Rats nibbling my veg :(

Personally i would kill them John.

 

Hi,

You can get various types of traps, so think if you used that veg as bait you would soon get a hit.

Avoid poisons as it takes time to work and until it does their droppings contain the poison which can be deposited on your veg plot, not something you want as its quiet persistent.

Have you got a compost heap ? if so its likely they are living in that, best way I found was to get a metal spike and push it down into the heap in many places and then push the hose pipe down the holes to really flood their runs.

 

The brown rat can breed throughout the year if conditions are suitable, with a female producing up to five litters a year. The gestation period is only 21 days, and litterscan number up to 14, although seven is common. They reach sexual maturity in about five weeks.

I kill rats - usually with poison and use containers for the poison that are easily obtained on line, which protects other creatures.
This is approaching the time when the crops will all be harvested in the surrounding fields here and the rats will, as always , make the way to our gardens and sheds, they nest under decking, and search out any food supply they can find including bird feeders.
I have no qualms at all about their extermination as they can spread disease like billyo (whoever billyo is)

If I had a gun I would shoot them - have managed to drown a couple - whatever works!

 

We have hens which normally attract rats unless their food/run is protected, as is ours.

What we find causes a rat problem is neighbours putting out great chunks of breads bits of meat, leftover chicken pieces, etc.

Have a look around for disturbed soil near compost heaps, sheds, etc.

Most rats are wary of traps, poison normally works much,much better. If you can locate them on your own property try using glue traps.

Keep poison and traps innaccesible to pets, birds, hedgehogs, etc.!!!

Never managed to shoot one, but did manage to skewer a rat in the hen run with a short handled hay fork.

 

Horrible pests, my companion had them in her garden and she went to see her friend who is the local lord of the manor and she uses his pest control chap.
Met up with him and he was great, knew his stuff and and went about his business.
It’s taken a year to get on top of them and he used several different types of poison set up in boxes.
We now have just one box and he visits every 6 weeks to check it’s contents.
When he first appeared we chatted about seeing them in broad daylight which indicated a large number with many entrance points under fences.
He did say this would be an on going problem so it looks like it’s a permanent setup.

 

I shared a very sad post tonight on FB of a beautiful Barn Owl who was slowly dying due to consuming a rodent which had been poisoned. Please remember, when you poison 'vermin', you are very likely to also poison whichever animal eats that unfortunate creature.

 

I've seen a couple of rats around here on a few occasions.
Both at separate times I've found dead.

Mostly killed, I'm guessing, by the massive local cat population.

Trouble is they kill the birds as well, although, some dead birds I put down to cats, are it appears, due to sparrow hawks.

 

Which is why I only use traps under cover and avoid poison at my edge of village plot.

But the amount of nutty neighbours wanting to feed birds with stale half baguettes or chicken carcasses [1] that get picked up by birds and dropped all over neighbouring gardens is getting ridiculous.


[1] And those chicken bones that get dropped in neighbouring gardens are really dangerous if eaten by pet dogs .

 

I use traps. I also have shot a couple but usually they are too fast for me to get my aim. I use the traditional snap traps and bait with peanut butter.. the smooth kind

I got another one some time in the night. I'll trap for about 5 days and about that time, they are much younger and not interested so I take a short 3 or 4 day break and start again. Seems like a nasty game of whackamole!

One of my friends thinks I'm a cross between tugboat Annie and Ma Kettle...

 

Tug boat Annie, I thought you reminded me of someone

 

Its the best way to deal with them IMHO you can see what your shooting nothing else gets poisoned and its instant death if you know how to shoot, you can pick a gun up for around £60/80 you need one with good power to do the job.

 

Anything over 300mps will do the job. Mine's a little stronger. I use a 3x4 postit note with a target drawn on it to practice. I'm only about 20ft from it though so I guess that's cheating..