Rats.....and more.

Let's see, have I ever written about anything except rats?  It seems to be the theme-of-the-year lately.  

Yesterday, I tore out more of the soggy drywall and disgusting insulation inside the barn.  4 huge trash bags full.  Because of rats.

The dogs had been allowed to sniff all over the first floor of the barn that morning.   Shadow, who has trouble with her back legs and can easily injure her back, nimbly leaped up 3 or 4 bales of hay to the top of the tightly packed stack, and forced herself in between bales, in search of the last strong scent of rattiness.  She was'nt concerned about getting hurt as long as she's hot on the trail of a rodent, be it squirrel, chipmunk, rabbit, or rat.  Rocky (the confirmed and eager chicken-killer) hardly acknowledged the presence of chickens as he excitedly sprung past them in hot pursuit of a rat, any rat.   (Of course, he would dearly like to take out the 3 kittens who peer over the hay-chute opening at him from the second floor, but that's a "leave-it" lesson for another day).   

Yesterday, one of the many mouse/rat-traps was sprung and was missing.  The dogs found it after their short search.  A young rat was in it, squeaking loudly, as Rocky triumphantly trotted past me with it.  The rat had sprung the trap inside of the wall where I would later rip out the drywall.  The size of that rat told me one thing:  there are families of rats inside of this barn, and the babies are just venturing out, all while the rats from the fields are trying to move in to expand the population even more.  Time to get even more focused on eliminating their hiding places and passageways.

Imagine this:  rolls and rolls of pretty, pink insulation, pillowy-soft inside of a wall, keeping cold out and warmth in, like it's designed to do.  It means coziness, dryness, and comfort.  Then imagine the worst opposite:  Wet/damp insulation, no longer cotton-candy pink but a dingy gray with lighter pink highlights, shredded, torn up, tunneled through, dotted or matted with insects/droppings/bits of bedding materials.  Even worse than all of that:  What was once a nice filler for the entire wall, top to bottom, was doing no good at all.  What remained of it was packed in the bottom quarter of the wall.  Matted.  Dirty.  Filthy.  And providing the perfect place for rats to disappear, travel, have families, make bathrooms, and enter or exit the building without cats being able to follow.

(For those who have expressed horror at the thought of me, ripping out such filth without a mask to keep the dust out of my lungs, never fear.  I hate wearing those dust masks, but yesterday, I did protect myself with one.  And then came in to take a long, cleansing shower.  Yuck!)

I also moved plywood boards and pallets that we'd stacked against the walls of the barn.  It had been the perfect rat hide-away, giving them a quick way to grab chicken-feed, race to safety, and nibble in peaceful solitude (I imagine the cats were stealthily pacing outside of the wood-stacks, tails twitching, not able to do anything!)

That was yesterday.  I expected rats to be in traps this morning, because their habitat had been overturned.  But nothing, not even a sprung trap this a.m.

Today's ratty episode:  Both dogs again came into the barn for rat patrol.  Shadow didn't find anything, except to zero in on the crack in the foundation, where she and Rocky scented rats before.  No way they can get them underneath the floor.  Rocky dashed everywhere, and I watched him carefully.  Shadow does a good job, but Rocky is quicker to scent where the rat actually is.  Rocky gave no indication that there was any scent worthy of tossing things aside to give the dogs better access.  

Then I opened up the door to the silo, just to take a look.  A dead pigeon was on the dirt floor, halfway dragged into a rat hole.  Another pigeon was flapping on the ground, and Charlie the cat darted in to grab it.  A dead rat was in the crack between silo and barn wall, partially eaten.  I wasn't sure what to think.  First thought after the mess registered?  Dead rats AND dead pigeons might mean that we're up against a weasel.  More on that later.

The dogs didn't STOP to think.  They immediately bounded in, sniffed out the freshest rat tunnels, and got to work.  Soon, angry squeaking sounded from beneath the dirt, and Rocky came up with a half-grown rat.  He trotted off with it.

Soon, it became apparent that Shadow was hot on the trail of another rat, which was running along the inside of the silo wall.  I wished that Rocky was still there, because the full-grown rat ran straight at me.  My brain registered what was happening as I screamed, but my foot moved entirely too slowly.  The rat dashed right past before I could even react, and was gone.  Shadow couldn't even scent where it had hidden.  Just gone, into the depths of the barn.

Rocky came back, and they both did some more frantic digging, but came up with nothing more.

This means that there are still full-grown rats in the barn, despite the poison, and the traps, and the daily rat-patrols.  No surprise there.  

And as for the weasel theory:  

Over the weekend, someone suggested that they needed to bring us a ferret for the rat problem.  No, no, no, no no!  (But thanks for the thought!)  ;)  

I've always hated ferrets, anyway.  Ferrets and weasels are too much alike.  

From what I've heard, wild weasels will enter through rat tunnels.  They will prey on the rats, and then follow the tunnels to get into the chicken coop (the barn, in our case).  What follows is one night of total bloodshed, and every bird is ripped apart in that bloody killing spree.  If we have a weasel getting into the silo through the rat holes, that's a bigger problem than the rats getting into the barn.  The rats have an extensive network of tunnels, and (as evidenced today) can disappear from one area of the barn and probably run the entire length of the barn without any roadblocks in their way.  Where we close up one tunnel, they find another way.  Weasels wouldn't mind having that kind of access to the sleeping chickens, and all it would take is one weasel making one visit to the little flock.

I think I'll do a little experiment tonight.  I'll sprinkle grain on the dirt in the silo.  There are over a dozen pigeons roosting up at the top, under the dome.  Grain might bring them down, and would lure the rats out, too.  If we're dealing with rats and pigeons only, then the grain will be gone and so will the pests.  If we're dealing with a weasel, then there will be dead pigeons on the ground inside the silo by morning.  Not sure what the dogs would do with a weasel, but we might have a chance to find out.

If nothing else, it will give the dogs some more rat-scenting to do (after the little vermin are feasting all night!), and maybe Rocky and Shadow will catch a few more.  At this point, each dead rat means less damage to the barn, and each victory on the part of the dogs means more eagerness for them to find one the next time.  All they had to hear this morning was that angry rat squeak, and their already frantic energy was put into high gear!  :)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/