Rats!!!!

[vegpatchmum]

Literally!

Well one so far but where there is one there will soon be hundreds. So I'll be digging out the humane trap and the rat poison tomorrow as we do not want a repeat of 2 years ago when we were over run by the boldest rats I've ever seen - completely unphased by humans.

VPM
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[Primrose]

You're right to take quick action. I delayed dealing with them a couple of years ago. They bred and our garden soon looked like the stomping ground for the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. The baby rats were so fearless that they were running all over our patio and as I often leave the door open in summer I decided 'Enough was Enough'. But beware, if you're any kind of animal lover, watching rats die after eating poison is not a pleasant sight. A quick humane killer like a mouse trap is a much kinder way of doing what has to be done.

[vegpatchmum]

Thanks Primrose,

The rats we had a couple of years ago were supremely intelligent. We NEVER caught an adult in our trap, although we caught the less streetwise youngsters, so, unfortunately, rat bait had to be used as well to ensure that we got all of them This year we'll use both to start with and hopefully nip the problem in the bud (at least this year we wont have Vitamin K Layers pellets being fed to chickens 2 gardens up which effectively neutralised the poison we were putting down anyway - or so we were told by the LA Pest control man :O)

VPM
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[Primrose]

You're right about the rats being very intelligent. The mother was actually teaching the babies how to climb the fence and the bird feeder poles to get at the peanuts & seed tubes we'd hung out for the birds. And the babies were quite fearless and I was able to get very close to them without them running away. If they weren't such verminous creatures with their diseases they would actually have been quite cute.

[Ricard with an H]

Ahhhh, rats.

I don't really know how to present this because I always thought where there are humans, there are rats. Not seeing rats doesn't mean they're there.

Anyway, this is my experience. We live on what used to be a farm so seeing a rat occasionally didn't surprise me but freaked my lady. The rats made a home under the bird-feeders so they fed off the stuff that fell to the ground.

I moved the feeders, now we don't see any rats, I see holes dug under my compost bin so presumably i'm still feeding rats.

The few times I put a rat-catcher out the birds would steal the bait and set the trap so I was then worried about killing birds so that stopped.

Right now we do-not see any rats but they are there and being smart, if rats start to wander round sticking a finger up then thats not very smart and they've become humanised. (Or whatever)

A new trick to deal with catching birds is to slide the rat-trap down a piece of 4 inch soil pipe, still didn't catch a rat though.

[vegpatchmum]

Hi Richard,

Oh I know that there are rats about - bound to be but it was the sheer number we were seeing that was the problem 2 years ago and why we had to deal with this years sighting quick smart.

I will never quite forget the utter disbelief my OH and I felt the first time we wondered out into the garden during summer 2010 and counted 7 of them sitting in the veg patch just looking at us They didn't even run when we came towards them!!!! That was not good and it happened on an almost daily basis.

On several occassions we caught 2 juveniles at a time in the trap and when an adult female was eventually poisoned (nuclear strength stuff put down at the school by the pest control people when the colony spread that way) she was 25 inches from snout to tip of her tail!!!!

The problem was only solved when the houses at the back of us, who had a grandstand view into the back garden of the neighbour with chickens, contacted environmental health and asked them to investigate the garden as they were convinced it was the source of the problem.

A huge warren was found under the garden with dozens of entrances, so I was told by one of the families involved and the chicken keeper was told to tidy up, get rid of some of his birds (he had in excess of 40) and to put bait down at each entrance, repeatedly, until it was no longer nibbled!!!

The money we had all been spending on rat poison had been wasted because the rats were eating vit k rich chicken pellets which was then counteracting the effects of the bait which they were also eating!

Incidently we've sited our composters on concrete to prevent unwelcome squatters and introduced worms etc from spent compost used in tubs and pots.

VPM
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[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for that horrific scenario-illustration. I don't think my partner would have been able to sleep at night the way she responded to the odd single rat we experienced and even though she said she saw two it was still just-the-odd rat in my view.

We have barns adjacent to us that store hay in round bales so rats are likely though I thought ours are kept under control by the ferrel cats until you illustrated the size of a full grown rat.

I suppose where rats are living in-amongst multiple-housing and with chickens it's all an invitation, thankfully i'm also still a novice with rats on the basis of our one experience where, "Don't feed them and they go elsewhere" applies.

When Molly goes out for a pee at night (The dog, not my lady) she always does a lot of barking at something, badgers, fox, rats or the local mafia of cats. It's still lovely living away from it all though it has been an education.

Six dwellings within a square mile and all at the end of single track lanes our rubbish is collected at a convenient-for-the-lorry junction, some have to drive to it and some can walk but we never know when the bags will be picked-up. Even if everyone puts their bags out on the collection day and within hours of collection the local wildlife gets to feed off the bags and what a mess. Local-authority have yet to recognise the problem of human rubbish attraction for wildlife and it is a massive problem regardless of the fact we're an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just outside the Pembrokeshire National Park.

Mostly the rats are living at the farms, lots of feed and places to make homes. Also, lot's of small-holdings with ducks and chickens have rat problems. Another problem was when the people using a nearby holiday letting would leave plastic bags of rubbish outside and the owner surprised he had to call for help to deal with the rats.

Other than the compost bin we are very wary of inviting rats, if they do get to be a problem i'll remember your advise for a concrete base then feed the worms in from the top.

Want to talk about moles ?

[vegpatchmum]

Ssshhhhh - the local moles haven't found us yet

VPM
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[AJC]

The problem with rats once they become established in an area is that they are neophobic. As such, they are distrustful of any new object (traps etc) within their territory.

The way to overcome that problem is to take preventative measures. I am not a fan of poisons but they do have their place. And as has already been mentioned any access to cereal products will give them an antidote in the form of vitimin K.

I have had rat problems in the garden in the past, and as I kept dogs and hawks poisoning them was a non starter. The most efficient way I have found of keeping them in check is with a baited trapline.

I use the fenn Mk4 http://www.fenntraps.com/mk4-fenn-spring-trap.html that is licenced for use on rats, Grey squirrels, stoats and weasels and other small ground vermin. The trapping of rats is covered by the open general licence from DEFRA / Natural England. Under the terms of the open licence every effort must be made to ensure that the trap can only catch the target spieces, to that extent the traps have to be used in a tunnel, natural or artificial.

I have three of these traps sited on known rat runs, and as the rats are moving into new territory they do not seem to be so wary of them. I use two types of bait, in the winter I use dry cat food, summer the slugs seem to beat the rats to the bait so I use chocolate spread, spread on the underside of the treddle plate. Peanut butter is another rat favourite and can be deadly. Peanut butter and the chocolate spread also has the advatage that the rats cannot pick it off the traps.

AJ

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for that information AJ, if 'Roland' and his family become a daily feature or concern again i'll get myself one of those traps or would it be a good idea to be pre-emptive on the assumption that rats are living locally and will closer if it suits them.

We still feed birds and doubtless the rat is feeding from the dropping, we just don't see them so they aren't nuisance.

Do you think our local feral and wild cats are dealing with them ? Isn't a full grown rat a bit of a handful for a cat ?

[peter]

A hungry cat no, a well fed cat yes.