Kitchen Garden Forum

Once more the busy-bodies and jobsworths are again making life harder and harder for us with their ridiculous regulations. I understand that from July 2016 anyone wanting to buy professional type rodenticides will have to hold a certificate of competence in rodent control. So I suggest anyone wanting an effective control stocks up before the July date. Farmers who are members of farm assurance schemes will be deemed qualified until at least the end of 2017. Regulations are getting beyond a joke people will soon need a certificate in order to change a battery in their torch.

Barney

Evening Barney, thank you for that, as i do a few properties for rats and just charge the people for the cost of the bait.

As you say, where will it stop......

The farmer that has barns alongside us throws his sachets of rat poison/bait on floor around the the base of the hay or straw bales rather than placing them so non-target animals can't get at them.

Hardly a good example.

I take it this will not apply to the type of rat bait the ordinary householder can buy at places like B&Q? We have bought this occasionally when we have experienced an episode of rats but not always with great success.

There seems to be a general feeling that this is often not now not strong enough to kill them and there is now a new breed of bigger rats who seem to be able to feed upon it with impunity. As a matter of interest where would you be able to buy the "super strength" bait from? I presume this is the stuff that the official pest control companies use? We had to call them in once and the blue granules they used looked exactly the same as the stuff we had boight earlier from B&Q. How would one tell the difference? Does the strong stuff come in blocks or a different type of format?

Hello Primrose, I do not know what B&Q type places sell but I buy my rodenticide from Mole Valley Farmers and would expect any countryside/agricultural suppliers to stock similar baits. Some of the baits I have used recently (supplied by MVF) have been ineffectual whilst previously bought baits have proved more effective. All poisonous baits should be used with care and consideration regarding non target creatures but no amount of certificates will control how individuals use the baits.

http://search.molevalleyfarmers.com/sea ... denticides

Barney

I only buy the bait blocks that you can nail to a chunk of wood and hide under a ridge tile or you can slide the bait attached to its chunk of wood into a length of soul pipe.

The ones available around here are called " Tom Cat Blocks" or in the case of the pellets they are " Tom Cat Pellets ".

These are bought by the farming community from farming community suppliers though I doubt anyone has decided on how effectual they are. We can only assume these products are different to shed-bought products.

I used standard mouse and rat bait pellets for a few years without any affect, the Tom cat blocks do have an effect on my rat and mouse population though it's only a matter of time before they bring out something new because Tom cat blocks don't work but they'll sell them on to the sheds.

I had better get over and re-stock on rat poison, I don't enjoy killing animals but I do need to control the environment I live in.

I also get the blue blocks that you nail to a piece of wood from the farm where Ibuy my hen food. They work very well because the rats have to eat it in situ and can't drag it away to hide for later. Sounds like I'll have to stock up, thanks for the warning.

Once it starts to get cold I even place Tom Cat Blocks under the bonnet of whichever car I'm using because it doesn't go far, we swop cars in order to apportion the mileage. One car was rat-attacked so badly the front had to be taken off along with a lot of other stuff just to check where the rats had been knawing.

We had more than one car attacked and our neighbours had a car that wouldn't start through a rat-attack.

Alongside the hay barns you would think the rat had enough to keep him fed without eating into the electronics of a modern car.

Nightmare. And expensive.

I've had mice getting into my bonnet and nesting after leaving it in the garage. . I was driving down the motorway to work one day, switched on the air blower and had shreds of black bin liners and peanuts blowing out all over me. Had to get the garage to do a dismantling job to clear everything out. They'd also chewed some of the wiring. That was expensive! After an episode like that you look round your garage, pretend you are a mouse and rapidly remove anything that looks vaguely chewable.

I've just had a giggle imagining Primrose with mice in her bonnet

My wife keeps her bonnet in the wardrobe, I use wilkies rat poison it's cheap and works although slow I also use sticky boards they are brilliant as long as you don't tread on one

Jeremy Clarkson would know what do, we have to go nuclear. In this case he might install some-sort of devise that radiates and affects the offending rodent without any consideration for the radiation the rodent radiates.

Erm............I think I'm lost.

Jeremy Clarkson, gardening ?

Hmmm,....it won't be long. He's poking his ill gotten opinion into all sorts of corners. It is entertaining though.

We had mice move into my car when parked at Heathrow. It was a good job they'd set the alarm off so much to cause battery to die ..... Other wise we wouldn't have noticed the fountain of diesel as a result of them eating the fuel pipeline....... Welcome home.

Had a real problem with rats at the allotment this year but nervous about using anything because of other things around. I'm putting it down to my veg tasting so good .......

Rugby Club pitchside bar has been discovered by mice, they decided to investigate the big black nylon bag we leave on the floor between matches and liked chewing the contents.

Don't know if anyone's told the sponsor who provided the bouncy castle type triumphal arch for teams entering & leaving the pitch, that it won't inflate until the mouse sized holes are patched


Could be worse, they could've chewed holes in the barrel to tap beer lines!

I just remembered, we had mice in the loft for years and I used store-bought mouse poison for years. The type that looks like rice or white mouse poo, the mice used to eat it but it never had any effect because when I topped up they always eat more.

When I gave them a Tom Cat block it never got finished-off it worked so quickly.