We live rurally and have quite a big garden. As the weather has been improving we’ve been out more doing jobs. Today we were tidying up a bit when I stepped backwards and my foot went down a hole right to the top of my thigh!
It was a nightmare! My husband had to pull me out by lifting me under my arms and both legs are pretty sore. My foot came out without my shoe but we did manage to retrieve it! The hole definitely wasn’t there at the end of the summer/early autumn so has been made over the winter by something. The question is what?!
Clues:
- There’s one big deep hole (hand for scale). The hole is a bit bigger than it looks in the picture because it has grass around the edges. It’s at least 25cm in diameter.
- There are several smaller holes around it (these don’t seem deep).
- It’s on the edge of the lawn on a slope, the slope goes down more steeply from just beyond the hole.
- We’ve since found another big hole like it in another bank on the other side of the house. That one is bigger - 35cm across.
- We are hundreds of meters from the nearest river so it’s not voles.
- We haven’t seen any droppings.
- We had a rat problem in the garage over winter but had this completely dealt with and have lots of local cats meandering through the garden on a daily basis, including next door’s two toms who are farm cats that kill rats in a blink.
- We have seen hedgehogs in the garden but nothing bigger.
- There are rabbits in a nearby field but we’ve never seen any sign of them in our garden.
Any ideas? Thank you! We’d like to know how best to look after (or if it’s rats deal with) whatever it is and avoid falling down any more holes!