Rat in my garden in broad daylight!

Cliecost

Dynamite...and lots of it!!!

Leif

cinderfella wrote: »

Best not to corner a rat as they will attack humans & children. Did you know that the Houses of Parliament are infested with vermin and that's in addition to the MP's & Lords there. As they say., 'birds of a feather flock together'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087422/Revealed-The-Houses-Parliament-really-infested-vermin.html

And as you probably know they can and do kill thanks to the diseases they carry.

Leif

spacey2012 wrote: »

Yes it will, it will climb anything that rises, it is a rat.
Unless something is applied to the pole, it will work it out.

Leaving any type of food out, attracts rats, end of story.

So you've seen a rat climb a smooth vertical metal pole which has no grip? In any case, the tray would stop anything rat sized getting to the feeder, unless it can walk upside down under the tray.

spacey2012

The Council will charge for the service and the first advice is to stop placing food out.
They come back in a week to see if that has worked.
They only kill the rats if the problem is not one of your own making.

walkers-crisps_are_evil

Grease the pole maybe!

cinderfella

don't forget to put a sign on the front gate

lostinrates

spacey2012 wrote: »

The Council will charge for the service and the first advice is to stop placing food out.
They come back in a week to see if that has worked.
They only kill the rats if the problem is not one of your own making.

I am not sure this is correct. We have had the council out for this year and we feed birds from an appropriate bird table and keep hens, which is obviously a rat attraction.

They will charge, but they also have information as to poisons resistance and therefore appropriate poison use in the area.

tanith

I had similar last Summer , the dang thing would sit and watch me till I got up to chase it, after the third time I stopped all bird feeding for the rest of the Summer and I (fingers crossed) haven't seen a sign of it since..

lostinrates

goater78 wrote: »

.

If you leave poison out you're going to kill more than just rats. It will literally be animal carnage!

You certainly might kill a few other rodents....mice etc, However, we have appropriate poison boxes IN our chicken houses now, and still have a huge range of safe visiting wildlife. Animal carnage is a little, um, overkill . Our own cats, feral cats, the hedgehogs, etc etc are all fine. We do a regular check for rat/rodent bodies so that the risk to the feral cats and our terrier is minimised.

I have to say, I feel more confident under the guidance of the councils chap, whose tips on where to use tubes versus boxes has been great.

I dislike poison, and love wildlife, but I also cannot tolerate rat damage. They have been killing chickens here, and made holes THROUGH concrete floors. Shudder.

A._Badger

As a fellow chicken keeper I completely agree with LIR. Poison isn't nice but the only alternative is to borrow a terrier (we did this recently). If it is properly used (ie in specially designed and positioned bait boxes) only vermin will get to the poison..