One thing we learned, that when you have chickens (or other poultry) you have extra food around. As efficient as they are, they don’t always clean up after themselves.
We have been battling rats for the past year. If they were only in the chicken yard, I would be upset, but the fact that they are getting in my vegetable garden, I am livid. We built a giant cage a few years ago that is deer, rabbit and bird proof. It turns out, that it is not rat proof.
A full size rat can squeeze down to 1/2″. That is not a very big opening, and pretty hard to prevent them from getting everywhere.
It turns out that the rat problem in the Austin area has been worse due to the drought. The drought kills animals, both rats and their predators. Rats, however, recover much faster. The speed in which they reproduce can quickly cause an infestation, with no natural predators around.
A few months ago we rescued 2 cats. One is a great ratter, and one not so much. Carl (above) is quite a hunter. His only flaw is that he has a tendency to bring live rats in the house. The first few times I jumped up on a chair, but it’s amazing what you can get used to given enough exposure.
Carl has been helping, but it’s way too big a task for him singlehandedly.
We have been setting traps nightly. We go through phases where we catch a bunch and then things will be quiet for a while. The trick is to find out the rats natural path and set the traps.
We have found these traps to be the most effective.
I set traps in the vegetable garden as well as in the chicken yard. Since we don’t want to accidentally catch a chicken, we have used one of our extra coops (the mom and baby coop which is currently empty). Each night I sprinkle a little food in there and set a few traps. If you care to look closely you can see where we caught 2 rats last night.
It’s a slow process, I’ve heard it can take years, but we just have to keep at it.
The one thing you don’t want to do is poison the rats. When the predator eats the poisoned rat, there is often enough poison to kill the natural predator as well.
willsfamilyacres 
We have had an on again off again rat problem here as well. They some times can be heard running on the porch roof. I at first thought it to be squirrels but finally seen a couple.My Blue Lacy dog has caught several in the beds but I think she causes more plant damage trying to catch them than the rats do. The traps have worked the best for us as well.
Marshal has caught a few as well, but he’s not allowed in the vegetable garden — for obvious reasons.
Oh man, what a problem. Yuck! Good for Carl. A zoologist once told me that one key to successful rat-catching is to vary where you place the traps and what you bait them with. They’re so smart that they’ll figure out, after one or two are caught, what’s going on and then avoid the traps. I don’t know about that, but it makes sense to me. Good luck! Maybe another good cat ratter??
If the we stop catching rats I’ll definitely try mixing up location and bait. Thanks! My husband was thinking a rat terrier, but I am at my pet limit right now.
Battling rats is an ongoing issue in Austin, even if you don’t keep chickens.
There is a problem here in Steiner too. Our bird feeders attract them. I switched to a no-mess blend and moved the feeders to a spot where the rats don’t have good cover for hiding. It seems to have helped but really only time will tell. I have noticed less evidence of them and an increase in coyotes on the trail behind our house. That might be helping; that and the owls that live nearby. It’s always something 🙂 Keep fighting the good fight!
Thanks, you too. Think it may be a never ending battle though.