Further to my post about rats

[rana]

I have now found out from another neighbour that a few people around us are getting together to complain, possibly to environmental health. I'm told one of my neighbours found a rat under their shed.

If you are confident about your cleanliness and husbandry I would encourage the involvement of environmental health. Let them do their investigation and find out where the rats are getting their food/accommodation. It would be to your benefit and will placate your complaining neighnours - particularly if it is them that are found to be the cause.

[matthew2riches]

Sadly it's life having to deal with ar***ole neighbors!

I have to do it all the time down the allotment but people are now starting to realise that if they annoy me - they're going to get a gob full.

As lizzylemon says basically. Rats are nothing new! You just have to live with them :-)

[Hilary B]

I'm a bit puzzled by the humane traps idea. Rats are vermin and it's illegal to release them onto someone elses property. The only merit in it is trap them and shoot them if you're worried about their manner of dying. But die they must - disease carrying vermin.

I would always prefer to use a cage trap and get the rat shot, rather than the 'break back' style, not only because it removes the risk of the rat being sub-fatally injured (and possibly escaping) but because those break-back traps are quite likely to catch fingers......
The drawback, as some Grape found, (was it Snadger?) is that you may catch the wrong sort of rat, and find a fluffy tailed version in the trap. It can be rather more difficult to kill those....

[Two_Sheds]

Gawd, neighbours, ...Have you tried egg bribery?

I'd go with being very friendly and helpful. Take some eggs round to the neighbours and invite them to meet your chooks, and inspect the conditions.

They probably have a picture in their heads of a dirty, smelly poo-splattered back yard ... go on, show them how it really is.

And then gently point out to them that bread left on bird tables and on the ground is the very best way to attract rats.

[MagicLady]

We've discovered we have a rat problem ........ well, I did last night when it ran across the bathroom while I was sitting on the loo :O Scared me silly .... good job I was where I was lol. DH assured me it was just a big mouse!

We have had problems with mice in the past (old, 1930s house with large crawl spaces under the floors) and set traps. DH checked one he thought hadn't gone off to find it had ....... yes, DH then admitted it was a rat!

DH's top priority....... get rid of the little b***ers!

[MaureenHall]

oooooooo it makes me shudder Can't stand critters of any size!!

If you put down one of the poison traps, is it safe for chickens?

[Hilary B]

oooooooo it makes me shudder Can't stand critters of any size!!

If you put down one of the poison traps, is it safe for chickens?

I always worry about poison. Not so much direct problems as indirect, if something eats a poisoned rat (or mouse).......
I've never been 'stressed' about rats or mice, but I don't want them around!

[HayleyB]

Dad shot it!

ROFL

One of my fave lines in a film John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit - "It's a rat writ, writ for a rat and lawful service of same" BANG

[frias]

Hayley, I'm sure you're too young to watch John Wayne films.

[fran]

God we've all got rats in the city - and plenty of mice......in the compost bin, on neighbours bird tables...I feel sorry for them. We stopped feeding birds cos of mice and got the council round who put poison down in the house. Hasn't been such a problem since!

[lizzylemon]

oooooooo it makes me shudder Can't stand critters of any size!!

If you put down one of the poison traps, is it safe for chickens?

The baited traps where they have to go inside to get the poisoned bait is probably the best if you're going to use it.

The farms rat catcher used poisoned corn until I pointed out that, although very smart for chooks, I didn't think mine were quite ready to distinguish between blue poisoned corn and normal corn - D'oh!!

However I have stopped using poison cos of the little'un being far to much into everything and have just tried to make the garden less rat friendly instead: not so many lurky places and run throughs so they visit but not be so quick to stop.

[frias]

The metal bait stations can be screwed into the ground and can only be opened with an allen key. I don't like corn poison either as mice carry it back to the nest and might drop it on route. The blue blocks can be fixed into place and then have to be chewed where they are and not carried away. Most rodents return to nest to die. I would imagine any other animal picking up a dead one would be a larger animal so probably not enough poison to harm them. (I might be wrong about this though)

[Hilary B]

The metal bait stations can be screwed into the ground and can only be opened with an allen key. I don't like corn poison either as mice carry it back to the nest and might drop it on route. The blue blocks can be fixed into place and then have to be chewed where they are and not carried away. Most rodents return to nest to die. I would imagine any other animal picking up a dead one would be a larger animal so probably not enough poison to harm them. (I might be wrong about this though)

With a slow acting poison (as most are these days) the half-poisoned rat is going to be the easiest for a predator to catch. An owl or cat would only need a couple of those to be very ill indeed, and a weasel (yes, they do kill rats) weighs less than a rat anyway....
Sometimes poison is the only choice, but I wuld avoid it wherever possible.
Incidentally, we discovered that dark chocolate is probably as bad for rats as it is for dogs. We left a packet of chocolates in the place we usually store wine, thinking it would be safe. Picked up the packet a few weeks later, it felt strange, looked inside, no chocolates, one dead rat (curled up as if peacefully asleep).

[frias]

I know mice love chocolate but so do I. Poison is the only way to go for us as I've never actually seen a rat so no chance of catching it. The poison gets eaten though. Traps often get other animals and don't always kill the rodent. We have no owls or weasels around here although there are cats.

[HayleyB]

Hayley, I'm sure you're too young to watch John Wayne films.

Unfortunately no I am old, when I was 10 I wanted to marry John Wayne he was my true all time hero. He died in 1979 when I was 14 and I was devastated....