There is a RAT in my rabbit's enclosure!

[EleanorFarjeon]

Our (recently widowed) rabbit is living out his twilight years contentedly on his own.

Except he has a lodger. He was graciously sharing his dinner with him earlier. Rabbit seems totally unconcerned about this, but should I be?

He has a large 'garden' of his own with a hutch in, but he doesn't go in there much. He has a massive burrow under the hutch where he sleeps & this is where the rat has run to.

The rabbit is not catchable & in all the years we've had him, he has never let us near him. So putting him in the hutch while we shoot deal with rat is not an option. Shall I just leave them to it & hope the rat might bugger off? Or will it move its family in?

I would be careful about leaving them together. A rat bit our rabbit. I know it was a rat because I saw our rabbit had a bleeding ear and was acting stressed and I cleared out the shed she lived in and found the rat.

We saw one rat under our rabbits hutch.

About 2 weeks later when DH moved the hutch so my sisters JRT could get at them we had 8.

We then moved the rabbits and DH put poison under the old hutch. We got another 4.

Meanwhile more rats moved to the new rabbit house. We have been putting poison down daily for weeks (so only the rats can get at it) and it all disappears, so I dread to think how many we have

One of the many problems with rabbits that I didn't know about.

You do need to try and get rid, there is no way you only have one, sorry.

Oh God - re replies.

No sign of rat today.

I hate rats.

When you say "sharing his dinner", does bunny eat up his pellets at once? If not, I'd remove any he doesn't eat and offer them later, so there's no tasty food to tempt Mr rat! We had to do this, as a rat chewed his way I to our rabbit's hutch and attacked the rabbit. Nasty thing!!

I'd be worried about the Rat pee as well (they carry some nasty disease that people can get not sure if rabbits can catch it but I wouldn't take chances)

No sign of rat again today. We lifted up hutch & looked in burrow too. Bun tends to knock his bowl off the tree stump it's on, so rat had been eating the bits on the ground. I'll start putting the bowl on the ground so there won't be spillages.

Hello, I have recently cleaned my bunny cage and found a rat sleeping in the hay not sure how long it's been there, tried to get it out and rabbit attacked it, I have now got it out but I cannot let it go into wild due to the fact it will come back for warmth , I have put it in a old cage far away from the rabbit so that it cannot go back to the rabbits hutch , I am worried there maybe more? Any ideas?