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You can clean your garden as much as you want chances are they aren't getting food from there, in our case it was from the school behind us. Your local authority will send someone out to lay poison for you.
When I was sanding our floors one came up to the French windows for a look .
Cheeky bugger. It was massive and looked as healthy (shiny coat) as the cute one up there.
Rats are naturally illusive - if you see them at all - but especially if their behaviour bold and brazen - then they're probably ill.
Toxoplasmosis is a brain parasite that infects rats and cats and in rats its changes their behaviour making them very curious and less furtive, it also makes them find cats really interesting and makes them seek them out rather than flee from them. That makes it easier for cats to catch and eat them - this passes the disease to the cats who then get the squits and/or die and the rats feed on their bum gravy and/or corpses and the cycle continues.
Toxoplasmosis infects humans too - one in three of us carry it apparently. Historically it been considered to be asymptomatic but in the last few years there its beginning to be thought that it has subtle effects on human behaviour too - alterations in reaction times, reduced risk aversion, more accident prone and so on ( as well as making some blokes taller and better looking too apparently)
Historically it been considered to be asymptomatic but in the last few years there its beginning to be thought that it has subtle effects on human behaviour too - alterations in reaction times, reduced risk aversion, more accident prone and so on ( as well as making some blokes taller and better looking too apparently)
WCA I think you need to speak to your GP.
WCA I think you need to speak to your GP.
You missed the bit in brackets (mind you - he could be a 3 from a 1)
Live trap was what we used in our poly tunnel,then they had long swims in 40 gallon barrel to exhaustion ,takes a while for em to drown .
Farm /rural area so will always be around ,just not sharing our crops.
Bet that was fun , watching a rat drown to death after swimming for its life, bet the winter nights fly by in your house
Funny this should be resurrected. Saw a big rat (easily three times the size of the cute ikkle pet ones) in our garden the other day eating the bread my wife put out for the birds. Stopped putting out bread, bot seen it since.
We have rat issues at times.
We have large stock of wood for burning, keep hens, at least four compost bins, feed the birds, hay in barn, live by a beck. The only solution is a very cold winter or traps and air rifle.
Peanut butter placed on a rat run while you hide in range the air rifle works if you keep at it for a couple of weeks.
If you get a real bad infestation particularly under sheds, in wood pile or hen houses, get a good ratting team in. A few mad blokes with terriers can an exciting spend a morning (pretty scary really). it works well though.
They'll always be around just try and keep things tidy and do a bit of culling as required.
Plummer Terriers ftw!
Any working Terriers will do.
Saw a big rat (easily three times the size of the cute ikkle pet ones) in our garden the other day eating the bread my wife put out for the birds. Stopped putting out bread
I'd stop putting bread out for them anyway - my next job is part of a campaign to dissuade people from feeding bread to birds - generally not good for them and in some cases responsible for quite nasty birth defects (or hatching defects I suppose)
was only being told last week about lad, who has a huge rat phobia.. saw a rat at the bottom of their garden and was trying to convince his wife to sell up....
Border terrier and Patterdale terrier (aka the Devil dog), plus the big fluffy killer (British shorthair tabby) certainly no rats in our graden.
I'd stop putting bread out for them anyway - my next job is part of a campaign to dissuade people from feeding bread to birds
I've been trying to discourage her for ages.
I've been trying to discourage her for ages.
I don't want people to get the message too easily - wait til I've been paid, then discourage all you want 🙂
I'd stop putting bread out for them anyway - my next job is part of a campaign to dissuade people from feeding bread to birds
Bread has very little nutritional value to birds.
The best thing to feed rats on are .22 air rifle pellets.
With those videos up there I almost feel sorry for the rats.
Interesting that the dogs lose interest in the rat once it's dead.
They must be the happiest dogs in the world.
So far though, despite being bated with bread (obviously in true STW fashion made in bread machine) and peanut butter
If the rats know that you're a forum member you should at least be using cashew butter
Had some rats in our garden which got me in to making a blow gun using a piece of 15mm pvc tube zip tied to a straight dowel rod( to keep the tube straight ) and a milliput mouthpiece with bamboo skewer darts with paper and duck tape cone flights. Missed one cocky rat by inches with that, eventually got the council over with poison cause child plays in the garden.
Don't bother with a nooski trap. I wasted my money on that. Totally useless.
After hearing scratching in our extension roof (no access from inside the house) I lifted a tile and cut a hole in the lining to look underneath.
Looks like a rat has been having a cr*pping party in there. Need to get the council out. Then figure out how they're getting in. Then get the roof lifted, all the sh*tty insulation binned and new stuff put in and the roof rebuilt with no rat doorways in it. 😐
I probably can't put a terrier in the roof space can I? Or how about a snake?
With those videos up there I almost feel sorry for the rats.
Interesting that the dogs lose interest in the rat once it's dead.
They must be the happiest dogs in the world.
I think the guys that take joy in this as a hobby progress onto badger baiting and dog fighting.
Live trap was what we used in our poly tunnel,then they had long swims in 40 gallon barrel to exhaustion ,takes a while for em to drown .
If that's true then you are one sick puppy.
We'd had heard noises in the lift for months. Had though it was birds as there was some poo up there but when up there to get my skiing stuff down to find rat poo too. Council won't deal with them no so had to get pest control in. He didn't do much other than lay down poison and say block any potential entrances. Rat is now decomposing and all holes around eaves have been blocked. Still not sure how in got up to eaves level.
If we get them again I'll lay poison or set a trap myself its not rocket science.
Terrier
Badger baiting and dog fighting seems very different from dogs being used for pest control (I haven't watched the videos above)
In certain situations it's more effective than traps or poison. Badger baiting and dog fighting is plain horrible. Pest control is actually helpful
Border terrier and Patterdale terrier cross is the perfect combination for the job.
km79 - I can see how you would think that about ratting but it sometimes has to be done and is the best way with a large infestation in the shortest possible time. With other animals around, for me poison is out of the question as its it impossible to control what can get hold of the dying or dead rat. We have plenty of owls near our place and it would sad to inadvertently kill them, plus the use of rat poisons (that work) are very strickly control (obviously) and there are now few of them left that work. Sometime it's best to get on with it.
[i]I probably can't put a terrier in the roof space can I? Or how about a snake? [/i][i]
Ferret, plus they leave behind a 'scent'.
And only yesterday I bought a new (to me) .22 now Spring is coming 🙂
We've stables opposite us, certainly attracts them.
When I worked on the farm we had our Spring rat hunt surprisingly in the Spring. It wasn't so much a hunt as a massacre. Young heifers turned out and time to empty the shed of all the straw they had been bedded on, before you did that you had to move the feeders which is where the fun started. There were about four of us and about 6 terriers, move a feeder and just watch the chaos rats going everywhere, terriers dispatching them and then onto the next one. Arthur one of the boys would stand still with his feet together and rock back a bit on his heels, poor panicked rat would see a dark hole and dive under his boots where Arthur would just crush it, quite astonishing to see. It would last about 15 minutes, usual tally was about 30 to 40 rats and at least one terrier had to go to the vet for stitches, self inflicted by running into sheeting or some other pointy thing in the yard. Never got all of them and they would scatter into the outdoors for the summer until the next lot of heifers were born, then the cycle starts again.
the circle of life. You try telling that to the young uns today.