Kitchen Garden Forum

My neighbor told me she has a rat infestation, they've eaten all her container potatoes, chewed the handle bars on her bike and so on. Small village and only 2 of us with cats, mine have a cat run so don't roam and the swallows are safe also a old neighbor poisoned 3 of my cats years ago hence the cat run, the other lives the other side of the village and her cats tend to go to the farm. I've checked around the garden and no sign of rats or mice, It's chihuahua proof, I have a small 6inch tall chi so a rat would be bigger than her, they're black river rats, we have a river running through the village and seen the odd dead one in the past. I can't let the cats loose because of the swallows, I know they would be good, they've caught the odd bird that's flown into the run. The rats have become more of a problem since the cat run went up.
Jan

Our site is overrun with rats to the extent that the committee provide bait for the boxes if people want to use them. I personally don't use bait as have the dog & also had to dispatch one that was suffering & found it's way on the plot which was horrible.

I have a solar powered sonic thing I bought from Lidl. You can set it to what pests you want to deter, & one charge at home over winter keeps it going all year. It has really worked keeping the mice out of the tunnel & the rats off the plot as it has a good range. The rat's run is outside the fence now just bypassing my plots & moving to the neighbours. I do have to monitor it though as it is under the flower bed & it wouldn't surprise me that the absence of my red dahlia's this year was there doing by eating the tubers.