# Rat droppings in the hay.



## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Is there a disease risk? What should I do? There is no way I can keep the rats out of it, and I don't want to be continually throwing out hay.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

Boy, that is a tough one. Can you set traps?

I'm really not sure about throwing out or not the hay. I paid $6.50 per bale for mine so I would be hard pressed to throw anything out. Plus it would be hard to find more good hay at this time of the year.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Oh wow that is awful, I'd definitely set some kind of traps for them. We had a ton of mice in our barn and shed, my husband put down poison <we don't have any cats>, made sure the goats couldn't get into it, and I haven't seen a mouse in a few months!

Is there a way when you feed your hay you can tear it apart and kind of shake a bit to get any droppings out of it?


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2012)

I hate rats!!!! 2 years ago the feed lot 1 mile north of me closed down. There were hundreds if not thousands came to my farm. I didn't believe it when I was told my guinea's that were 1/2 gown and in a pen in the barn were disappearing because of the rats I went from 100 down to 39 real fast, I worked nites so hadn't seen them. My friend and I went up there and saw a 3 lb rat grab and pull a bird through a hole in the wall. We shot 60 plus that nite around a 5 gallon bucket of corn.
I bought and put out rat poison, 2- 5 gallon buckets of it, the kind in the green bucket can't remember the name. There were dead rats everywhere in 4 or 5 days.
I had to put out another 5 gallon bucket before we got them under control. I saw some in the shed between the barns and the creep feeder this spring and put a feeder in the shed for them full of the same poison, I see there is still some feed in it and have seen no rats for 6 months now.
Poison is the only real control of rats, they breed so fast that trapping only catches some of them.
I will tell you the best trap I made was a dowel through a 2 liter pop bottle I put the dowel where I knew rats traveled. On the end of the dowel I hung a small bucket of corn. Below that bucket I put a 30 gal trash can. As the rats ran down the board they noticed the corn in the bucket and walked down the dowel and as soon as they tried to cross the pop bottle it would roll and dump them in the trash can. You can put water in it to drown them if you want. I used them as training for my rat terriers. The most I caught in that trap was about 20 in a nite. You can see where they come and go in the barn by walking around and looking for fresh dirt where they are getting in. I have old hog barns so the 2x4s were already swiss cheese from the rats in past chewing holes in them so they could run down the wall between the boards. But I could see where they cam into the barn and put lots of poison in the walls there. In the daytime rats live in the ground in burrows they dig in the side of banks. So they come and go.
The droppings are the least of your worries, its the urine that ruins the hay and yes there are diseases that animals can get from eating rat stuff but I can't say what they are we didn't have them in the hay and didn't have any goats get sick because of them but it was summer too.


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

Rats are the WORST!!!!!


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## kid'n'kaboodle (Mar 5, 2011)

Sideplaner, your trap idea is very resourceful. Do you have any pictures of it you could share?

We only get the odd one here and we put a piece of bait in about a 6 foot piece of drainage tube so no other critters can access the bait. Then we put the tube up against a wall where the critters are travelling and usually within a few days they disappear. For those of us who don't like putting down rat bait, your trap is a great alternative.


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Thanks for the replies, everyone!
I only saw a few droppings and have no problem shaking them off; I was concerned about disease.
Our two dogs like to dig through the hay after the rats and I think they have kept them pretty well under control. I'm thinking I'll just stack the hay in a way that the dogs can get between the bales but can't mess them up much. Hey, it keeps them from being bored. 
I may also make a trap if I see any more. That's a great idea, Sideplaner!


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2012)

check out youtube there are live demos there


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## freedomstarfarm (Mar 25, 2011)

there are disease carried by them but what can you do throw out all tainted hay? That would be crazy with hay costs like they are. For mice I found that a half full bucket of water placed along the wall or next to some hay bales gets them in but they cant get out and drown. Kinda a trap without poison.


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## Crowbar032 (Dec 6, 2011)

Sideplaner said:


> In the daytime rats live in the ground in burrows they dig in the side of banks. So they come and go.


Around the 4th of July start buying smoke bombs. Find some of the holes, block them off as best you can (flat rock, cinder block). Keep dropping lit smoke bombs down an open hole until you see other holes smoking that you didn't block off/see. Keep an eye on the smoking holes as you'll need to shoot quick.

I spent an afternoon with an uncle doing this when I was a kid. He lived along a creek, and everyone including him dumped kitchen scraps out to the ducks. Not suprisingly the rats liked it too. I don't know how effective this would be if repeatedly done or how much of a dent we made in the overall population, but it was fun as a kid.


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