How to Get Rid of Rats in a Chicken Coop

To get rid of rats in a chicken coop, take the feed and low water away at night, seal every gap wider than 1/4 inch, and trap along the walls with snap traps set under a weighted crate the hens can’t reach. Sanitation, a tight building and trapping work together. Skip one and the rats stay.

This guide belongs to the predator-proofing guides. It covers the signs, the reasons rats pick a coop, the fixes in the order I’d do them, and what to do about poison. The building side lives in how to predator-proof a chicken coop, and the feeding station gets its own page on rat-proof chicken feeders.

How do you know rats are in the coop?

You see the damage before you see the rat. Rats feed at night and avoid new objects, so a coop can carry a colony for weeks before anyone spots one. Go out after dark with a flashlight. Night is the best time to judge how bad the problem is and where the traps should go (University of Maryland Extension).

The table combines the sign lists from UC IPM, the University of Maryland and Mississippi State, and the predation signs from Utah State University Extension.

To estimate numbers, Mississippi State Extension uses a rough rule for poultry houses: signs but no sightings point to up to 100 rodents on the property, occasional night sightings to 100 to 500, and rats seen in daylight to a much bigger colony. A backyard coop is smaller than a broiler house, but the logic holds. If you see rats by day, you are past the stage where two traps will fix it.

Why do rats move into chicken coops?

A coop offers the three things a rat needs: food, water and a place to nest. Rodent numbers stay low when one of the three is missing, and a coop with an open feeder, a waterer on the floor and loose litter supplies all three (Mississippi State Extension). Once inside, rats burrow into dry litter, under caked litter, into dirt floors and into wall insulation.

The feed bill shows why rats stay. An adult rat eats 1 to 2 ounces of feed a day, and one laying hen eats about 0.25 pound a day (University of Kentucky). So a handful of rats eats a real share of what you buy for the flock, before counting what they foul.

Swipe sideways to see the whole figure, or open it full size.

Rats also travel to the food. Norway rats forage 100 to 500 feet from the nest each night, and roof rats travel 300 feet or more (UC IPM). The rats in your coop might nest under a neighbor’s shed, so trapping the coop alone treats the symptom. Taking away the food treats the cause.

How do you cut off the feed?

Start here, because traps and poison fail as long as rats have an easier meal. Too much access to other food is one of the main reasons rat bait fails (Mississippi State Extension).

1. Pull or close the feeder at dusk. Hens won’t eat or drink at night, and rats will, so take feeders and waterers out each night and put them back in the morning (Utah State Extension).
2. Store feed in a metal can with a tight lid. Rodents chew through wood faster than plastic and plastic faster than metal (Utah State). Feed keeps up to a month stored cool and dry in metal cans (Penn State Extension).
3. Clean up spilled feed every day, inside the coop and under the run feeder. Adjust the feeder so hens can’t rake feed onto the floor (University of Maryland).
4. Switch to nipple drinkers or raise the waterer. Nipple drinkers make it hard for rodents to get water (University of Maryland), and the chicken nipple waterer guide covers setup.
5. Give treats in a pan and only what the flock finishes before roost time.
6. Collect eggs at least once a day so the nest boxes don’t become a food source.

If pulling the feeder every night won’t happen in your house, buy a feeder that closes itself. A treadle feeder keeps its lid shut until a hen steps on the platform. No maker guarantees it against rats, and the trigger weight matters: Grandpa’s Feeder publishes about 14 oz for its Standard size and about 2 lb for its Large, while adult Norway rats weigh 7 to 18 oz (UC IPM). For two to four hens, the Roamwild PestOff closes its two ports on springs and needs no training. The rat-proof chicken feeder comparison lines up the trigger weights, capacities and prices.

How do you seal rats out of the coop?

Close every hole larger than 1/4 inch. Rats get through any hole their head fits, about 1/2 inch for a rat and 1/4 inch for a mouse (Mississippi State), and young rats squeeze under a door with a 1/2 inch gap (UC IPM). Chicken wire keeps hens in. It doesn’t keep rats out, because rats bite through the thin wire and smaller rodents walk through the holes (Utah State).

A floor is the layer most coops get wrong. Rats burrow into dirt floors and under loose litter, so a coop sitting on soil needs wire under it or a solid floor. The chicken coop flooring guide compares concrete, sealed plywood and dirt with wire, and the hardware cloth guide covers mesh size, gauge and how to fasten it.

Trim plants away from the coop as well. Dense shrubs, ivy and woodpiles give rats cover, so leave at least 2 feet between shrubs and buildings (UC IPM).

