![]() Rats carry many diseases such as salmonellosis and leptospirosis that can be transferred to your chickens. Keep in mind that rat attacks and egg stealing are only the beginning of the damage they can inflict upon your flock. Diseases and pests that rats can transfer to chickens So if you see one rat, you need to get rid of it before you are dealing with the 5-12 babies that will reach their reproductive maturity at 4 or 5 weeks. One reason you need to act quickly to get rid of the rats is that they can reproduce quickly. It only takes 21 days for them to produce a litter, and females will continue to produce another litter, up to 6 litters a year, as long as they have a cozy home and readily available food. (Unless you have chicks out there.) However, you need to take it seriously and start making your coop rat proof to get rid of them to avoid future problems like a rogue rat attack. If you see a rat around your coop, you need not panic, your chickens are probably not in immediate danger. A direct attack on an adult chicken by a rat is rare, but it does happen. They are more likely to eat chicken feed than to attack adult chickens, as that requires more effort and rats are opportunists. Rats will attack and eat baby chickens, and if desperate enough, they will attack adult chickens. ![]() However, that does not mean it is okay to let rats hang around your chicken coop. Do rats attack chickens?Ĭhickens eat small rodents, which includes small wild rats and rat babies although many rats are too large for them to attack. By making it hard for them to get chicken food, or take up residence in the corner of a coop, you will ensure that rats don’t want to come around. ![]() They are opportunistic,and will not go to a lot of effort to obtain their food and home. Rats are also attracted to nice, warm, cozy places to live, especially if there is a reliable food source nearby.Ī well-designed coop, good food storage, and rat-proof feeders can all make your chickens home a place that is not attractive to rats. However, they are attracted to chicken feed, and love stealing a freshly laid egg. In addition to those serious problems, they will also eat your chicken feed. Rats carry diseases that are harmful to chickens, will attack baby chicks, steal eggs, and have even been known to chew on hens’ feet while they are sleeping. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.Chicken owners need to keep rats out of the coop. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. ![]() We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
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