Is anyone doing this ?
It’s on the 28th -30th of this month
I always do it .
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I did do it a couple of years ago, Muddy, but I got fed up with them pestering me for ages afterwards, trying to sell me stuff, and trying to make me join the RSPB.
I only wanted to help with the bird watch, so wasn’t happy about the constant emails afterwards.
There is that of course 
I will be doing it again - my garden is full of birds at the moment. They will probably all go off on holiday next week end!
I won’t be, we have rats again so I’ve stopped feeding the birds again. This is driving me potty, they don’t show for a few days, then back they come in broad daylight, if they stuck to night times I’d not see them, so, would carry on feeding the birds. The latest, a big male was on the bird table scoffing away. He didn’t even move when I shouted at him & tapped the window, it was only when I went out side, he scarpered & he’d wrecked the cage around the bird table too, it’s hanging off, but I did only tie it round with string.
I havent seen rats for a good while ( but i saw a mouse on the table this morning ) I feed in the mornings seed i dont fill the feeders up as they will eat it all and spill ) it all only about a third i have several and two small tables one is hanging so all get seed in the mornings
i also have fat balls hanging up .
I try not to put food out in the evenings ( although i did today as the little birds looked hungry ) so as food isn’t out at night for Mr Rat
Same here Muddy. I only ever put out what can be eaten before dark.
I never have any food out over night, its asking for trouble.
I wash the food dishes out in hot soapy water each week to help prevent disease, and the water bowls too.
Next door has a few hens, and there are plenty of rats about. They go in his hen house after the feeders, so I am extra careful, as I hate the darn things.
Having said that, I still get the occasional one trying its luck!
I suspect my neighbour puts poison out .
Now that would really scare me, Muddy.
I’ll tell you what happened here once.
Years ago, when my Mups was a youngster, she started vomitting just as I was getting into bed.
It got rapidly worse, and turned red.
She was bleeding so much I dare not leave her any longer and phoned the out-of-hours vet at midnight. He said to take her straight in.
She brought up more blood all over his table.
He thought it was poison, and didn’t expect her to last the night.
I drove home in a dreadful state, thinking I would not see alive again…
They rung me early in the morning to say she had survived. I wept buckets with relief. I really thought I had lost her.
I’d had the council rat man out to bait a corner of my garden a week or so before this, and after checking the bait station, (which I had fenced off), I knew there was no way she could have got to the rat bait in there.
The only conclusion I could arrive at was that rat bait, no matter how carefully hidden, does not only kill the rats! It will kill mice, birds, frogs, hedgehogs, cats, and anything else that eats it, and I wondered if my Mups had found a couple of half dozy mice or something, and caught them, and so ingested the poison herself. Even Owls eating poisoned mice will get poisoned themselves.
I could think of no other way she could have got poisoned as she could get no where near the bait itself. I guess I shall never know now, but the main thing for me was, she survived.
Now my next door neighbour puts bait down to get the rats after his hen food, and I am constantly on edge incase I get any half dead creatures coming through my fence where my dogs can find them. Lately he has taken to setting traps instead, thank God.
Your little one was lucky Mups poison is a horrible thing I had a beautiful friendly dog poisoned once it broke my heart . I will never know if or why someone would kill him but it was overseas and bad people did poison dogs .The vet couldn’t save him .
That is the only reason I can think of, when we had rats before I set traps ( humane ones) and released the rats into the countryside ,over a mile away .
I do check the garden .