How Do Rats Stop Chickens Laying?
The first way to stop rats is to make sure you have a locked chicken coop and that no food or water is left out overnight. You can use a treadle-style feeder, which requires the chicken’s weight to open the pedal. Rats love the smell of chicken feed and will likely find this attractive.
The next way to stop rats is to make sure you clean up the chicken coop on a regular basis. This is because they’ll feed on any spilled feed, crumbs, and other things that are enticing to rats. While finding rats in your yard is never a good idea, it’s even worse when they’re living in your coop. If you do find rats, you can either rat-proof your coop or get rid of the rodents in your yard by trapping them and removing them. You can also try using rat poison, but be careful because rat poison is not beneficial to your chickens.
Another way to keep rats away is to provide better housing for your chickens. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because rats can climb and gnaw through just about anything. You can also make the coop and feeders less attractive to them.