.

Ivor

 

[Moo]

Are you sure it wasn't foxes? - the vast allotment site north of Naarch was kept totally free of vermin thanks to the thriving family of foxes that inhabited an abandoned plot there.