Giant dead rat - warning: includes images

[Ratsindahouse]

I’ve nc for this thread as may be outing. Apologies for any rat lovers/owners but my cat has brought me this love token tonight. I’m traumatised, I’ve never seen a rat this big. Is this normal? I’m now panicking that my house/garden has loads of these beasts lurking and want to get in pest control immediately. What can be done when you have other pets as I don’t want them picking up poison. The shoe next to it is a size 6 for the sake of size comparison!!

Once had rats outside, not sure why as
there wasn't rubbish/food etc. Pest control from the council came and laid traps. Have also used private pest control for a mouse problem before. It worked!

Sorry my AIBU is to ask if I am overreacting and this is actually a perfectly normal rat size!!!

Yep. This is why I am not sure I could have a cat. Their 'presents' suck. A friend said hers dropped off spiders, birds and rodents on her pillow.
As to your question, I have seen bigger than that - that looks like a young adult/juvie. I know some of you will say they make nice pets, intelligent etc but if you have ever had an infestation you end up hating them.

They can grow to nearly a foot long nose to tail so that looks about right. Your cat must be a right bruiser to have taken that on

So yes YABU that's a normal rat size. Sorry

Yes that’s a normal rat size .

Normal size rat

Thank you for the replies - lying here in the dark imagining rats running around everywhere 😬 I don’t honestly think it looks as big in the photo as it does in real life! He has killed a couple of rats before (along with other things sadly 😥) and they have seemed to be a fair bit smaller though we’re definitely rats and not mice. The size of this shocked me but haven’t really experienced rats before this cat!! He’s not a particularly big cat - just seems to be very good at killing other creatures!

It's a normal sized wild rat that your cat has brought in, nothing to panic about. Rats are common wildlife and cats will do that sometimes.

Could have done with a TW to be honest.

My DM's cat is lazy and not a hunter. She might catch something once a year.

But one night she caught a young but pretty big rat, dragged it through the cat flap (luckily dead!!) and left it just outside my DM's closed bedroom door. Poor DM got a shock when she got up, bleary eyed and nearly stood on it

When she lived in London there was a rat problem due to bin collection strikes. Her cats had brought a couple home so she called the council and the guy came round and said, "if you don't want rats, get rid of your cats". Errrr no mate, that's just out of sight, out of mind!

You should really put a warning about that picture. I will never be able to un-see that

If you live in London they're living just below you in the drains / sewers.

I remember when I was a child, my cat killed a family of rats, on by one, after they found a way up from the sewers through nearby disused outside toilet (used as a shed) and nested in our garden.

He was a big hunter. I don't think other cats I've had would have been able to take them in, they were massive.

The outside toilet was blocked off, problem solved.

More recently, rats got into the floorboards between my flat and the one above. The ratcatcher was useless, he just killed them meaning they died and stank out the flat above, but more came.

My plumber solved it by finding out how they were getting in the house and blocking it off - he lifted a manhole cover in my garden and we saw (look away if you're eating breakfast!) the waste from neighbours running along towards the sewer - a poo rushed past underneath us, then a rat scurrying along. My plumber said that was normal, they're always there, just below our feet in the sewage system, the challenge was finding out how they were getting in the house, often it was pipes left open but unused after dodgy conversions although he had heard of rats swimming up a u bend and popping up in a toilet!!!

Sure enough you could see one of the pipes running from my house into this channel wasn't in use (you could see no water was running through it as it had loads of gunk in it) and the rats were using that literally as a rat-run into the building.

They must have always been able to do it, since the house was converted into flats, but as they couldn't access the house, only get to in between the floors, it wasn't any interest to them till I'd installed spotlights in the kitchen. And that provided heat. They were coming in to nest in the warmth.

It took about a year of repeated visits from various rat catchers and rats repeatedly chewing through my electric cables before I asked my plumber to have a look and he solved in it 10 minutes by finding the pipe responsible and capping it - no more rats.

If it's just a one off or if you live really and have rats living in fields I'd not worry much.

But if you're living in a town/city and have a rat run up.from the sewers somewhere near you, you need to find and block it IMO else more may come up.

*live rurally! Damn autocorrect!

Ok sorry - I’ve reported the post and asked them to Change the title.

Thank you for the info needaMNnamegeneratorx

Normal. If they're smaller than a cat, you're fine. If they're larger than a cat, move house

l needaMNnamegenerator, great post, very informative!

That looks normal size to me, compared to the shoe. One of my cats bought in a much larger rat a couple of weeks ago whose body was definitely longer than my foot (also size 6). In fact my sleep addled brain didn't register what it was at first and ridiculously thought 'beaver' for a split second. I didn't anticipate how heavy it'd be when I picked it up (with a wodge of kitchen roll) so dropped it which was a bit icky. I'm not worried about 'infestations' as it had clearly been brought in from the nearby field, as it was covered in bits of chaff.

Oh my god, I would die. I hate rats. I'm shuddering even looking at the photo

Catsmother @catsmother congratulations on being the bravest woman in the world! I couldn't even pick up my ds dead hamster with a pair of old kitchen tongs. I was literally cringing all over and had to let him do it at 7 years old! How you picked up a rat with just kitchen towel, I will never know. You deserve ten boxes of milk tray !

They can grow to nearly a foot long nose to tail so that looks about right. Your cat must be a right bruiser to have taken that on

This rat I caught obviously didn't get the grow to nearly a foot long memo. Don't look if you don't want to see a dead rat.

postimg.cc/SYm2xZ7R

@PopsicleHustler.... ha, not that brave really. I used to have pet rats years ago (long before cats!) which I hasten to add were much smaller. I was quite happy to have them run up my sleeve or fall asleep cuddled into my neck.

Now if it was a spider, that'd be different.....

At least your cat assumed that you were too incompetent to manage a live rat. Ours seem to think that our only failing is being able to locate the prey but once the cat has found it and brought it in for us we can manage the rest. Fortunately their expertise seems to be insects so not too bad.

My friends cat brought a bat into her house!

It's not unusual to see a rat that size. We live somewhere which is quite rural and in the last year my cats have brought in two live rats the size of that one. My DH was traumatised 🤣 and me and DS had to get the damn thing outside. The last one was really angry and I was really worried it was going to bite. The cats just sat watching us ...