rodent control in barns????

[mike033089]

what do you guys with barns do to keep rats away, mice are mice but i wont do rats!  i recently saw some signs of something possibly bigger than a mouse in my barn, and sure enough caught a rat.  absolutely disgusted by them, and they have to go.  any good tips of killing them in barns with animals around.  i have chickens and mini pigs in 2 different stalls and am thinking poison would be a no go if they ate a dead rat or mouse.  im leaning towards a cat or 2 and removing all the gravity feeders out for the hens and only feeding them enough to last a day vs them self feeding.  i also sprayed all the vegeation 25' back from the barn and the sides as it sits up against the woods.  anyone ever home a cat so it stays living in the barn?  

[Rather Be Hunting]

Rats are to big for most cats to kill, they will help with mice if you don’t over feed them. Poison works best and to keep your animals safe get some bait box’s. Place 2-3 around your shed and make sure to rebait as needed. 

[Kype]

pellet rifle. go out at night. or buy the large victor rat traps. place them along the walls and any holes where they are entering. 

[Woodsman416]

I used to walk in my horse barn and sometimes see a rat go scurrying into a hole. I'd only see them for a second as I walked in. I set some traps and caught a few but I'd still see their diggings and catch sight of one every once in a while. 

One day, the horses were out in the field and I was working in one of the stalls. I looked over the lower stall door and I see three or four rats digging around in the shavings. I was moving around in the stall and they didn't run. I figured that they thought I was a horse in the stall. I went in the garage and got a 22, went back into the stall, waited 10 minutes and shot a half dozen of them. Problem solved.

[OldMenRule]

Get an owl. I believe they are natural hunters of rodents.

Edited July 23, 2021 by OldMenRule

[Tarhunt]

If you don't want to use poison, I would purchase T-Rex snap traps and put them in tamper resistant boxes. Bait them with slim jim's or grain that you use to feed the chickens or pigs. 

[mike033089]

8 minutes ago, Tarhunt said:

If you don't want to use poison, I would purchase T-Rex snap traps and put them in tamper resistant boxes. Bait them with slim jim's or grain that you use to feed the chickens or pigs. 

If I did want to go the poison route any suggestions?  The tomcat stuff at tractor supply? I would consider all options to hopefully stop it from progressing to too many to handle.  I don’t know anything about them however I’m assuming if I only got 1 out of 6 traps in the barn that it’s not overrun yet. 

[Pathman]

Get a good pellet rifle and some tac lights and sit in the barn at night. 
watch the British guys on you tube, they’re into the rat killing big time. 

[BHC]

[Tarhunt]

10 minutes ago, mike033089 said:

If I did want to go the poison route any suggestions?  The tomcat stuff at tractor supply? I would consider all options to hopefully stop it from progressing to too many to handle.  I don’t know anything about them however I’m assuming if I only got 1 out of 6 traps in the barn that it’s not overrun yet. 

The over the counter stuff does work. Tracking powder works really well but, it's a restricted use only for professionals. 

[WVAhunter08]

So my buddy has a large barn on his farm which has a horrible rat problem a few years back. He tried traps, poison and shooting them but never could kill enough to make a dent. 

He ended up getting his hands on 2 feral cats from inner city philly. He had to keep them in a crate for a week inside the barn to acclimate them so they wouldn’t run off. The next morning after he released them he said it was like a rat slaughterhouse inside the barn lol. They literally killed dozens in the first night and he hasn’t had a problem since.

How he or anyone else would go about getting a feral cat is beyond me BUT I would try a philly animal shelter. I know they bring in a lot of strays. Good luck man, rats make my skin crawl too! 

[CJ3a]

First thing make sure the manure pile is far from the barn. Then do a better job with containing the feed. Tough to do with chickens.  

[Zipper]

Barn cats 🐈 will kill rats no problem.  So will any Jack Russell terrier or similar dog.

[trapperjake]

Mink man on you tube. 

[Michael Britt]

I live in Hudson County. Rats are NOT too big for cats! I work in a 600 acre facility in Bayonne along the waterfront and have never seen a rat onsite in 2+ years. The semi-feral cats and Red Foxes must be doing a great job. They say if you are actually seeing rodents, that means there's a lot! Problem with cats is they kill a lot of other stuff too...