BS: Rats!

Subject: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 07:30 AM

Not fighting the dogs or killing the cats, but holed up, after a start under the potato planters, abandoned when I harvested, in one of the plastic compost bins.
I realised when I saw the nicely made compost neatly piled up outside the bin, under the bag of mustard plants waiting to be added at the top.
I've poured loads of water into the top as a temporary measure, and moved the so far ignored live capture trap close to the entrance.
I don't want to use poison - there are nice cats around, and one of them has been ill suspiciously after one of my neighbours had killed last year's rat with the poison she put out for the mouse (which I am not bothered about.)
When I get back from teaching swimming, I'm going to lift the cover ( a bit of a performance), fork around with one of those rotary tools and hose more water in. Also add some of the lion poo I got to persuade the cats to go elsewhere. And the mustard.
Any other ideas?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Tiger
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 09:40 AM

.22 from the bathroom window :)

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 10:59 AM

.. gotta respect the intelligence & resilience of rats....

I really like rats, they can be adorable pets

Who remembers the craze in the 80's for cute punk & goth girls keeping rats in their cardigan pockets..???

But on the other hand, if it came down to me versus a plague of rats,
I'd be keen to sharpen my skills with a catapult and ball bearings...

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Becca72
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 11:04 AM

I'm a "live and let live" kinda gal...

People in my family have had rats as pets and I think they're adorable.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 11:17 AM

I also like any rodents, they're very cute, especially when they sit up and clean their little whiskers. But rats carry all sorts of nasty germs, Weil's disease for example. And their droppings are left anywhere and everywhere. They wee continually. They have to be eradicated I'm afraid. One good way is to investigate thoroughly what they're eating:- Is food lying about?, Grain scattered around?(eg in chicken runs) Can they get at waste bins? You have to remove or seal any of these sources. Also, they have usual run-routes, little narrow paths you can spot. That's where to put humane traps. Here in UK, the poison pellets are left by the Pest Controller in small boxes, so other species don't eat them. The rats go home to their nests and die there, not many are eaten by any other animals. If you don't act, the area can get absolutely infested in no time.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 11:53 AM

But rats carry all sorts of nasty germs...

So do humans. Best start shooting them as well. And dogs. And cats.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Ed T
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 11:56 AM

""But rats carry all sorts of nasty germs...

So do humans. Best start shooting them as well. ""

Unfortunately, that is has been done in a few locations in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 01:36 PM

I did think it might have done for itself in the first attempt as it almost devoured a potato berry, but apparently not. There's some kitchen waste of the veggie type in the bin.

I didn't feel that the pushing down of the bin contents reached into any void below, but I've flooded it with the hose - first time I've connected it this year. I shall continue to disturb it, though - I'm sure the thing wants a quiet life. The neighbour with one of the local hunting cats said it has brought a small rat in in the last few days.

One of the neighbours has a terrier, so it won't be bothering them.

What bothers me about poison is if the rat dies out of its nest and Weasley* or Douglas** or the black and white one I only see occasionally decide to eat it.

* ginger and white - not named by the current owners
** ginger - surely the wrong name, Henry, William and Douglas were the Outlaws who weren't Ginger.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: gnu
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 01:50 PM

A .22 from the bathroom window? She HAS a live trap! Much safer to shoot them at close range.

Now, what kinda bait does one use for Gregs?

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 02:04 PM

"If you don't act, the area can get absolutely infested in no time."

It's like that with humans too. ;-D Just look at places like London or Chicago! Absolutely infested. Ya could hardly get more of 'em in there even if ya tried. Matter of fact, they have put in multi-level cages (highrise buildings) to contain 'em all. I hear that China is even worse.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 02:14 PM

Well,Chongo, you can either confront the rat problem or not, the choice is yours. If you think it's not that important, and that all species (including humans) are riddled with germs, then let the rats multiply, and face the ensuing health problems. One day, we may be infested with hairy chimps. Chimps jumping out of every cupboard and running across your bed at night! Just imagine that!

