CritterCam Reveals Yet More Rats and a Plea to Not Use Poison

My beautiful picture

Taking a cue from the NSA, I blew up and enhanced one of the images our CritterCam took over the weekend. It reveals two rats peeking out from under the shed.

It may be time to consider locking up the chicken feed at night. That and a little cleanup behind and around the shed are the only things I feel the need to do.

A rant on rat poison
Thankfully, the general public can no longer buy d-CON rat poison in California. Unfortunately, professionals still have access to even more toxic chemicals. These poisons have been linked to the recent illness of the magnificent mountain lion that lives in nearby Griffith Park. Check out the before and after photos to see what these horrible chemicals can do.

It’s my hope that the principles of Integrated Pest Managment, developed by a team of scientists at the University of California in the 1950s will gain even more traction. I met the daughter of one of the UC researchers who developed IPM. She told me that her dad had basically sacrificed his career to further the IPM cause. At the time, and to some extent to this day, there’s a lot of incentive to sell poisons.

IPM offers a balanced, common sense approach to dealing with critters like rats: observe, reduce habitat for the creatures we don’t want and increase habitat for predators, use barriers, use biological controls and use toxins as a very last resort.

Our own health and the health our planet demands a less toxic approach to pest management.

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6 Comments

  1. Rats. Ugh. I always recommend that urban chicken keepers keep a galvanized can near the coop and put the feeder in there at night. No need to feed the nighttime denizens. Rats can’t make burrows in loose gravel, so ambitious coop builders can put in a gravel-filled trench. Just so you know, though, it’s not just urban coops that host rats. E.B. White knew something about them on his farm in Maine (as seen in Charlotte’s Web.) You’re right, though, don’t use the poison! It’s all about management.

  2. I store my chicken food in a metal garbage can with a tight fitting lid. In addition I no longer leave a feeder full of food out all day, but feed a measured amount of chicken food once a day. I originally did the “free choice” feeder, fill it once a week or so, but the first time I saw a big rat sitting up in the middle of the hen yard in the afternoon, eating my expensive chook food and staring at me, was the last day that feeder was in use. I don’t buy organic food for rats, I know that they are endemic in cities but I don’t want to encourage them. My chicken house is up on legs, so that is no habitat for them, but underneath sheds and garages all around are plenty of hidey-holes. It never occurred to me to use poison, though I did set a big “snap” rat trap and caught one a day or two later. Haven’t seen rats in my yard or their droppings in the shed since then.

  3. when I first left grad school I was an IPM educator for a county in Illinois, advising farmers on various farming practices, including how to control pests through that balanced approach you mentioned. In this day and age it is a no go – just get out of my way and let me farm. Boo. I get really tired of the ranting that goes on about Monsanto- I have a lot of friends working for Monsato, who are not evil geniuses, mad scientists or fat corporate greedmeisters. It really is the farmers who are eager to put into practice all the technology out there that is going to make it easier to farm more acres, and increase their profit.

    • The poor kitties are indoor cats, so not at fault– but at any rate, the rats are as big as they are, so I’m just as glad they’re not out there tangling with them. However, I do want to have a word or two with the fat neighbor cats who are always sunning themselves in the yard and watching the chicken tv.

  4. Just keep in mind that rats are not benign critters. They have been the bane of human existence since history started to keep a record. Typhoid, Typhus, Leptospirosis, and Bubonic Plague.
    They are hosts to rat fleas and the blood sucking conenose or kissing bug which is in turn a host and vector for Chagus disease, a potentially chronic disease with rather severe long term complications.
    Some people have a severe allergy to the anticoagulant used by the Blood Sucking Conenose bug which in at least one person I know brought about an almost fatal anaphylactic reaction.
    These are not pets, nor should you act like they are.
    Traps of many kinds are available and they should be employed to effect control.
    Rats are destructive, they will get into your house eventually, they will shit and piss over your belongings and at the very least their stink will invade your senses long term. They chew holes in everything, ruin all food stuffs they come in contact with.
    If you have chicks the rats can kill them if they gain access to your coop. If anyone tells you this does not happen, I am telling you I have seen it.
    A very interesting observation of mine is that if you have abundant rats you probably won’t have a mouse problem. and if you have lots of mice you probably don’t have a rat problem. I have busted open rat nests and found mouse skeletons inside. The Nutcracker Suite had it right.
    Don’t think this is a joke.
    Keep hem as far away from your abode as possible because it only takes a moment for them to get in an open door or through a crack.
    Kill them all.

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