There's a rat in the garden, what am I going to do?
Discussion
Interesting this thread got bumped as I was going to post asking about the topic..
Our house and the rest in the street back onto a canal, and are all tidy and fenced, apart from our next door neighbor, who's a few sandwiches short of a picnic, shall we say. His garden runs right to the canal bank with no fence, so between burning barrels of rubbish on his lawn, dredging scrap out of the canal, and leaving rotten food out 'for the badgers', he's attracted rats and we've seen a few scurrying across the top of our garden along the fence line...
The garden is pretty well laid up for a DIY shooting range so I'm tempted to pick up a cheap air rifle...
Our house and the rest in the street back onto a canal, and are all tidy and fenced, apart from our next door neighbor, who's a few sandwiches short of a picnic, shall we say. His garden runs right to the canal bank with no fence, so between burning barrels of rubbish on his lawn, dredging scrap out of the canal, and leaving rotten food out 'for the badgers', he's attracted rats and we've seen a few scurrying across the top of our garden along the fence line...
The garden is pretty well laid up for a DIY shooting range so I'm tempted to pick up a cheap air rifle...
Radec said:
Unfortunately they kill hedgehogs too. Ronstein said:
From all the research I've done, it seems we're divided into those that know they have rats and those that don't know. Fortunately the house and garage is stone, but they've moved in under an old shed, so that's going.
We have started using humane traps and transporting them a mile down the road. Score so far in two weeks is three rats, three magpies, a blackbird and a jackdaw (all released unharmed). We back onto farmland, so there's no way we'll ever be rid of them, so we'll try not to provide them will accommodation and moderate the bird food while it's plentiful in the wild.
Rats are everywhere but the population on farmland is likely to be a lot less per acre than built up urbanised areas. We have started using humane traps and transporting them a mile down the road. Score so far in two weeks is three rats, three magpies, a blackbird and a jackdaw (all released unharmed). We back onto farmland, so there's no way we'll ever be rid of them, so we'll try not to provide them will accommodation and moderate the bird food while it's plentiful in the wild.
I’ve tried humane traps of various types, the normal snap traps ( oversized mouse traps), shooting and poisoning them. The last two are by far the most effective, sadly, poisoning seems such an awful way to go.
Ronstein said:
so called said:
Can you give me any details of your trap please.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000QVSCH6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1I always handle it with gardening gloves (so it doesn't stink of humans) and use birdseed (especially sunflower hearts) and peanut butter as bait.
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