Most rats have no interest in eating hay. Seeds baled in the hay maybe, but hay is most certainly not on a rats list of yummy things.
Signed, someone who has had way too many pet rats in their life.
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I had a rat problem when I fed whole flax, as they picked through the manure for the seeds. When I had a horse that spilt his feed, I used a feed bag for him. I have found that the bucket traps work really, really well for rodents if you have an abundance of them. My sister caught over 100 mice in her chicken coop over a few days with a couple bucket traps. Once the population dwindles, they seems to become much more difficult to trap the rest.
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I’m allergic to rat pee; asthma response and horrible rash. My solution was to rat proof my hay storage and feed room. We also made sure rats could not set up household under the barn or in the walls. All vegetation removed and replaced with stone dust around the perimeter so they had no cover. Grain and supplements buckets are removed and put into feed room after 30 minutes of being placed out for each horse. Seems to be working. Use snap traps in the fall for the passing thru looking for a home rats. Good to know there are baits available that won’t kill predators who eat the poisoned rat.
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How does one rat proof hay storage?
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Good question. We framed our sliding doors from the inside so there were no gaps between the door and floor and the walls. Have 2 outside and 1 inside sliding door. The metal siding at ground level had 2x4’s placed along its edges to block access into the walls. Every access point was filled. The biggest challenge is to make sure I close the inside door after every use. The odd rat has gotten in and perished from dehydration. One tried to chew its way out without success. My allergy is a great rat detector. 
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I board so don’t have to deal with vermin directly. Yesterday I walked into my tack room and there was a dead rat on the floor courtesy of Barn cat Phoebe. I immediately went to the office and said get it out of my tack room. I pay $675 a month which includes dead rat removal. We had a good laugh and one of the trainers went in and scooped it up.
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Prepping morning feed one ran from by the feed bins, and I saw some fresh footprints in the dust on the other side of the barn.
Set out some freshly baited traps and glue boards. Let’s see if he/she/they fall for it.
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If you are going to use glue traps please be humane about it and watch them carefully and kill the poor things so they do not have to lay there and starve to death.
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I check them daily, and dispatch immediately. There are 4 down at all times and more as needed. I hate having to use them but a trap smart rodent still can not live here.
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Got him, in the snap trap. Big Norway rat!
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I have poultry and I have a rat infestation. I’m afraid there is no way to have poultry and NOT have rodents; poultry spills so much feed as they eat.
I have had rats in my truck, nesting in the cabin air filter, twice in four weeks. The second round, FOUR rotisserie’d baby rats were found on the filter.
I called in a pro. Days later, I visited neighbors. It is a rat war over there. Snap traps, bucket traps, bait stations, a cat, a dog, poison, etc. Guy says he stopped counting after the death count climbed to 70!!! 
We are doomed.
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Gross. I’d have the entire poultry run surrounded by traps to start, and surround your tires or whoever they’re climbing into your truck with traps too.
I’m sorry!
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Also - could you make the entire poultry run out of hardware cloth?
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This is my thought too. Bury enough so they can not dig in from underneath. Make sure there are no openings bigger than 1/2".
Once you get the population dwindled down to something more reasonable, it will be easier to keep it from ballooning up again.
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I have poultry and no rats in my chicken coop/run. The run is hardware mesh, and there’s an apron of hardware mesh that extends all around the coop & run.
It’s some work to set up, but it IS rat proof.
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If the run isn’t too big, I’d eliminate the digging it in and do the floor, too. I’d be too scared to do all that work and have a VERY determined critter still dig into it.
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In the future if I have an opportunity to build from scratch, it will be a complete cube of hardware cloth: roof, walls, entire floor.
Like everything else here, I make do with existing structures. The coop has a hardware cloth floor and apron. The run is just woven wire fencing with an apron.
Most of the time, I feed in the run and I only feed the amount I know they will eat in one sitting. It looks like they clean up the dirt floor pretty well.
When I have to be away, I fill a gravity feeder in the coop. Then so much feed falls into the bedding.
Is this where you’re running into issues with the rats? Hardware mesh generally works well to exclude–can you further limit their access? How are they getting in?
Terad3 might help, but it’s awfully hard to make much of a dent unless you can really lock down the food sources and force them to the bait.
Oh, too–why are your hens wasting so much? Are they kicking out feed looking for the best bits? Are your feeders hung high enough? Do they just not really like the feed? I really have no waste from gravity feeders, and I’m not doing anything special. I don’t think a ton of waste is just to be expected?
Our girls did not get this message.
Someone in the group will empty the gravity feeder almost instantly.
I am sure she is digging around for something other than layer pellets (and never finding it). But the whole feeder gets emptied into the bedding and then they have to dig around looking for food.
