Rats!

[pigletwillie]

In the great scheme of things, with all of the millions of cats and dogs in the UK kept as pets, very few children are infected by toxoplasmosis from cat or dog faeces.

Cats are the prime carrier of the disease but studies of rats at pig farms have concluded that a proportion of rats also carry toxoplasmosis due to their omnivorous and carnivorous feeding habits. The studies were carried out as there was a chance that rats could transmit the disease via pigs into the human food chain

Wild rats are disease carriers full stop.


Parasite and disease load of wild rats on farms in England

Webster and MacDonald (1995) studied the parasite and disease load of wild rats on farms in England:

Helminths (worms):
the oxyuroid pinworm Syphacia muris in 67% of the rats
the strongoloyd parasite Nippostronglyus brasiliensis found in 23%
the liver worm Capillaria in 23%
the cestode Hymenolepsis diminuta in 22%
Toxocara cati causing Toxocariasis in 15%
the oxyuroid pinworm Heterakis spp. in 14%
the cestode Hymenolepsis nana in 11%
the intestinal tapeworm Taenia taeniaeformis in 11%

Bacteria
Leptospira spp. bacteria causing Weil's disease in 14%
Listeria spp. bacteria causing listeriosis in 11%
Yersinia enterocolitica bacteria causing yersiniosis in 11%
Pasturella spp. bacteria causing Pasturellosis in 6%
Pseudomonas spp. bacteria causing Meilioidosis in 4%

Protozoa
Cryptosporidium parvum causing cryptosporidiosis in 63% of the rats
Toxoplasma gondii causing toxoplasmosis in 35%
Trypanosoma lewisii in 29%
Eimeria separata in 8%
Rickettsia
Coxiella burnetti evidence of infection by Q fever in 34%

Viruses
Hantavirus causing Hantaan-fever or hemorrhagic fever in 5%
Ectoparasites (note: these ectoparasites are vectors for diseases which are transmissible to humans, such as typhus)

Fleas found on 100% of the rats
Mites found on 67%
Lice found on 38%

If you want to tolerate them in your shed Jeanine thats your choice but they aren't living in mine. The above is a good indicator why people react so strongly to rats.

[Paul Wagland]

I think Jeannine's point is that all animals carry disease.... and the statistics she quoted earlier in the thread suggested far more people contract diseases from cats and dogs than from wild rats (even though rats are many times more numerous).

What's becoming pretty clear is that some people have an aversion to rats in particular, even when there is no evidence that they are more harmful than a pet cat or dog. Lots of people are scared of spiders, but should we try and kill every spider we see?

And rats are certainly not incontinent! That's an old wives' tale. My rats are completely house trained and I'll send 'em up yer trouser leg if you say different!!!

[pigletwillie]

All I can say in reply Paul is

"is that a rat up your trouser leg or are you just pleased to see me"

boom boom

[PAULW]

However, a staggering 2% of the population are affected by Toxicara (from dog mess)! There are 100 cases a year of Toxicara affecting children, according to the Environment Commission, and that's a real tragedy.

I think if you check your facts again you wil find that cats carry more toxacara than dogs and foxes are also a carrier so not all problems can be blamed on dogs,

[Polly Fouracre]

I suppose we humans also carry and spread a lot of disease.Nature's way of keeping the growth of species in check and ensuring only the fit survive?

[pigletwillie]

Cats are the host of choice, but any gut will do.

[jeannine]

Hi PaulW,

the report I was quoting from was from the Environment Commission and they clearly stated that dogs are a huge problem when it comes to spreading toxacara, but perhaps they are biased as I think they are the body that clears up the dog mess!!

I wonder if there is more than one sort of toxacara as they specifically refer to toxacara canis affecting 100 people a year. (I'm guessing the 'canis' bit refers to canines- but feel please let me know if you have more info!).

To quote them:
"The health issues are associated with the presence of the eggs of the parasitic worm toxicara canis in the faeces of dogs. ENCAMS found that 54% of dog owners neither bought nor used worming tablets on their pets and a single deposit of dog faeces can contain 1 million eggs."

Yuggh! Again it sounds like prevention is better than cure - I'm sure worming tablets arent all that expensive!

Anyway, I don't know if I made it very clear in my post, but I did mention that cat mess also causes toxacara. However, I certainly haven't heard that cats do more damage in that regard that dogs. Where did you hear about that? I'd be very interested to find out more about it.

I'm personally very fond of both dogs and cats, but as a gardener I wouldn't have a pet cat as I get enough grief with the neighbours' mogs digging up my seedlings and messing on my raised beds.

Has anyone found any (cruelty free) ways to keep cats off their plots? Does tiger poo really work? (There's a big zoo near us). Or will that carry even more disease?

