Hi there! This is my first post so please forgive/advise me if it's awkward!
We have a 15-acre hobby farm in western Wisconsin where we have 4 hugelkultur beds, a flock of 13 chickens, 3 ducks, 3 Guineas (soon to be 15!), 3 dogs and 1 cat. It's about 3/4 native prairie with 1/4 or less deciduous forest. This is our 4th summer on the farm.
Late this winter we got INVADED for the first time by rats. They wreaked havoc with our chicken coop where they helped themselves to their feed. So we built a new, elevated coop to solve that problem and hoped they would rove away since their food was now limited. However, now they're hitting up the duck and guinea feed, as well as raiding the compost. And digging holes/living in my largest hugelbed, which has damaged the crops.
We've tried electric traps, traditional and glue traps, cats & terriers, bait/water traps and other tactics but nothing is working. We recently added 2 barn cats who we can't release for another 2 weeks (to give them time to acclimate/imprint) and I plan to get a contained composter for food compost. We also liberally sprinkle cayenne pepper wherever we see their holes -- and a variety of other random tricks, but have not yet gone to POISON.
But we're really worried -- we feel like we're throwing everything-but-the-kitchen sink at them and it's not getting better.
Really looking for some strong advice -- has anyone out there successfully dealt with a rat infestation like this? What works?
THANK YOU!!!