How do you trap rats safely around chickens?

Use rat-sized snap traps, set at night, under a crate the hens can’t enter. Snap traps are the safest, most effective and most economical way to trap rats (UC IPM), and they beat glue traps and live traps, which scare rodents into urinating and raise your own risk of illness (CDC). A mouse trap won’t hold a rat, so buy the right size.

1. Prebait first. Rats fear new objects, so put the traps out baited but unset for a couple of days, until the bait has been taken several times (UC IPM). Use a pea-sized amount of peanut butter, nuts or dry pet food.
2. Set traps only after the hens roost, and leave them unset in place by day. Night trapping keeps daytime animals, birds included, out of the traps (UC IPM IPM News, Winter 2019).
3. Cover each trap with a crate that is staked or weighted down, so nothing larger than a rat reaches it. Pick a crate with openings too small for a hen’s head.
4. Put traps along walls and runways, trigger end against the wall so the trap forms a “T” with it (CDC). Rats run along edges.
5. Use plenty of traps, about 10 to 20 feet apart. If bait vanishes from all of them, double the number (UC IPM).
6. Check and clear every trap in the morning, before you open the pop door. Wear gloves.
7. Keep trapping for a few weeks after the last catch. Rats breed fast, and more move in while food remains.

Is rat poison safe near chickens?

Not inside the coop or run, and not where a hen can reach a dead rat. All rodenticides are poisonous at some level to poultry, livestock, wildlife and people (Mississippi State Extension). Slow-acting anticoagulants also mean a dead rat can hold several lethal doses, so any animal that eats the carcass can be poisoned too (UC IPM).

The rules already limit what you can buy. Products sold to consumers come as ready-to-use bait stations with block or paste bait, and pelleted baits are no longer allowed in consumer products. The stronger second-generation anticoagulants, such as brodifacoum and bromadiolone, are registered only for professional and agricultural use (US EPA). Consumer stations carry labels for indoor use, or indoor and outdoor use within 50 feet of buildings, so read the label for the spot you have in mind.

I’d treat poison as a sign the first three steps aren’t finished. If rats still get in after you’ve pulled the feed and sealed the coop, call a licensed pest control operator, who can use products and methods a homeowner can’t.

Do rats kill chicks or eat eggs?

Yes. Rats prey on chicks and eggs, and in a heavy infestation they attack young and adult birds at night, biting the head or neck and dragging parts of the bird into a burrow (Utah State University Extension). Roof rats list young birds and bird eggs among their preferred foods (UC IPM).

Chicks need the tightest setup on the property. Brood them indoors or in a brooder closed with 1/4 inch hardware cloth, and wait on the move outside until the coop is sealed. The guide on when chicks can go outside covers the age and night temperatures. Collect eggs every day, and twice when you can.

Do natural rat repellents work?

No repellent has solved a rat problem for more than a short time, and California has no truly effective rat repellent registered (UC IPM). Ultrasonic devices stop working once rats get used to the sound. Peppermint oil, mothballs and dryer sheets fall into the same group: they don’t touch the food, water and shelter that keep rats in your coop.

Predators don’t fix it either. Cats and owls eat rats, but rats breed too fast for predators to control them, and cat food left outside feeds rats too (UC IPM). A Norway rat female raises 20 or more young a year.

“Naturally” works when it means no poison: remove feed at night, seal the building, trap. That is the whole extension program.

How do you clean up after rats?

Rodents carry up to 45 diseases, including leptospirosis, salmonellosis, fowl pox and erysipelas (University of Maryland Extension), so clean the coop as if it were contaminated.

1. Open the coop and let it air for 30 minutes before you start (CDC).
2. Wear rubber or plastic gloves.
3. Spray droppings, nests and dead rodents with a disinfectant, or 1 part bleach to 9 parts water, until very wet. Let it soak 5 minutes (CDC).
4. Wipe up with paper towels. Don’t sweep or vacuum droppings, because that puts dust in the air you breathe (CDC).
5. Double-bag dead rodents and nest material and put them in a covered trash can.
6. Wash gloved hands, remove the gloves, then wash your hands with soap and warm water.

Then replace the litter in the affected area and check for the hole the rats used. The coop cleaning supplies guide lists the tools.

A two-week rat plan

Written by Kyle

Kyle has kept backyard chickens on his own small farm for five years. He reads the extension research, the spec sheets and the owner complaints, then tells you what he would buy and what he would skip.

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