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 02:15 PM

You bet, Chongo - and humans are downright slobs into the bargain. Trash all over the place. No self-respecting rat would make that kind of a mess.

And I didn't realize that actors were prophylactic against rat infestations. Is that method actors, or all actors?

As for bait, a Hamilton 992B would work nicely, Gnu.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 21 Sep 12 - 08:45 PM

I have a rat problem here too. Composting household garbage is one of the nastiest, stupidest things I've ever heard of. You're asking for rats. I'll trap them. Then shoot them with a pellet gun. While they're in the trap.
(:-( 0)=

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 05:14 AM

I wonder if the Pest Control chap would come and exterminate an infestation of people? He could leave poisoned bait (bottles of beer? Pizzas? Bars of chocolate?) in strategic places. Those left would have a very peaceful life. You could even get a parking space in town, and imagine, no queues at the supermarket checkout. This is beginning to appeal!

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 06:20 AM

It would be nice. But I think the Nazis had a go at that and met with great disapproval.
(:-( 0)=

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 10:44 AM

Buy a package of vinyl gloves in the dish-washing area of your supermarket. Buy rat poison. Don the gloves (to keep your smell off the package) and shove the poison way down the rat burrow, where the cat won't get it.

Rats multiply and are serious pest. Don't allow them on your place in any way, shape or form.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 11:31 AM

A long time ago in a galaxy far away ....

Well, at least a little over 60 years ago in Reno County Kansas which amounts to about the same ...:

The 4H and FFA clubs that a farmboy cousin was in offered a bounty of about a penny a tail. On a visit to his farm, we organized a safari of three and treked deep into the wilds down by the grain bin and earned him about $2.80 in a couple of hours with a pair of BB guns.

Of course that was when a BB gun was a BB GUN, and it was only a couple of years later that Daisy decided to limit them to a "safer level" that made the later ones pretty much useless for anything bigger than a fly or sometimes (not consistently) a cockroach. The later ones wouldn't ruffle the fur on a mouse, let alone be even an annoyance to a barnyard rat.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 12:10 PM

Jenny
at home or at mudcat?

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 12:40 PM

Round here (rural Norfolk) the local farmers used (some still do) to keep Jack Russells or other small terriers. They were brilliant at ratting and could dispatch dozens in a very short time during an organised rat-hunt.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 12 - 04:34 PM

shove the poison way down the rat burrow, where the cat won't get it.

Then Mr/Mrs/Ms Rat, uncooperatively and aklmost inevitably, leaves burrow & dies where cat and/or any number of other animals can get at it.

Result: Dead cat, et. al.

Snap traps are much more humane & less environmentally devastating.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 03:13 AM

My Siamese cats used to operate a very good system in our last house, where there were fields and hedgerows in which to hunt rodents. They'd kill a rat (hunting as a co-operative pair) then carry it back home by taking one end each in their mouths, like two men with a stretcher. My neighbours would laugh their heads off, it was so funny. Then one would go through the catflap first and pull, while the one still outside would push, thus posting the unfortunate victim into the kitchen. Sometimes the poor thing would revive, and I once found one clinging to the grid on the back of the fridge, a pile of droppings beneath. He'd obviously been there some time. I helped him outside, much to my cats' disgust.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: ranger1
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 07:16 AM

If you decide to do away with it, please use any method other than poison. It gets into the food chain - no matter where the rat dies, something will be along to snack on it. Not to mention poison being far more inhumane and slower than trapping.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 07:26 AM

My intention, should I catch it, which I haven't yet, nor seen any more evidence of its presence, is to release it into woodland which is not near any houses or farmyards - site already identified. It's a rural outdoor rat and should find a good living there.
It's first site, when uncovered, had no food store (except for the p0tato berry which might have dropped in) or bedding, nor any attempt to chew into the woodwork of the adjacent raised bed.
I'm going to keep on disturbing it, and when the bin is emptied, put a base of chicken wire underneath.
I've been here with a bin three years, and this is the first with a rat problem.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 11:54 AM

Troll Henry Krinkle has offered a rude and incorrect answer. Typical. It's fine to put out kitchen waste in the compost, but the answer, Penny, is to get yourself a Pitbull or a Minpin or one of the dogs bred to hunt small rodents. My dogs kill rats if they get in the yard, and I have the compost back in their area for that reason. I mix kitchen waste with the picked up dog droppings to keep the dogs out of the compost, and the dogs keep out everything else that trys to come near.