[PAULW]

The fully-grown adult roundworm is similar in appearance to the common earthworm, though white and built on a smaller scale. The commonest roundworm found in the cat is toxocara cati which in a study in london, was show to infect on average 28 per cent of cats,though in ferals and kittens under six months, the figure was almost 50 per cent. Another roundworm, toxacaris leonina, is much less common, infecting up to 5-5 per cent of cats.
The eggs have a sticky surface and may stick to a cat`s paw while walking or digging in the soil. They hatch in the stomach and the resultant larvae migrate through the liver and lungs to the trachea where they are coughed up and swallowed. When they reach the gut again, they undergo a final moult and the adult worm begins to lay eggs.
An alternative method of transmission of toxocara cati is that the eggs are swallowed by a rodent, bird or mollusc. In these abnormal hosts, they form cysts with in the tissues, commonly the liver. If the pray animal is eaten by the cat, the cysts are digested and the larvae emerge. The larvae emerging from the paratenic host (rodent/mollusc/bird) or consumed in the queens milk undergo limited migration in the gut before completing the life cycle in the gut. A final method of infection is that the kittens may receive eggs along with queens milk.

[jeannine]

That's incredible, thanks PaulW! In a way it's fascinating to see the extents that parasites go to just to get a good meal, but that's made me even more keen to try to stop cats messing on my veg beds!!!

So there are various sorts of toxocara. If 2% of the adult population are affected by toxocara canis (according to the Environment Commission) and if, as you say, cats spread even more toxocara than dogs do, then it seems even more unfair that we all go on about rats being dirty and spreading disease all the time. However, I notice that a lot of the media scaremongering about rats is in response to figures put out by the people who stand to make money from exterminating rats.

I'm not saying rats don't spread disease, obviously they do (though not the plague as we used to believe) - and even 80 cases of Weils a year are 80 too many. However, it seems clear that our violent reaction to rats is disproportionate to the reaction we have to other animals which we don't think of as dirty, although they are spreading a lot more disease, and pose a greater risk to our health and our childrens' health.

Anyway the good news is that you can't catch toxacara from fresh poo, only the stuff that's 3 weeks old, so cleaning up right away after dogs and cats is the key.
That's if you spot it in time

[SarzWix]

There is the potential to sort out the worms in pet dogs & cats however - my dog & cat are regularly wormed, and I always clean up after the dog. I wouldn't much fancy trying to catch wild rats/mice to give them a worm tablet Although owning a cat does mean that we don't really have a problem with them either

[maddles]

Rats

What a lot of information! We have an increase in rats on our allotments and have been told by the council to avoid creating areas that they may like to burrow under eg piles of wood, we've also been told to turn the compost heap every month, kick the compost bin regularly!, not grow sweetcorn this year - everyone's got decimated last year, basically keep the allotment tidy, harvest vegetable and fruit crops immediately and so on.

What I'd really like to know is how concerned should I be about growing veg. in ground that I know the rats have burrowed into recently? I have two young children who love to play on the allotment. How long would any diseases be present in the ground; I know with cats it can be many months. Would just washing the vegetables rid them of any traces of urine etc?

Any advice or information appreciated!

[Paul Wagland]

There is the potential to sort out the worms in pet dogs & cats however - my dog & cat are regularly wormed, and I always clean up after the dog. I wouldn't much fancy trying to catch wild rats/mice to give them a worm tablet Although owning a cat does mean that we don't really have a problem with them either

Sadly not every dog owner is as conscientious as you SarzWix. Many don't even clean up, let alone worm their pets (which is hardly difficult these days). And cats are rather harder to clean up after!

[Paul Wagland]

What I'd really like to know is how concerned should I be about growing veg. in ground that I know the rats have burrowed into recently? I have two young children who love to play on the allotment. How long would any diseases be present in the ground; I know with cats it can be many months. Would just washing the vegetables rid them of any traces of urine etc?!

In my experience rats aren't likely to burrow into the ground, they nest in existing holes - under sheds, in old drains and so on. They certainly can burrow if they want to - to get under a fence for example - but I wouldn't be at all worried about root veg, particularly once it's peeled and cooked.

An earlier post in this thread said there are 60 million rats in the UK, 8 million cats and 6.4 million (I think) dogs. Despite this huge difference in population sizes it's worth remembering that your kids are much more at risk from dog poo than rat urine. Also, with that many rats around it's a safe bet that we encounter any bugs they carry on a regular basis and our immune systems cope easily.

I would think normal precautions such as washing hands and avoiding areas that you know rats favour (eg river banks, drains etc) should be enough.

[peanut]

I have a rat living under one of my sheds........I wont put poison down as I have dogs. My attitude is as long as she doesn't cause any damage she can stay....if I get over run then I'll try and discourage her by moving things about and maybe doing a bit of excavating around the entrance.....Rats don't seem to like being disturbed, being creatures of habit, my mum had a family under a shed but after a bit of shifting and digging they upped sticks and all disappeared overnight!

[SMS6]

I think we have a rat living under the trailer at the bottom of our garden.

I say I think because I'm not sure if it's a rat. I thought rats had pointy ears long noses and bare tails but this one looks much more like a very large mouse? Do mice get that big?

Apart from stealing the bird food it doesn't seem to be doing any damage so haven't decided what to do yet.