muntjac
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rats ,rats and more ratsso far this winter i have trapped 23 jill rats and 11 hobs .how many i have posoined i have no idea .my baiters are empty again after just 3 days near a 1lb of warfarin coated seed .i havent had this many in years in my chicken yards .also i have more coming in from the fields at home .my allotment has seen as many as 15 of the beggers ,baiters again are being emptied quickly. i went to check a hen who decided to sit on some spare chinas in an old box and a browney jumped out from behind the box as i opened the lid .didnt get far with brook tho , so is ratty as bad near you ?, oh and the pian in the neck is the flaming number of moles about
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Leonie2
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I never see any rats, but I expect there are plenty about.
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lottie
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My little meadow at my allotment is just one heap of mole hills. To think that I spent all that time getting it flat!
When the ditches are flooded around where I live, the rats come out - but I haven't seen any in my garden - but that is to say that are none around.
They love 'living' in the muck heaps in the fields near me - they still manage to make me jump when I walk past them.
Yuk
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Haize
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One moved into a friend's house a few weeks ago - it took them a couple of days to decide that they weren't imagining the rustling noises, then a few more days to get a trap, but that has not been successful.
It was a mouse trap, so we have assumed it is a rat, as it must be too big for the trap to kill. Is this reasoning sound?
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nanny-now and forever
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if you have mice, you don't have rats, they can't co-exist
as we have 7 cats, we don't see many rats though we know they are about because they leave their calling cards and when mr nanny cleared out the old palletts in the feed room, he found 4 bodies
as an aside............
whilst sitting in the centre of a shopping mall here in wales just before christmas, an elderly woman came and sat down next to me and carried on a conversation with her daughter who was standing next to her....you try not to listen don't you but anyway, i managed to get the gist through the very strong welsh accent
mother: no i am not going to have it, don't want it..........
daughter: why ever not?
mother: because i have seen the results. no flesh on the bones, no muscle left, just a bit of old leather, that's all that's left
daughter: but mum don't be silly, that's when it's rat poison, you will get the type that is for heart trouble, you don't turn into a piece of old leather....
must say, i nearly burst out laughing.....the old lady was really quite adamant
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Leonie2
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we have lots of mice so perhaps that's why I never see rats.
I was just reading in the wildlife magazine that I get that people are putting too much food out for the wild birds and that is contributing to the increasing rat problems. what do you all think?
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nanny-now and forever
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rats are everywhere
you are never more than 6 feet from one at any one time so everybody check behind the sofa...NOW
possibly it contributes leonie but i personally couldn't think it was the main reason
i think there are more rats because the weather is milder and they aren't killed off
they don't scare me but i know they have diseases and things so they have to go
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mc55
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OH's mum has something munching the kitchen cupboards.
We thought maybe it was a mouse, but OH heard the racket it makes and said he doesn't think its a mouse anymore - its also eaten the most enormous hole in the kitchen cupboard. Think it has to be a rat, but she refuses to put poisen down - doesn't want it dying in the walls and making a smell. She has two cats, we did wonder whether one of the cats had brought in a rat that wasn't dead. They like to bring rats as presents.
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nanny-now and forever
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| mc55 wrote: | OH's mum has something munching the kitchen cupboards.
We thought maybe it was a mouse, but OH heard the racket it makes and said he doesn't think its a mouse anymore - its also eaten the most enormous hole in the kitchen cupboard. Think it has to be a rat, but she refuses to put poisen down - doesn't want it dying in the walls and making a smell. She has two cats, we did wonder whether one of the cats had brought in a rat that wasn't dead. They like to bring rats as presents. |
if you use warfarin, they tend to go outside looking for water and thus die outside though i suppose it isn't foolproof
they can get through really small holes and can get up the bend in the loo if they have to......
when the sewers in framlingham were redone, the rats were runing around under the cars in the car park in the middle of the day
perhaps they were trying the door handles.................can rats hot wire?
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mc55
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thanks Nanny, we'll try again - she's on her own and I don't really like the thought of a rat running around her house.
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nanny-now and forever
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nor do i
don't like them at all
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Becki
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I've seen a few around Swindon, although nothing very close to us, but I'm sure they are here.
I did have a fit when a mouse ran between my feet a while ago and was tempted to bash it on the head with the very large shovel I had in my hand but chickened out. 
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alison
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You better get a bit more tempted to around here!
I killed a nest of mice in the greenhouse last week.
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Becki
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MMMMMM might just get the dogs to do it. Or Mark 
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Bovey Belle
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We live next door to a farm, and so there are always rats in the vicinity though we don't usually see them unelss one of our cats has killed one and brought it back to show off! However, we live in a very old farmhouse with walls three feet thick, and the blessed things DO get into the walls and last winter we had one shuffling about behind our bed (in the wall this is). Eventually he went away, but then when I was cleaning out the bottom of the linen cupboard I found out the bl**dy thing had made a nest in the pile of bed linen that never got used. Urghhhhh!
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Haize
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A few years ago, we lived in a terrace, and as we were students we went away for a month over Christmas. We came back to find a @^£!& mouse had actually made a nest and had babies on our bed! Cheeky thing 
It took about a fortnight to actually trap all of the darn offspring
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kaz
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My OH usually keeps the place baited with poison for rats and our terriers let us know if there are more than usual around.
We have also got moles (is it early for them?). The terriers love them and try to dig them out - leaving a maze trail along the grass (can't really be called a lawn ) where they have followed the mole trail along
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