The warfarin in rat poison can kill other animals that might eat the rat, so the poison route is not a good way to go. But you could try repelling, not just with your water routine (if there is too much water you'll spoil your compost so you might as well not compost at all). You can buy predator urine (fox urine is found commercially) or you might go by a dog groomers' shop and ask for the sweepings and add a generous mix of dog hair around the compost pile.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 03:32 PM

No sign of activity today, despite my having forgotten the lion poo. Not sure where I put it when I got the pack out yesterday.

I now have blackfly on the runner beans, which my books are curiously silent about, apart from chemicals - and runner beans are eaten whole. So, as I fortunately still have some old fashioned soap flakes, I have squirted them with soap solution.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 04:15 PM

I have heard it argued that the assertion that rats leave a continuous trail of urine because they have no method of retention is false, but that male rats do mark territory with urine - a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish
Date: 23 Sep 12 - 06:12 PM

Rats are our Relatives too, they can't help being Rats, they're just born 'that way'...

What worries me more is that you appear to have a Lion. :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 05:16 AM

Rats are remarkably astute and clever. Bill Bryson in his book "At Home" decribes rats observed by a security guard stealing eggs without breaking them. The guard watched as one rat clasped the egg in all four paws and rolled over onto his back, while the others towed him along by his tail to their den. Other watchers in a meat factory in Chicago saw rats that formed a heap to reach a hanging carcass. One rat went up to the top and chewed through the meat on the hook until the whole thing fell down. Then they all gnawed away happily. I have no objection to any living thing, but one has to protect one's health.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 07:10 AM

A product, "Silent Roar" is available from garden centres.

This morning a cat I have never seen before arrived and sat on top of the bin. A dilemma, as I don't want cats adopting my seedbeds as litter trays. I went out, it left, and I sprinkled the apparently odiferous pellets to deal with both.

Apparently, rhubarb leaf tea plus soap does wonders with the blackfly. I have no rhubarb, but do have oxalic acid, which would presumably wash off.

No recent rodent activity.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Charles Macfarlane
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 08:02 AM

I've quite some experience at dealing with rats and mice.

Basically, rats can be regarded as bigger, but far, far more intelligent, mice. Both urinate and defecate all over the place, including the places that they, and we, eat. Both, but particularly rats, carry diseases, rats ones that can kill a human, such as Bubonic Plague (Black Death), which is a caused by a bacterium living in the fleas carried by rats, which also bite humans, and Weil's Disease, passed on by rats urinating in drinking water, or water that might be accidentally ingested, such as river water where people swim.

With both, prevention is better than cure. You need to ensure that there is minimal ground cover close to buildings - leave a foot clear of plants around barns and garages, and mow any grass close to buildings sufficiently short that it can't act as cover. Find out where the vermin is getting into buildings, and block the holes appropriately, for example with cement.

For both, trapping usually works, but rats may be very suspicious of an unusual and too easy source of food suddenly appearing in their environment, particularly if it smells of human. I sometimes think it is better not to set a trap for a couple of nights until they get used to taking the food off it, then set it.

For a humourous take also containing useful tips you might want to read my posts as Java Jive in these threads ...

