Any advice on getting rid of rats? Dogs found a nest and the more we looked the more we found. Poison, traps, baits, what's the best way?

Dog's doing a fine job of it already! LOL

I cycle through 3 different poisons, which contain different ingredients. It doesn't matter which poisons you use. Some rats will get a food adversion and stop eating the bait, so you will have to shoot or kill some by other methods.

Keith

Fire crackers and shotguns that's how the Amish do it!

Hit them really hard with traps right away the 1st night. Like overkill it. They wise up FAST.

We fought an infestation of rats in our barn the summer of 2024. Livestock fed in there. Tried trapping, eco friendly bait bc of the dogs, what a joke, you name it. We finally got some "barn cats" from the pound. 2 males are excellent on rats. In 30 days they had them nearly gone. Haven't seen a rat in months.

How do you set it up so that the dogs can't get into it? I can just keep the dogs away for awhile also.

The dogs and cats can't get into the barns I put the poison in. To keep the birds out of it, we put in in the holes in the fiber board that covers the studs. Every once in a while a rat will carry a piece of the poison out. If a chicken or rooster eats it, their combs and wattles turn real pale and they get weak. If we notice that we give them a veterinary vitamin K tablet. It's much higher dosage then the human supplements. It usually saves them.

I recommend having some of the vitamin K tablets on hand in case your dog or another pet gets into the poison.

I don't like using poison, but nothing else is as easily effective.

Keith

The best rat dogs Ive ever seen were Jack Russell Terriers. I bought pheasants from a guy who also raised JRTs. When the last of the birds were out of the pens, he cut the dogs loose. Those dogs were each killing a rat a minute. Digging them out, tossing them into the air. It was wild watching them .

good luck they are very smart and learn quick,

Snakes

Poison usually cleans them up, I have 2 kinds from TSC, they make, or you can fabricate, boxes for the poison blocks that only rats and mice can get to....put out plenty first thing, you should notice a big difference in a few days....for mice in the basement I use snap traps, slower but I got time...lol

This is the reason I have always kept 4 to 6 outside cats on the property. They keep the rodent population to near zero.

The farm that abuts my property to the southeast is overrun with rats. The guy is not a farmer or he would already have barn cats, he’s a former car dealership owner who plays at farming. I have told him many times he needs to get a small herd of feral cats on his property but he refuses to do it even though he tells me stories of how the rats are overrunning his farmhouse.

Occasionally, one of them strays onto my property and is usually quickly dispatched by one of my cats. My wife just found a dead one down by the pond two nights ago, that’s the first one we’ve seen in about a year. She didn’t have anything pleasant to say about our gentleman farmer to the southeast. LOL

Rats are neophobic, they don’t like new things and will shy away from traps that have been recently set or poison bait piles recently placed.

Cats are a full time, very effective rodent control. They are far more effective than traps or poison have ever been for me.

Cats aren't a option. Cats kill wesels and wesels work over the mice also. My dogs also won't tolerate a cat

Someone on here, I forget the name, liked the gas bombs for nuking their tunnels, claimed very effective but I have no experience with them...but if they're tunneling under a barn or out building might be an option for quick control.

This and traps

I've heard of these cats but not seen one.
Witness them yield right of way to the feed.
Perhaps cats too well fed.

I have reduced the habitat.
Can not do that for the chipmunks.

One horse farm went to tin lined
feed storage bunks.
Big help.

Our cats are killing machines. Many on this fourm get all up set about them killing wildlife when let outside. Well you have to pick your poison.

When we got the farm mice would talke off when you walked in the barn. Once we moved in along with us came our cats. Out outdoor cats really took to barn life and the mice vanished Its been years since I have seen a mouse in the barn.

Ours stay well feed.

Yep, I’ll take a few dead, songbirds, rabbits and squirrels along with the mice, moles, rats, and chipmunks they kill on a regular basis.

All my outside cats are spayed females. They stick around the property and hunt rodents, that’s their job.

My three labs get along with my five cats. They are just one big happy family. LOL

If you have rat holes put some pellets down the holes and cover it up well don’t let anything eat the dead rats. Poisons dangerous see if you can find bold thinner “poison” it works by body weight rather then being toxic.