u/Hitstick231

Hi everyone, I can't believe the past couple days of what's happened. So here's the story. I have an old house with a stone foundation and dirt floors in basement. Occasionally I would see rat footprints and I would set a trap and usually catch them eventually. Then reset traps and leave poison out and not have any new footprints or action. So just recently I went down and saw some fresh footprints, and did the usual set some snap traps all around against walls and passage ways. They sat for a week and nothing. Not even new footprints. Finally I go down and a trap is set off but the rat wasn't in it. I decided I'd try sticky traps too even though I don't always love them, I'm desperate to catch anything. Set those out for a week and nothing, again not even new footprints. All the sudden last night I had 9 juvenile rats on two sticky traps! I threw them out set two more and I have 5 more juvenile rats caught! They are a little bigger than a mouse but darker in color with hairless tail. My question is why all the sudden am I catching all these juveniles all of the sudden? Why did the traps go empty for almost two weeks? A side note is my chicken coop is about 50 yards away from the house, I shot two adult rats a few nights ago, did I kill the adults and now the juveniles are hungry? I am just so confused on why all the sudden I caught so many. Thanks for any input