The slippery buggers are actually pretty smart, try wiring up a bloody bright work light on a pull cord and stick that in the middle of the garden, when it comes on they'll stop for a couple of seconds and you can have the gits.Jak* wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:55 am I have the same problem. I don’t want to use poison as I’m trying to encourage birds, hedgehogs, etc and keep chickens. In the last couple of years I’ve caught more birds in the humane traps than rats. I have borrowed an air gun, but since I got it the buggers have kept a low profile in daylight hours. A mate down the pub suggested putting down ferret poo as apparently this deters them. Unfortunately I can’t find anyone with ferrets locally, so if anyone on here lives near Matlock and either keeps ferrets or knows someone who does please let me know.
If your problem is moles I can recommend curry powder. After trying sonic detergents, humane traps etc. I visited my local Indian supermarket and purchased a large bag of hot curry powder, I knocked the tops of the mole hills, poured the powder down them and I haven’t seen the buggers since. Unfortunately it didn’t work on the rats.
Rats!
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Re: Rats!
Re: Rats!
I’ve been doing some research.
A rat’s home range is between 25ft out to a maximum of 100ft.
So in our case they are definitely our rats. I can’t blame chicken keeping neighbours or the potato farm across the lane.....they’ve got their own.
Their numbers are proportional to the amount of food within their range.
Our source of food is pretty much limited to discarded bird food. Realistically we’re not going to stop feeding the birds. My wife actually has a “Foxes Table” where she puts our food leftovers out for Reynard.
Which is a double whammy, why should he chase rats when he’s being fed left over Gusto? I actually think he’s got Type 2 diabetes.
We’ve got loads of nesting sites.....under pallets, outbuildings etc....so we’re perfect hosts.
My wife feeds the birds through the day, and to be fair the greedy buggers do for most of it before it’s rat time.
So the pickings for the rats are pretty minimal, I guess periodically shooting, (careful) poisoning using proper bait boxes and live trapping (followed by execution) so as to discriminate which animals are eradicated is the way forward....control rather than eradication.
(Dammed auto-correct!)
A rat’s home range is between 25ft out to a maximum of 100ft.
So in our case they are definitely our rats. I can’t blame chicken keeping neighbours or the potato farm across the lane.....they’ve got their own.
Their numbers are proportional to the amount of food within their range.
Our source of food is pretty much limited to discarded bird food. Realistically we’re not going to stop feeding the birds. My wife actually has a “Foxes Table” where she puts our food leftovers out for Reynard.
Which is a double whammy, why should he chase rats when he’s being fed left over Gusto? I actually think he’s got Type 2 diabetes.
We’ve got loads of nesting sites.....under pallets, outbuildings etc....so we’re perfect hosts.
My wife feeds the birds through the day, and to be fair the greedy buggers do for most of it before it’s rat time.
So the pickings for the rats are pretty minimal, I guess periodically shooting, (careful) poisoning using proper bait boxes and live trapping (followed by execution) so as to discriminate which animals are eradicated is the way forward....control rather than eradication.
(Dammed auto-correct!)
Last edited by SteveWat on Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rats!
Now irradiation would be a very severe tactic. Polonium-laced tea is de-rigour these days.
Mind you, with the cunning of the rats round here I wouldn't be surprised if they turned up with dose-meters and geiger counters...
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Re: Rats!
https://www.pest.co.uk/what-do-rats-eat/
if you choose to feed rats, then you choose to live with rats.
Rats are not so disease ridden as we believe, i believe, so can make great pets.
its your choice.
rats eat almost anything, they do not have a gag reflex so are easy to poison too,
they eat, their own young yum yum, their own poo, dog poo, fruit, veg, meat, compost, love human drain fodder, dead birds, dying birds, carcasses, birds eggs, fish, young rabbits etc etc ... so feeding them bird food on a table is a great help to them.
compost heaps and soakaways must be paradise for rats?
i used to train my local rat to come for food at a call ... but found her dead one day, full of babies ... it would have been such a wonderful world to live with them all, all cuddling and running over me .. sigh .. I think it was my next door neighbour, who wanted to live in a tidy neighbourhood with clean stuff n things, the irresponsible bastard.
if you choose to feed rats, then you choose to live with rats.
Rats are not so disease ridden as we believe, i believe, so can make great pets.
its your choice.
rats eat almost anything, they do not have a gag reflex so are easy to poison too,
they eat, their own young yum yum, their own poo, dog poo, fruit, veg, meat, compost, love human drain fodder, dead birds, dying birds, carcasses, birds eggs, fish, young rabbits etc etc ... so feeding them bird food on a table is a great help to them.
compost heaps and soakaways must be paradise for rats?
i used to train my local rat to come for food at a call ... but found her dead one day, full of babies ... it would have been such a wonderful world to live with them all, all cuddling and running over me .. sigh .. I think it was my next door neighbour, who wanted to live in a tidy neighbourhood with clean stuff n things, the irresponsible bastard.