Is there a good way to deter rats?

[Cligereen]

Hi,
I live in a rural area, surrounded by fields and with a river about 70yds away from the house. I've noticed that we've got some rats scurrying around the garden and I don't like it

Last year we had the same problem and I put down some bait, well concealed in lengths of pipe as suggested on the packet. The only thing was that the rats dragged the bait all around the garden and the dog eat it. Luckily the bait is bright blue and I saw it around the dogs mouth. An urgent trip to the vet for some Vit K injections and all was well, but I don't want to repeat the same performance this year. So - is there any way to get rid of, or deter rats, other than to use bait?

My family, the dog and my veg would be eternally grateful for any suggestions.

Clig.

[Annpan]

Get a Jack Russel or a really good hunting cat

I don't think there is another way... otherwise everyone would be using it and we'd have no rats

[Gytrash]

I agree with the good lady above!

A tenacious terrier or a good ratter-cat.
Sometimes the local Cat Rescues have some ex-farm-cat-types that are ideal for smallholdings. My mate who has a tree nursery recently homed a couple of cats from the Cats Protection people and they're doing a grand job of keeping the mice from eating his germinating acorns!

[Cligereen]

Thanks folks, only problem is that there is a road to the front of the house which is busy during the day and I don't fancy a splatted cat. Terrier might be a good idea though - Jack Russell you say? I'll put that suggestion to the OH.

[Martin]

Jack Russells are rat-killing machines - a quick snap, and the rat is flying through the air stone dead whilst he latches onto another...........
(we had a poultry farm, where rats are endemic, when we cleared the deep litter houses, the terriers would dispatch literally hundreds of rats in an afternoon)

[Brij]

My mum's house is right next to the A1 motorway, and we have several (5 at last count, one new litter, one litter on the way) cats who do a grand job at not getting run over (not in the past couple of years, anyway), and who keep down the motorway rabbit population as well as keep rats out of the compost.

So don't stop considering a cat just because of the road - most of them have the sense to stay away, particularly adult cats who are already used to roads.

[Lady Willow]

My dog is terrier/collie X (yes, she is a nutter!!!)

She's a killing machine and always has plenty of snacks of mice and moles, not just little ones either.

But I've never seen her with a rat, which I have taken to mean there aren't any living anywhere near me. which is surprising, since I live in the country.

But the evidence is there - no rats live anywhere near me!!! (I don't want to be corrected on this mind!!)

[Thurston Garden]

I read this method, although cannot remember the source:

Put a breeze block on end in the bottom of a barrel, fill the barrelwith water up to the level of the top of the block and cover the top of the barrel with polythene tied around the top rim of the barrel. Cut a slit in the polythene lid.

Put a board from the ground up to the top edge of the barrel so they can walk up and place something tasty at the top of the plank, at the edge of the slit in the polythene.

The first rat finds the food but slips through the slit in the polythene and falls into the water...climbs onto the block 'island' and screeches for help. The next rat, answering the screech call slips though too and fights for the position on the top of the block, one rat is dead. The winner screeches for help and so it continues. In the morning there should only be one rat to kill - sitting on top of the block. Gruesome but rats are 'orrible

On Monday I was in the company of 3 old shepherds and rats did come into the conversation. One recommended a humane trap and a ciggy lighter. He would singe the back end of the caught rat and then free it. The pack of rats then fled thinking the place was on fire! Equally gruesome.. sorry

[frozenthunderbolt]

We (my store) has some luveryly galvy steel rat traps that take both my hadns to set and im not runty! Work verynicely - in ur case put inside a dog, but not rat-proof container first would work.

Any rat that can beat a decent spring trap will have me reaching for a rifle, flamethrower or ray gun, coz man it is one tough bastard!

[maggienetball]

I use the bait boxes and they're brill! The bait can't be dragged out cos it is fixed to the internal spindle and the rat has to eat it off. Boxes cost me £5 each but are well worth it and definitely worked.

The cat idea is brill too. Don't worry about the main road. Cats won't bother with the road if they have fields to wander instead. Just make sure they're neutered or else hey may feel the need to wander across the road.

I lived on the busiest main road in Torbay for 6 years and had 3 cats but my house backed onto fields and a stream. The cats never set foot at the front of the house as they were really happy at the rear. I didn't have to try to stop them either.

good luck

[Cligereen]

Thanks all for your wisdom, I'll have one big shopping list for next week! After setting myself up with poison, traps, dogs, cats, barrels-with-blocks-in, shotgun and raygun, it just has to be a 'hasta la vista baby' moment for those rats. Do I need to dig any trenches and wear camouflage

I'll report back on developments from the 'western front'.

[farmerdrea]

Our standard schnauzers are hopeless at getting at rats, though their worrying the nesting areas is a deterrent of sorts. They're just too big to get at where the rats ahng out, which is in the barn under pallets and storage bins, too large/inconvenient to move. We have had a huge rat problem over the last 6 months or so, when it seems we had a population explosion of the 2 kinds of rats that we have around here in NZ. Huge water rats about the size of a chihuahua, and much smaller ones, about that size of a very fat mouse. For a while, the cats were catching and depositing 6-10 carcasses a week behind the house, and we'd find the poisoned ones dead all round the barn at a rate of about 2 a day (that's the large ones). Small ones seem to come in waves, and we trap them in a very large barrel with bread in the bottom, they go in and can't get out and I just shoot them in the barrel. Have had as many as 9 in the barrel one morning. We have poison out all the time now (safely away from chooks and cats and dogs), and the rats don't seem to drag it anywhere but their nest where they ingest and die (and the pong when I can't get to a carcass is something awful!). Constant poisoning, which is something we really had to think hard about before using it, as they die pretty horribly, but we also have to think about our health (rats carry leptosporosis, and you can pick it up from their urine) seems to have been the answer, as we only see a couple a week rather than a couple a day.

Andrea
NZ

[hedgewizard]

In the longer term you're going to have to control your environment - that means eliminating their food source, particularly where it's near any potential nesting sites. If you can do this completely, they move out PDQ. It's not always possible though.

[corymbia]

You can try leaving food baits (I used oats) mixed with plaster of paris or cement. It sets in their stomach.

If you are using poison make sure it isn't the single dose to kill type or the dog could be affected if it eats the carcasses. Multi-dose (safer option) is something like Warfarin and won't be present in a large enough dose to affect your pets if they get hold of the bodies.

[Annpan]

That is why you shouldn't use poison

I am not for poisoning anything... you don't know what will eat the carcass, you don't know what else will eat the poison. More natural solutions work better, or the bucket of water... at least you can see what is in the bucket.

Eliminating the food source might be difficult, if you are on a river bank... a friendly Jack Russel would be the best, other wise they will always come back again.

I have only lived here a year but... My neighbour tells me we used to have rats around our gardens, but since he got a Jack Russel he hasn't seen any, even though the dog has never caught one ... She keeps them out of my garden too

My cat is small but feisty, given the opportunity she could put up a good fight with a rat, though I am not sure if she is big enough to kill one... she catches plenty of mice and voles though.