we have attracted Rats! (1 Viewer)

I have so many wonderful birds coming to my feeders, But unfortantley I have also attracted RATS. I am so horrifed and freaked out over this. :-C and grossed out beyond belief. I had my exterminator come out and set up some live traps, but we have not caught one I have cheese in there and Peanut butter.

My husband had to resort to shooting them and so far we have shot 6 and there are more. There is one that is the size of a small cat. I have never in my life seen so many rats and seen one this large. I have lived here for over a year and have never seen one before.. I am afraid that this is going to be an on going battle for us.

Is there anything that can be done to detour them? Putting out poison is not an option as I have 3 dogs and would just die if something happened to them.

I also don't want to kill any chip Monks or Squirrels so I can't use bait, trapping and killing is my only option. I do feel horrible we have to kill them but I just cannont share my home with them.... and fear they will get in the house... Rats are so filthy and disgusting that I just can't deal with having them around my yard, they are all over my feeders and today I saw one in the feeder. HELP, Anyone else in this situation what did you do?

A squirrel/rat guard and frequent sweeping up of what falls will reduce the food supply to ground dwellers like squirrels and rats, but it's no good if you can't keep them out of the feeder. Stove-pipe type squirrel guards on a pole are very effective.

Secondly, if you can reduce the spillage it will help. The bluejays and hairy woodpeckers used to take great delight in feeding the squirrels by sweeping their bills through the seed from side to side, but then I added a homemade 1/2 inch hardware mesh teepee inside the feeder and now they have to pick up the seeds one at a time through the mesh to feed (3/4 inch would probably be better). The food lasts much longer and I only have the occassional squirrel now instead of 4 or 5 at a time. I suspect the effect would be similar for rats.

Scott

ps The one in my avatar doesn't have a squirrel guard, but it's millet so the squirrels aren't usually that interested.

Scott thanks for the idea's. I have not been good about cleaning up spillage and need to start doing that.

Thanks again, I have been having Rat nightmares for a week now, its not a fun critter to attract. I will take a squirrel any day of the week.

This is a big fear of mine actually. To date, I've been very lucky but with a creek running the whole width of my backyard and all the feeders I have out, I consider myself lucky that all I've had so far are opposums and raccoons oh and a red fox.

boxer95 said:

Scott thanks for the idea's. I have not been good about cleaning up spillage and need to start doing that.

Thanks again, I have been having Rat nightmares for a week now, its not a fun critter to attract. I will take a squirrel any day of the week.

Click to expand...

Sometimes rats just do the lemming bit and multiply like crazy. I was in NY one year and thought I saw squirrels all over Central Park. They were rats feeding on the lawns during the day. For you live traps, try pushing quaker oats onto the peanut butter.

We had rats for a while. I discovered they were living in our compost bin, eating fruit peelings etc. (We found this out one day when we opened the lid and there were several baby rats munching away on some melon skins that we'd put in an hour or so beforehand. they weren't in the least bit scared, but just looked up at us and carried on eating. Euurrrgh!) In cold weather, they would come close to the house to feed on any spillages, so getting rid of that was a major priority. I do still throw food on the ground for the birds, but earliesh in the morning and it's all gone by nightfall.

Another time, a neighbour found they were getting into her outside guinea pig cage to eat the food there, so she put poison down and for a week or two we found dead rats in our garden. I imagine she was careful where she put this, because none of the neighbourhood cats were taken ill. We did put poison down ourselves once overnight when they were started approaching the house in daylight - I do feel for you, it's a most horrible feeling. However, when we did this, we made absolutely certain that nothing else could get at the poison and we removed any poison left over the next morning. We put it in the top of the compost heap (under the lid), underneath the shed - there was a hole that we suspected they were using etc. Nothing else died, but the rats certainly did because we've not seen any for about a year now.

When we lived in Birmingham we were hit with a Rat plague that actually forced us to move house. At any given time you could count 60+ in our small back garden. At the same time we were also hit with a major increase of mice, sometimes killing up to 6 a night.

Unfortunately as clean as my missus and I are our near neighbours were not so thoughtful, which caused all the problems.

We have been free of them in our new Coventry home until about 6 weeks ago when a family of 2 adults and 6 young suddenly appeared in the garden. From that moment on, until the very cold weather the other week, they had been constantly in one of the feeding station areas. We haven't seen them since that cold snap so hopefully they have gone (but I wouldn't bet on it though).

My problem is that I have about 6 different feeders hanging from very low branches of a small tree plus a fairly large bird table full of food and any droppings go straight in-between the plants my missus is growing so it is quite hard to clear that area where the dropped seeds are.

I suppose if they return my only alternative is to try and talk my missus into removing that area of plants and then pave it over. At least that way I can clean up the droppings.

The most humane (apart from ferrets) way to keep your garden clear of rats is to buy a Fenn Trap and keep it permenantly set (if you're regularly troubled with rats). Rats tend to run around the base of walls, etc. rather than venturing out into the open, so construct a box (or simply lean a plank against the wall, giving enough clearance for the trap to close) and attach a pipe to either side (see attached). Place your Fen trap in the box (set side on so that the rat's caught in the middle of the jaws across it's body). You can cover the tunnel with turf, etc. to make it inconspicuous, just make sure you have easy access to the lid as you must check it twice a day. Make sure you can't see daylight through the tunnel - otherwise birds such as Dunnock may enter, and place a few twigs agross the mouth of the pipes to restrict access to hedgehogs if they're on the large size.

Much better than poison. Apart from secondary poisoning and direct danger to domestic animals, poisoned rats tend to feel cold and may try to enter property seeking warmth.

Forget 'humane' traps - one still has to kill the rats, or release them and break the law. Few people can kill a rat as quickly as a Fenn trap will.

saluki

:eat: Hi

Coming from a seaside town in the SE of England, rats are a plenty here. We have a problem where I work at the moment (residential hostel) & managers have called in Council. However, I hate the idea of killing anything. I had a rat a few years ago & all my friends were telling me to get in Rentakill. Problem with poisen it doesn't always work immediately and the rat will 'go underground' to die. Inside the house, this means under the floorboards. They then need to be removed - the smell of a decaying rat is the worst possible smell you could imagine and lingers for many months even once the rat has been removed. The rat I had, I eventually got rid of it as follows:

i) Immediately cut off ALL food supply (this is only a temporary measure)
ii) Laid down live trap in kitchen, leaving back door open, and gradually over period of a few weeks moved the cage further from the source of food (in this instant towards the back door to garden. This got the rat used to seeing the cage around but it still didn't go for the bait
ii) After a few weeks I finally bought a beef steak and placed it in the live trap which I then placed outside the kitchen door leaving the door open - cheese etc just doesn't do it - the steak worked the first night (dog food might work) The next morning (which was my Birthday!) I got up and a rather sad wet rat was sulking in the trap. I went closer and it gave an almighty hiss at me! I covered the cage with a blanket and took it to an isolated railway embankment but I'm afraid the rat 'escaped' otherwise of course I would have killed it!

This is fine for one or two rats but if you've got lots not very practicable. I really think for me, feeling as I do about any wildlife, the only way is to literally starve them out so they search elsewhere for food but obviously most people would choose to exterminate them, certainly as they do carry TB and Wiels disease, this is a rational solution. To be honest, in our area, its not the bird food that attracts the rats but the litter in the street!

Good luck!

Deborah