Rats/Hay Shed

[Kodidog763]

This morning I discovered a dead rat at the door to my hay shed. :eek: Are rats like mice (if you see one, you probably have 100)?

Is hay enough to attract rats? I would have thought they required other type of food? The only thing in my hay shed is hay. Grain is stored inside my house. The horses eat using nose bags (so they don’t spill/waste much, if any, grain) and the sacrifice area (where they are fed) is no where near the hay shed. What else (if hay isn’t enough) would attract rats?

Currently, my horses live out 24/7 with a run-in shed. Since I don’t have a barn, I don’t have any barn cats. I have seen a couple of cats around, not sure if they belong to neighbors or are feral.

Are traps effective at eliminating rats from a hay shed (vinyl shelter logic type of building)? Or will I be fighting a losing battle using traps?

Besides traps, is there anything else I can/should be doing to take care of this problem? Poison is not an option, as I’m not interested in poisoning anything that might eat the rats, including my dogs.

[HPFarmette]

I have not ever heard of rats being attracted to hay. Hopefully it was just by chance it died there and there are not others. Could it have been poisoned elsewhere and came to die on your farm? I have a Shelter Logic hay shed and found a dead fox in there last winter.

[Epona142]

There is nothing but hay in our hay barn and my dog and I hunt in there - we catch mostly mice and voles and the very rare rat. We’re far more likely to catch a rat when we go out in the fields and start flipping over things.

[BuddyRoo]

Meh, just get some snakes. You’ll be fine.

Seriously though, they’re probably just trying to find a place to nest. I honestly wouldn’t be too worried about them if all you have is hay. That’s not what they eat. And they’re pretty low risk as far as being a vector for something nasty. May have even been dragged in there by something else like a cat you don’t yet know about.

[SouthernYankee]

I’ve got rats in my hay barn… I do not have barn cats and fiancé likes to kill the good snakes… so I’m having the same issue as you, how to safely get rid of the rats. I’m also infested with spiders. I don’t have to feed hay or grain during the summers so the hay shed gets taken over with anything and everything that loves dark places without any activity.

A neighbor uses 2 liter coke bottles with poison in them, dogs and cat’s can’t get to the poison but the mice can, I haven’t tried it yet but it’s tempting. The suckers are so big they can snap traps without getting caught and they can drag off the glus traps. I’m just not sold on putting out poison yet.

[HPFarmette]

I have to “police the area” in case my cats have killed a mouse overnight in my house, before the dogs can find it and eat it. I would never put out poison, for that reason. Dog finds dead mouse, I find dead dog…

[Kodidog763]

Thanks for all of the replies!

Meh, just get some snakes. You’ll be fine.
Shudder! Snakes. I’m actually terrified of snakes. We do have garter snakes here, but most of the ones I’ve seen are too small to take out a rat (not sure they are even big enough for a mouse). I haven’t seen any in a while, but it’s getting cooler, so I suppose they aren’t as active.

I would never put out poison, for that reason. Dog finds dead mouse, I find dead dog…

I agree, we won’t do poison. There is too much risk to our own dogs, and any of the other animals that might catch/eat the poisoned mouse/rat.

It looks like the rat might have had a couple of bite marks (but it wasn’t torn up by any means), so I do wonder if a fox or a cat killed it and left it there.

I am hoping this is a random, out of place rat, so I don’t have to worry about it. Fingers crossed.

[Epona142]

Yeah our farm and dairy (rightly, in my opinion) refuses to use poison, so that’s one reason we hunt the barn. We also do have snakes - Big Momma and her husband. We scare them up from time to time, but they are our hunting friends and we do not harass them. They are very welcome. Rodents spread disease, snakes do not.

I actually shot the rat after Ana cornered it (air rifle) - I think she could have taken it but didn’t want to take the chance.

Hopefully that’s the last rat you see for a while.

[Jason]

The cats should keep it under control

[dkcbr]

Agree you might not have a problem. But, as odd as it sounds, check the horses’ manure for partially undigested feed just to be sure there’s nothing there that will be attractive to rats. <gag>

[gypsymare]

I’ve seen the electric traps recommended here before for rats. I got one for mice and it has been extremely effective. Easy to dispose of the critters.

[Linda]

We have 6 barn cats and that takes care of any lingering rats or mice. Our barn cats are all rescues from the local shelter (we pick them up on their last night before euthanasia) abd what a difference it makes.
We DO have raccoons in the barn and my husband traps them. Then we take them about 45 minutes from our barn (up in the mountains) and release them in the wild. We have not had any return…but we do get the occasional new resident. Raccoons are nasty critters. So wear leather gloves when handling the cages. That probably goes for all critters as they will undoubtedly be pretty pissed off to see you coming while they are stuck in the trap! We try and keep our cats sort of “semi feral” so they still want to go hunt the errant critter that is taking up residency in the barn. We do trap them and get them fixed, shots etc) and then we feed them every night. The cats know supper is coming and hang around meowing, but we dont give them much attention as we want them to be semi feral and hunt down the unwanted barn critters. Made a HUGE difference almost overnight when we got our first cat some yrs ago. Now we get donations from neighbors that we are happy to add to our flock of cats. We dont see them much at all during the day, but they are all present at night when we feed the horses - and they know they get food too!

