Cayenne rat deterrent?

[tortoise]

Struggling with rat control here at my chicken coop. It has been vacant for months and I want to put my chickens in before winter. They are currently caged in my barn at night and in a chicken tractor during the day.

I'm about to order 6# of cayenne powder to strew under the coop where the rats have burrowed. Not sure it's worth $45. What do you think?

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

My only concern would be how often you need to add more to keep the smell strong and will it deter them enough to overlook chicken food, eggs and possible chickens

 

[flowerbug]

Struggling with rat control here at my chicken coop. It has been vacant for months and I want to put my chickens in before winter. They are currently caged in my barn at night and in a chicken tractor during the day.

I'm about to order 6# of cayenne powder to strew under the coop where the rats have burrowed. Not sure it's worth $45. What do you think?

may work short term, but no idea about how effective for how long.

you can't enclose the space?

 

[tortoise]

may work short term, but no idea about how effective for how long.

you can't enclose the space?

Pretty sure they would just burrow under? IDK.

I'm dreaming of lining my coop with metal sheeting. Rats chew holes right through anything else.

 

[tortoise]

Maybe should think about pouring a cement pad and moving the coop onto it??? No way DH would go for it.

 

[Hinotori]

Putting down hardware cloth would work better. I'm looking at slowly putting pavers down in all the silkie pens. We have what I think are Townsend rats (natives). They just go live in the marsh if I make something inhospitable. They move in more to get of the rain and water than food. Can tell them from common brown rats on sight because the males dont have giant hanging balls.

I don't think any of the scent deterrents work very well. Even the commercial ones only work for a few days in my experience. I know here they do try to avoid the live catnip plants, but will go straight through them if I or a dog chase them.

All the information I found says that rats will likely just eat the cayenne. Many people feed whole ones to their pet rats.

 

[flowerbug]

Pretty sure they would just burrow under? IDK.

I'm dreaming of lining my coop with metal sheeting. Rats chew holes right through anything else.

if you put the hardware cloth down to the ground and then fold it and angle it outwards they may not figure out how to get through that (like many animals that dig under fences it seems to work, but i don't have a rat burrowing problem and haven't had to do this so i don't know how far you have to go).