A rat catcher's diary...(do not read if of a delicate disposition)

[MarmadukeScarlet]

Just to set scene...My secure pen is on sleepers laid in a rectangle (15' x9'). On the inside edge of the sleepers we dug a trench and placed small hole chicken wire nailed to sleepers and going down into hole to a bepth of 80cms. We then filled hole with rubble and earth - this was supposed to put off badgers and foxes.

(The secure pen has 2 doors, one in/out on that opens onto a electric fence pen)

A few weeks ago I noticed some little mouse holes on the inside of the run, tiny ones thumd diameter size. I was not bothered, I live in the sticks and keep ponies (and chickens lol) so can cope with the odd mouse.

Then a huge hole was dug from the outside of the sleeper to underneath, I filled it with a brick and digging stopped (head in the sand, moi?) Then at the end of last week digging resumed with a vengance, I had to accept I had a rat! Then I saw it, the chooks had scraped away some of the easybed/auboise and earth so the wire net under the sleeper was visable and I saw the rat through this.

On Sat urday I noticed rat droppings in my feed/hay store inc on my hay - dirty buggers. In 3 yrs of keeping ponies here have never had a rat. DH peed in the rat hole frid night, whilst doing his fox prevention pee! The rat the dug all the wet earth out making a really hug hole, Sun am DH filled in hole.

So sunday pm (hole still filled) I took all the hay out which sits on pallets to allow air (and rats it would seem) to circulate. As I lifted the first pallet a rat shot out - shudder.

So I went to homebase and, after much deliberation, bought traps not poison - I think poison is much riskier to wildlife, risk of it getting into food chain etc and it takes longer for the animal to die. Put down peanut butter baited traps last night. (please do not flame me, I am an animal loving veggi but rats are beyond the pale)

This morning (STOP READING NOW IF EASILY OFFENDED) I went up to let chooks out, feed and check the traps.

I was confused as the trap was wedged in the big rat hole and had been sprung. Ha Ha I thought, but no in the trap was my little mouse friend - I was initially very confused as to how (and why) a trapped mouse would pull a trap 2 m backwards into a rat hole. I removed trap with my begloved hands and realised most of the mouse had been eaten by the rat.

The poor mouse had sprung the trap and then the blardy rat had thought, yum yum and tried to get it down the hole got it stuck and just eaten the bits it could reach.

Advice needed as to what to do next?

VanessaP - friends of ours have one of those zappy ones and have caught at least one rat on it - I will ask for an update report.

Marmaduke that's awful - I guess the zappy one would have had the same issue, though.

My concern about calling in the professionals would be that since we live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sheep fields, rats in the garden are IMO inevitable. What we need to do is take up and re-inforce the floor of the chicken pen [sigh]. DH is also calculating return on investment - i.e. how much food the rats would have to be eating for it to be cost-effective to spend £50 on a trap.

Has anyone had any good results with eradibait, BTW?

I'm liking what it says about eradibait dehydrating the corpses! But thata does depend on them actually eating the stuff and dying!
But,for future reference, is it really viable option to get a rescue cat and keep it outdoors? This seems like the most natural rat repellent...I ask as DD is allergic to cats, so we couldnt have one inside. Would you give it a kennel? would the rescue place aggree to the scheme?

The ratcatcher came today and laid traps. She will be back in 2 weeks.- watch this space!

She told me I had the cleanest chicken pen she's seen for a long while!

madlentileater I have no idea what the rescue places would say, but outdoor cats definitely are practicable - our neighbours' 7 outdoor cats seem to have the run of a greenhouse and I don't know what else (they have a selection of outbuildings). Friends who had horses used to have stable cats who tended to sleep on one of the horses in winter.

Depending where you are a farm kitten might be a better option - at least you would know that it came with a mousing pedigree then?

Get a ferret. They pong a bit, but their smell keeps rats and mice well away. I think you have to keep them in a large-ish cage and let them out to have a roam around.

I haven't actuwerlly tried this, you understand, but my friend who has swears she has no rodents either in the house or garden. I'm considering it atm as it's mouse carnage round here.

yikes you've all got me scared now!. We found a tunnel at the weekend. DH dug it up and blocked off the entrance to the run and got some prebated boxes from the diy place. We hoped that would do it but not so sure now

Bump....
Have just found ran runs in and around the chicken run. Am bumping this so you can all tell me how successful your traps etc have been. Need to know the best way to get rid of these.

I thought I'd pop back to see how everyone's rats were!

The rat catcher couldn't combe before we went on hols (14th Dec) and then couldn't come when arranged just before Christmas, were shut until New Year so those ratties had several weeks of respite!

He has been a few times now. He put poison down in a sealed box and told me I may see an increase in activity due to food source (poison) - he wasn't bloody kidding!! New tunnels, obvious runs (you could see their claw marks on a smoothed out strip 7 inches wide!)

He says they are living in the hedge, not under my sleepers and as far as he can see - no tunnels or chewing - they are not getting through the weldmesh that is buried up to 60 cms under the sleepers (to keep out predators) into the chicken's 'indoor' run, but there is a tunnel into their outdoor run. Similar to Stealth I live in the sticks, surrounded by sheep farms, derelict barns, orchards (where most fruit isn't picked just lies on the ground) a railway cutting and open drainage ditches - a rat's paradise!!

He says they are taking the bait up nicely and he has seen lots of blue poos (I haven't noticed) he says some of the poos are ennormous and I maust have some "bastard great rats." Thanks for that.

My ratcatcher lady has just been, looks like she is coming every two weeks, bit the bait is going down more slowly, so things are looking up!
They aren't getting into my enclosure, so that's the main thing.

