2 Rats in the garden

Albermarle · 13 June at 2:07PM

Not 100% sure, but I reckon it's probably illegal to put rat poison out in outdoor spaces.

It isn't illegal, but you should be careful and use it in bait boxes that are too small for cats, dogs and kids to get into .
Also it should only be used if you have a lot of rats, ( not just seeing the odd one) and have unsuccessfully tried to deter them by other means.
Apparently foxes like to eat rats, and I note that since we have had regular fox visitors to our garden , I haven't seen another rat .

happysellerbuyer · 13 June at 3:42PM

This is the image. The rat came out of the gap in the cover.

twopenny · 13 June at 10:05PM

We have rats in the gardens here.
They like to have cover so the denser the planting the more they are likely to visit.
I don't like the one that visits every morning for bird seed that's fallen, mostly when the fledglings are battering the feeder as they try to land.
Weirdly I've encouraged the pigeons because they clear up the seed meaning I see less of the rats.

They run past the mint. Jeyes fluid sprayed where they come in but I couldn't do it thoroughly. You could try that. Paint or dribble it around the gap. It would work better on concrete.

subjecttocontract · 13 June at 10:10PM

I shoot them. I miss occasionally but get most of them I aim for.

I have a composter which we put kitchen waste into. Never had a rat in there because the ventilation holes in the sides are to small for the rats to get in.

chrisw · 14 June at 9:41AM

subjecttocontract said:

I shoot them. I miss occasionally but get most of them I aim for.

We were eating Sunday dinner next to a window when my 80 year old uncle spotted a rat in the garden. Next thing, there was rat splattered all up the sides of the greenhouse as he shot it with his 12 bore shotgun.

Chloe_G · 14 June at 9:01PM

We had a huge rat in our plastic composter. It chewed a hole right through the thick plastic at the back. We had used the compost bin without a problem for about 25 years but we had to give up composting food and now put it in the council collection. Our neighbour poisons them which is terrible plus they always seem to die in our garden (either that or he throws the bodies over our fence).

youth_leader · 14 June at 11:33PM

I've just seen a dead barn owl on FB, sadly a victim of eating a poisoned rat. I don't agree with using any poisons in the garden now our wildlife is in such decline.

nature21 · 17 June at 5:43PM

Please please DO NOT use poison as others have suggested, what an awful way to die and also give some thought to predators that may well then eat the poisoned rat and die themselves a very painful death. Why can't you just leave them be. They've as much right to be here as you have.