Urgen help..I have trapped a live rat under a bucket, what shall I do now??

[Blu]

I have called the council...nrecorded message. DP is yelling impractical instructions at me (ME^!) as to how I should kill it, and it's right outside the rabbits door so I can't get in to feedthem. It's under an upturnd bucket which is weighted down by rocks.

What shall do??

Um, no idea, but am shudding in sympathy with you

shuddering

Leave it until the council contact you? Or maybe phone RSPCA?

Can you slide a tray under the bucket and release it in a field?

Call Rentokil? Or wait until the council pest control office is open - the rat can't get out, by the sounds of things? Will the bunnies be ok without their breakfast for a bit?

How on earth did you manage to catch a rat?

slide a tray or sheet of plastic or something flat underneath so you can move the rat and feed the bunnies.

Seal bucket so it suffocates?

Err...take bucket to far away field and let it go?

Err....

Slip some of my leek and goat's cheese tart under there for it, that should kill it...

Yes, I think I will have to wait til the council pest department are open.

I do not fancy the idea of driving it several miles to the nearest field..and I think it is ill anyay as I was too quick for it.

DP saw it out of the widow and I went out to investigate, grabbed the bucket and got it over it.

ugh. It's out there...under the bucket...9 am!

respect to you BluTheRatCatcher

the most humane way to kill it is with poison but if you can bear it and you know anyone who has a terrier type dog go and borrow it release the rat and job done. its nature!

personally id just move the bucket and let it go but rats dont really bother me that much and i can understand why you want it killing!

OH MY GOD. My worst rat scenario. I hate rats with a passion. I can't believe you were brave enough to chuck a bucket over it. I would have screamed and run.

Put wellies on, remove bucket, and scarper? Possibly on a skateboard or with skates on??

LOL at goat cheese tart.

Now wiating f councilto answer...I will attempt tray-under-bucket technique to feed rabbits in due course!

micci - I have some sympathy with rats, but I really don't think it is well...and a rat proble in buil=up S London very quickly becomes rats in the house and nesting and dying under the floorboads with ensuing fly problems..I speak from bitter experience in my old house.

oh dear i have a terrier dog and she used to catch them all the time when we lived near a park! thats why i moved now dp has gone and bought a house right near the park!! so am going to be waking up to half eaten rats again! [sick emoticon] bleurgh!!

add that to the mice and birds my cats bring home!! ill have a parade of dead animals to wake up to! i hate it! my animals are muderders

leave it and wait for council. That's what I'd do. And don;t look at the bucket. Or maybe watch it closely in case rat escapes.Poor you.

Council are coming tmorrow...but will call back shortly and see if they can send someone immediately!

If it's ill / dying it's probably best off protected by the bucket anyway, and in the dark - otherwise the neighbourhood cats will torment it. I could possibly steel myself to drop a paving slab on it and put it out of it's misery, but don't want to risk it springing back to life a la Carrie and escaping or running over my foot....

Goat cheese tart may yet be the best solution!

Public health are coming to 'collect it' today. I have edged the bucket along and fed and watered rabbits - I could feel the rat scrabbling inside the bucket and at one point saw it's foot poking out. Feel sorry for it now

Lambeth are good at some things!

Anyway, crisis over - thank you!

Council Council Council - let them earn the tax we pay them.

Is it gone blu? Can I relax now too?

Ooh! Only just saw this. Don't start feeling sorry for it, whatever you do! I'm afraid I can only really tell you what NOT to do. My mum once caught one under a box. She managed to slide some wood underneath and transfer it into a large wooden tea chest, using the wood as a sort of lid. Dad gave it poison. The rat just sat there and looked at him. So he got annoyed with it and started chucking half bricks at it. It ducked. Repeatedly. Eventually there were enough half-bricks in the bottom of the tea chest for it to use them as a stepping point to get up to the rim of the box. At that point, Dad slid the wooden 'lid' back across, breaking the rat's neck. Rat still wasn't quite finished. Dad decided to burn it in a bonfire for hygiene's sake. There must have been an old glass bottle somewhere in the fire, though, because when the fire burned itself out he found a perfectly preserved rat at the bottom of the fire encased in a glass. Moral: rats are hard as nails and should be dealt with accordingly. Weight the bucket down with something.

Crap, I wished I'd seen this earlier - could have bought you down some poison. MIL has a train track at the bottom of the garden, so has constant problems with rats and mice (luckily only mice in the house) so she buys huge buckets of the nasty stuff. Hope they've come and picked it up for you

there's a rat in me bucket, what am a gonna do?

I was in Spain once when one appeared on the patio. Ds was bum shuffling towards it, so I had to act. I got a golf club and hit a shot better than Nick Faldo - it disappeared down the steps. To make sure, I then poured a kettle of boiling water over it. All at 6 months pregnant!

DH was well impressed - although he said it was like one of those puzzles - you arrive home to find a dead rat at the bottom of the steps in a pool of water - how did it get there?

If my dad had been a golfer it sounds as though he might have had an easier time of it!