I haven’t got a solution, Carol. I just stopped feeding the birds which did help. Humane traps are better than poison, if you know where the rats runs are & can put them there, but you then need to move any rats you catch to somewhere far away.
There will always be rats around no matter what you do, but I find if I don’t see them, then they aren’t there.
The rats here were showing themselves during the day in the garden, next doors cat did catch one right in front of me & took it over the fence, there were two then & those had had babies, because it was the 4 babies, then old enough to leave home, I saw a few days after on the bird table, cute to look at though. That’s when I stopped feeding the birds.
I hope you manage to get rid of your rat problem.
There were 4 of them on the lawn today. They’re getting very brave … Broad daylight & quite close to the house.
The humane traps should arrive tomorrow but for a few days I’m going to put food in them without setting them so the rats will think it’s a safe food source - then CLANG!!
Hopefully they will get caught & transported to our local woods about 2 miles away…
Carol,after reading your post…I couldn’t believe it when our neighbor showed us a dead rat…it was young…lying on the road , and another neighbour said there had been 3 running about her garden, we had rain yesterday bucket loads ,it was a river running down the street, and the drains were overflowing, so we wondered if that’s what brought them out.
Now I must make sure the doors are always closed…
It is ironic that Council might charge to rid us of rats seeing as it is probably down to the fact that they now collect the rubbish every three weeks. In my area at least.
Rats only bite when they are threatened. I would never poison a rat, they have just as much right to be here as I do but I would be more than happy to move them on a bit.
I plan on releasing them in the woods away from houses & people where they can live without bothering anybody.
I really don’t want to kill them. They were having such a good time on my lawn yesterday - they were jumping and running round. Looked like they were playing.
I hate the darn things, but I am more worried about Rat urine because you can easily get Lepto from that. That is why I never leave any dogs toys out overnight, nor water bowls either. I also wear gloves when I am gardening as I get a small cut, any Lepto can easily get in.
A good few years ago, one of my big gentle GSD’s suddenly let out an awful blood curdling ‘scream.’ I dashed outside and could see he was by one of the hen houses, shaking his head frantically and yelling at the top of his voice.
A huge rat was hanging off his top lip and the more Benny shook his head, the tighter the wretched thing hung on to him.
He was a very gentle dog, and wouldn’t hurt a fly, so I imagine he saw it by the chicken house and went to sniff it to see what it was, and the darn thing grabbed him.
As I approached it leg go and scarpered, but left Ben with blood running out of his nostrils and mouth flap.
I got him in the car and it was a dash to the vet.
Fortunately they cleaned him up and sorted him out and he was fine later.
As I have written on here before, my oldest Beddie nearly died when she ate a mouse that had eaten rat bait from next door.
12.30 that night, she was vomitting so much blood, so it was another frantic emergency trip to the vets. He warned me she might not see morning!
I drove myself back, but have no idea how I got home as I couldn’t see through my tears, I thought she was a gonna.
She survived and is still with me today, nearly 15 years later.