Chickens are coming up trumps, al laying everyday, 40 eggs this week so far!

40 eggs??!!

How many chooks have you got?

My weedy heritage skylines haven't layed for months and my Marran has just had a late moult and hasn't laid since mid december - she is 3 though so her days of laying my biggest eggs could be over.

The day before yesterday I had my first day of no eggs and I have 9 chooks. I think this could have been I was trying to up their corn rations (as this is a 'warmer' food apparently for the cold weather?), so withholding some layers pellets as they prefer these so they weren't getting as much protein.

Also due to rats I am not giving as many scraps and my chooks are so fussy, they will ignore chook food all day to wait for afternoon scraps!

I have 7, they are just on organic layers pellets, with bokashi bran. If it is really cold I make them a bowl of porridge with warm probiotic yoghurt.

They don't get many scrap, just a few bits of soft fruit etc.

I had 7 and 2 softies yesterday, one was 8 grams, the size of a Cadbury's mini egg and the other 12 grams, one of the eggs weighed 88 grams!

My chooks are all 7 months old.

I make mine porridge too, they were getting jordans organic like the rest of us until my DH saw how much I made them! They now get a slightly more 'value' brand.

What breed are they? As this affects laying rates. My weedy chooks (purpose bred blue egg layers) were not expected to lay through the winter despite being only 7 months.

7 again today, I took the ratcatcher ddown as one was laying, she had never stroked a chicken before, she though they were amazing. She was a different ratcatcher from the first one, but also comented on how clean my chickens are! She was openmouthed at handling a warm newly laid egg, bless her!

Mine were getting Gilliam McKeith's Omega 3 mixed seeds and nuts thrown in as I found them disgusting!, plus all the Alpen DD left here.

Today they will have some revoltingly hard pears with thick brown skin and banana, as Abel and Coles' idea of a mixed fruit and veg box is 12 bananas and 2 pears the size of footballs, plus 2 carrots as thick as your wrist, just imagine how tough they will be. I am going to give up on them, they are useless. Failed to put the chocolate brownies in too.

I have a Speckeldy, an Amber star, two white sussex, one Bovan Goldline and two Bovan Neros - I think that's what they are the last three are Omlet hens.

Our neighbour's cats are keeping the rats in/around the chicken pen and compost heap under control - I am still nagging DH to get bait things for the garage and lean-to, though (lean-to is, as the name suggests, attached to the house so it is only one short rat step to them being in the roof)

Our chickens love homemade rice pudding

Marmaduke
I had no idea you were having such a problem with Rats.
There is a woman on the main road between R and S, behind World of water who rehomes feral cats. They need to live in a barn/utbuilding and be fed. I would be doing this. How big are these rats then? We've got rats and mice but they are all the same size ie tiny. Luckily my new cat is proving to be a reasonable hunter (now she's left the lounge...only took a month)
As for my chooks,...I'm down to 3 thanks to the foxes,, and they haven't laid in 3 months. They are 6 though.

I have three Burmese cats, they do catch them and leave them on the laundry room floor, thank god I shut the kitchen door at night!

We have mice in the loft, they are wearing hob nailed boots during the night, over our heads!

I took my cat to he vet a while back with absesses on his ears and head. I thought he had been in a fight. He had... they were rodent bites! Imagine the only cat to be mugged by rodents.

Rats are a big problem here. They actually removed the poison from under the chicken house and took it right away uneaten. They live under my compost heap.

Last winter one came in the house, a young inquisitive bast. DS told me there was a mouse (Cat can cope with mice ) When I saw apple on clean washing pile with bites out of it, I thought of Mighty Mouse,

Eventually got rid of it with trap. However the trap was never successful outside. The mice ate the bait and weren't heavy enough to spring the trap. I'm head in the sand this year too

My ratman had chickens for 17 years, so was really knowledgeable . He said the organic louse powder was about as useful as talc, well it smells nice and I didn't get any mite/louse problems this summer! He commented on my clean areas too, he thought my feed store/tack room was particualrly good .

My DC love finding warm eggs, DS always puts the eggs to his cheek to test them.

The A&C box sounds very poor, I used to have Riverford they were fine but when my DC were younger they were more fussy meaning that the regular inclusion of Kohl Rabi was tricky! We get through more than 12 bananas per week and our Bluebelle loves them too.

We have a Marran coucou - 3.5 yrs, a coral nick, a bluebelle, an amber(white with a few freckles) and a fenning black(not very speckledy) all 10 months and a fenning coucou (very speckledy), a black pearl/daisybelle, another amber (much more coloured) and 2 Heritage Skylines (one with pompom on head one without, both lay blue) that are around 7 months.

The second lot of POL (arrived late Aug)brought with them a horrific bacterium, which despite keeping them seperated went round like wildfire - I got it too. I had to dose them for 10 days, twice a day with strong oral ab - they wouldn't drink it in the water. So they did not enter Autumn in full health.

Scraps for mine this afternoon are a few crusts, some pasta and peas DS and I will take them up shortly and collect eggs. I'll let you know todays score am at your full lay all through the winter!

Ah, I have to be honest, when I went away October half term, they did sulk and gave DH and DS a few paltry eggs, bit the full compliment!

My amberstar has a champagne coloured neck, and they all have champagne names, like my cats!

My chooks lay at random times, check when I go down to see if the water is frozen, but it was a lovel surprise yesterday to see all 7 in one go! Today, 4 when the rat lady came at 10.00 and the other three at 1.30.

taking them their porridge now!