[Kodidog763]

I saw those electronic traps. If I see any evidence of additional rats, I may try one of them.

I would like to have a couple of cats, but until we put up the barn, I have no where for them to live. I’m also hoping to wait until our oldest dog has passed. She was attacked by a feral cat when she was young, and she holds a grudge, and will attack any cat she sees. :no: I think the rest of my dogs would run, tail between their legs, from a hissing cat.

I did see one of the neighborhood/feral(?) cats yesterday hunting in the pasture. Hopefully he/she sticks around and will take care of any vermin!

[CFFarm]

Just because you had one doesn’t mean you have more if you catch the problem early. We had one starting to share the pony’s dinner. I watched his track and set an old fashioned baited, snap trap up in the rafters where he would come in. Got him in one day and haven’t seen another. Years ago I had one coming into a feed room and searched until I found his entrance. Blocked it off with metal and he gave up and never came back. If they are nesting chances are you have a family somewhere. Cats or terriers are you best bet if you can’t use poison safely. I’m in Florida and have a lot of snakes but they prefer the toads. I know of several farms in the area that hoped the problem would just go away and they became over run.

[x-halt-salute]

I had rats move in to the hay shed at the place I used to manage even though nothing more appealing (e.g. concentrated feeds) was stored there. Our hay was on pallets, and the spaces in the pallets, with a bit of chaff fallen through, was the perfect nesting environment for them. When I pulled out the hay I found stashes of food that must have been scavenged from elsewhere on the property (e.g. fallen bits of grain that horses must have dribbled out over doors/gates and been unable to clean up, horse cookies that had been improperly stored, bits of carrot). I cleaned out the nests/stashes, tightened up the handling of all feed and treats, and introduced a cat, and that put an end to it for the remainder of my time at tha facility.

My impression, based on this experience and a number of experiences finding mice/rat nests in bins of blankets and saddle pads put up for off-season storage is that if there is any sort of food source nearby, nesting materials are the next strongest draw for rodents. And that it’s true that when you see one, there are probably a hundred nearby, just out of sight.

[Hulk]

We have plenty of barn cats to take care of rodents. But I have been told that cola works. Just set out a fresh dish every night. I have been told that the rats drink it then die. I don’t know if this is true or if it works as I have not had to use it.

Rats will chew the bailing twine on your bails, thus you end up with a bunch of loose hay. And animals don’t like to eat it if rats have nested in it. I have a friend that does a lot of hay sales and he had that happen. So he rebailed all the loose hay. He couldn’t sell it because his customers horses wouldn’t eat it, so he fed it to his cows. Well they turned their nose up to it as well. So he had to sell it as mulch.

I would treat the situation as if you see one, there are hundred as well. That’s always been the rule of thumb here on the farm. I also think rats are far more likely to get into hay stored at ground level rather than in a loft. This was the case for my friend. He always stored in lofts, but the hay the rats ransacked was in an old unused riding ring at ground level.

[rockymouse]

I live on the edge of our small town and on the south, north and east of us is unbroken country. Our cats commonly catch rats. These aren’t the Nordic rats that live in the city but kangaroos and packrats. Somehow that makes a difference to me…not as icky.

We were having a mouse issue in the barn and the house cat evidently didn’t want to include the barn in her patrol. We trapped a feral kitten behind the convenience store this summer and installed him out there. Poof! He’s young but good at his job. One or two cats really make a big difference in rodents. And snakes, too - my husband watched our two adult feral barn cats tag-team hunt a three-foot Western diamondback inside our former barn.

And as an aside, chickens are really helpful with spiders and fleas and possibly snakes. We have a rooster - they all free range - and we’ve not seen a snake close to the house at all this summer, although we’ve seen plenty of snakes out in the fields.

[Mozart]

It may be a random rat that was dragged there or poisoned elsewhere and went there to die. I found a dead rat in February and have not seen another since. I don’t think I would sound the alarm until quite yet. It is the time of year when pests are looking to move inside and maybe he tried to move into your neighbour’s house.

[Kodidog763]

I really wish I could add a cat. I feel like that would be our best option, but I guess I’ll have to use traps and see if we catch anything.

But I have been told that cola works. Just set out a fresh dish every night. I have been told that the rats drink it then die.
I’ve heard this as well… but my internet searches haven’t verified that it actually works.