Today it is really awful and my OH has been with me today and he says it is looking like a dead rat under my shed. The smell is dreadful. I am trying to stay positive but it is difficult. We can't see under the shed. How long this will take I don't know.Dead rat!!!
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We have a serious problem with rats (and now rabbits) on our allotments as we are now getting so many people bringing chickens, ducks, geese etc on to it and they don't have the experience on how to look after and feed their animals properly. Three days ago I smelt a horrid smell near my shed Today it is really awful and my OH has been with me today and he says it is looking like a dead rat under my shed. The smell is dreadful. I am trying to stay positive but it is difficult. We can't see under the shed. How long this will take I don't know.
Today it is really awful and my OH has been with me today and he says it is looking like a dead rat under my shed. The smell is dreadful. I am trying to stay positive but it is difficult. We can't see under the shed. How long this will take I don't know.-
oldherbaceous
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Dear Catherine, the stench normally lasts for seven five days, so let's hope it soon goes....
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.
There's no fool like an old fool.
There's no fool like an old fool.
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oldherbaceous
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I meant to write, (five to severn days) but it looks more like i had wrote seventy five days...... 
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.
There's no fool like an old fool.
There's no fool like an old fool.
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Primrose
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Catherine, could you tie a child's fishing net onto the end of a long bamboo cane and poke it around under the base of your shed, if there is a gap between it and the base of the shed to see if whatever is causing the smell can be dislodged? Then at least if it is a rotting corpse at least it could be burned or otherwise permanently disposed of?
Last edited by Primrose on Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Cider Boys
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I do sympathise with you Primrose I absolutely hate rats and mice but unfortunately they do come where people keep poultry and food is available. As you say many people have not the experience to realise that much care is required when keeping poultry. Perhaps you could have a discreet word with the allotment management for them to be active in making sure people act responsibly. I'm a bit paranoid regarding rodents and assume that they are everywhere so I scatter rat bait under my sheds and wherever they might be. Trouble is that some bait does not seem to work as the rodents build up immunity to it. I like animals but firmly believe that they should be controlled, regarding rabbits they are a nuisance but not so unpleasant. I have an electric fence about 4" off the ground that seems to keep them away from my garden but I keep forgetting its there and trip over it with the resulting shock giving rise to some expletives that I would not normally utter.
When I was a lad we used to go ratting with terriers and rabbiting and bird nesting but all those activities are frowned upon now and youngsters would prefer sitting at a computer than controlling vermin. Rats also love compost heaps and I used to spread out wire mesh on the compost floor to try and prevent them tunnelling underneath.
I hope that you can control the pests and the smell will not last for ever, but a dead rat certainly does smell.
Barney
When I was a lad we used to go ratting with terriers and rabbiting and bird nesting but all those activities are frowned upon now and youngsters would prefer sitting at a computer than controlling vermin. Rats also love compost heaps and I used to spread out wire mesh on the compost floor to try and prevent them tunnelling underneath.
I hope that you can control the pests and the smell will not last for ever, but a dead rat certainly does smell.
Barney
Primrose I am hoping after this week end the smell should have gone as it is about six days since it started. oldherbaceous says I have seven five days oops I mean five to seven days to put up with the smell. So I will have to be patient.
Cider Boy I do feel that these days on our allotments there are no rules. I can't go into anything as I don't want it to affect my plot but I would be wasting my time complaining about anything. Say no more.
Cider Boy I do feel that these days on our allotments there are no rules. I can't go into anything as I don't want it to affect my plot but I would be wasting my time complaining about anything. Say no more.
Hello Catherine
Hope you've finished your tea and are sitting comfortably.
After the smell goes you are very likely to be badly pestered by flies for a few days as they emerge from the maggots that have been on the remains.
Sorry about this.
John
Hope you've finished your tea and are sitting comfortably.
After the smell goes you are very likely to be badly pestered by flies for a few days as they emerge from the maggots that have been on the remains.
Sorry about this.
John
The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent fishing Assyrian tablet
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
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PLUMPUDDING
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It is difficult to avoid having rats if there is poultry, or even if people feed birds. I've recently been dealing with some under my hen hut.
The dead one under your shed will quickly decay and dry out and then won't smell any more.
My cat left me a present the other day of a rat's body on the back step, and the head a couple of feet away. I'm glad it didn't eat it as I've been putting poison blocks under the hut. I got them from an agricultural merchant and he told me to nail three or so on to a length of wood so you can push them out of the way of other animals, birds etc, and the rats can't drag them away. Apparently they just store them if they can take them down their holes, but they have to eat them if they are nailed down. This works very well and you know they've been nobbled when they stop eating them.
The dead one under your shed will quickly decay and dry out and then won't smell any more.
My cat left me a present the other day of a rat's body on the back step, and the head a couple of feet away. I'm glad it didn't eat it as I've been putting poison blocks under the hut. I got them from an agricultural merchant and he told me to nail three or so on to a length of wood so you can push them out of the way of other animals, birds etc, and the rats can't drag them away. Apparently they just store them if they can take them down their holes, but they have to eat them if they are nailed down. This works very well and you know they've been nobbled when they stop eating them.
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retropants
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oh gosh, that's horrid, really nasty.
I really sympathise, as a huge fox decided to lie down and die in a small gap between my greenhouse and garage a couple of months ago, when it was very, very hot. It stank so bad for a couple of weeks, if not longer (but it is much bigger than a rat) and I had to keep the back door closed on the hottest few days of the year as the smell was making it's way all the way up the garden into the house. it was horrendous. I was hanging the washing out and watering the plants by the greenhouse with a dustmask on. it still whiffs a bit inside the greenhouse, as there is a bit of broken glass just where the fox is, and the smell was unbearable in there at the beginning.
*shudder*
It is now an empty bag of fur. not sure how long it will take before something else comes along and takes it away for me, or if we'll be left with a skeleton eventually??
I really sympathise, as a huge fox decided to lie down and die in a small gap between my greenhouse and garage a couple of months ago, when it was very, very hot. It stank so bad for a couple of weeks, if not longer (but it is much bigger than a rat) and I had to keep the back door closed on the hottest few days of the year as the smell was making it's way all the way up the garden into the house. it was horrendous. I was hanging the washing out and watering the plants by the greenhouse with a dustmask on. it still whiffs a bit inside the greenhouse, as there is a bit of broken glass just where the fox is, and the smell was unbearable in there at the beginning.
*shudder*
It is now an empty bag of fur. not sure how long it will take before something else comes along and takes it away for me, or if we'll be left with a skeleton eventually??
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robo
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Our vermin control officer or ratman for short is employed by our council he comes and replenishes the poison once a month but we also have his phone number in case of emergency he says our allotment is rat free ,i must admit ive not had any in the chicken coup for a good while when they are active you can see the runs they tunnel under the chicken wire all i do is put a sticky board in the run and cover it with bits of timber next morning i can have up to 3 rats stuck to it