About 16 or 17 posts down, beginning: "Mice are (at least) two problems in one ..."
uk.d-i-y - Help get rid of mice

My second post beginning: "Ah! Now that takes me back ..."
uk.tech.digital-tv - Digital Upgrade

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 24 Sep 12 - 11:49 AM

That is what I tried with the trap the first time, but realised when I eventually set it that it had been the woodmouse that took the bait. Trap sprung, bait gone. I set it again with a larger piece of bait - trap sprung, bait lodged against bars. Reset it, thinking I had accidentally knocked it while putting it down, five minutes later, the same thing. The mouse could get through the bars, but not take the bait with it.

There isn't any access into the house from the back, apart from the old tumbler drier vent - at ground level would you believe, which I have blocked.

You have made me worried, though, about the front. There is a bin cupboard by the front door which contains the stopcock and a tap for a hose. When someone put that tap in, they damaged the wall (composed of asbestos board) and left gaps. The neighbour who puts out poison had mice in her cupboard. The gaps communicate with a hollow structure which runs up through the centre of the house containing the warm air heating ducting, and other stuff, I know not what, and cannot get into. I must get the builder to sort it pdq. It is on the list, but not as urgent.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 06:20 AM

I still say composting household garbage is the nastiest, most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Odor, rats, flies, maggots. Don't you get enough of that here at Mudcat? Why have it at your home? It makes me sick.
(:-( 0)=

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 10:16 AM

Now Penny, what good does it do to trap a rat? First of all, the one you trap is probably not the only one around your place.

It could bite or scratch you when you deal with it. Not worth it!

And where are you going to take it? Are you going to release it in somebody else's neighborhood? That is not ethical.

Any place you take that rat is going to be somebody else's neighborhood. A run-down factory can be home to somebody, somebody homeless and vulnerable. The woods are home to desirable animals who might lose eggs and young to the rat you brought in.

Rats are no good. Kill them before they multiply.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 01:56 PM

I've checked out the woodland hypothesis with the local wildlife trust. No objections.
The compost is mostly garden waste, and the kitchen waste is almost all bits of plants as well. The very small amount of animal waste I produce goes off to the council incinerator. The associated flies are fruit flies. Honestly Mr Krinkle, don't you know anything. The rat was in the lower part of the bin, mostly soil like, for the warmth, It's gone now, anyway.
Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 06:06 PM

Rats are no good. Kill them before they multiply.

Spoken like a true animal lover. Do you contribute to PETA or any of the other animal rights organizations, by any chance??

By the way- dogs are no good. Kill them before they multiply.

Ditto humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 25 Sep 12 - 06:41 PM

You set garbage out at the curb. Saving it is a health menace.
You're going to cause a plague.
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 02:31 AM

Ah, I see, you're not over here, from the spelling of kerb. Where does your garbage go? Landfill? Crawling with rats and scavenger birdlife, all ready to spread their germs around th neighbourhood?
Cabbage outer leaves, ends of cucumber, peapods, etc aren't garbage, they are compostable material for improving the soil in which I grow them.
You aren't a gardener, are you?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 26 Sep 12 - 04:11 AM

I grow tomatoes, peppers, gourds, and anything I fancy. I don't want a rat farm,though....you can keep those over there. Is rat stew yummy? I'd be scared of getting sick.
(:-( P)=

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Martin
Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:41 AM

According to the news today, Britain faces a serious problem with "super" rats.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/plague-of-mutant--super-rats--invades-britain.html

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 12 - 05:24 PM

But what a lovely little rat that is in Martin's link, what with its lttle pink paws and twinkly eyes...

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 04:57 AM

It's even smiling !

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 12:55 PM

I'm really puzzled by the supposed related links to the latest exo-planet and the most annoying noise.

I think it's a great pity that rats a) carry diseases harmful to humans, and b) compete for our resources and steal them.

They're clever and resourceful, a bit like us.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 04:12 PM

What about the diseases that humans carry (respiratory bugs, particularly) that are harmful to rats?

Rats in gerneral get a bad rap.

Subject: RE: BS: Rats!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Oct 12 - 10:36 PM

"Rats in gerneral get a bad rap."

oh dear, you should be more careful what you say...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTOajyzvIjE