Feeding the birds, rats & neighbours!

I’ve only seen one rat in our garden, but plenty of field mice. We feed the birds via two hanging feeders on tree branches, with dome baffles above them to stop the squirrels. Anything falling from the feeders is eaten by squirrels, pigeons, crows and small birds, who tend to sit underneath enthusiastically cleaning up. We do put out an evening snack for the local foxes or badgers, whoever turns up first, but it all gets eaten with a short time of going out. There are also several tawny owls who live nearby, and can be seen on our camera, loitering with intent!

We do keep the car shut in the garage when we are home. OH changed the pollen filter in a previous car which spent more time outside, and was horrified to find a stash of nuts behind it! I think we’ve come to terms with the fact that we are living in a woodland, and there are downsides as well as benefits.

 

I think there’s some truth in that expression @eddybaby! A couple of years ago, one of my neighbours kept hearing noises in the night from above in the loft. Yes, it was a rat! It took a while to identify the culprit and get rid of it but for a few days she and her dog were slightly traumatised!

 

We have a camera viewing the patio / back garden to watch the wildlife at night and we do see a rat now and then at night as it was after any remains from the bird feeders.

What to do now if place the food on some saucers or similar and when locking things up in the early evening, remove any saucers that have not be cleared of the bird food.

We leave the saucers on the edge of the patio and the birds will often come down a feed while we are out there as well.

The other feeding problem we found was leaving food out for a hedgehog as it did not come round every night or early enough before the rat got the food, so had to give up on trying to feed it.

Afraid Rats will always be around, just need to ensure we reduce the chances of attracting them and making sure there are no gaps in the house or outbuildings they can get into or under.

 

Certainly I would be a lot less chilled about a rat in the house than about one occasionally strolling through my garden.

 

We stopped feeding the birds a few years ago when we saw a rat in the garden. We mentioned it to our neighbour who simply said "Yes, they live under my shed".

 

We feed the birds and I assume we also probably feed some rats but I don’t feed the neighbours (unless cups of tea and the odd biscuit count)

 

I'm sure the decking in a neighbouring garden here serves a similar purpose.

 

I have a colleague at work whose wife was freaking out after seeing a rat in their garden. He had just demolished their shed. I told him they had probably been living under it all along and he had just evicted them!

 

I recently ripped up the decking in our gardening and the amount of rat holes were unreal.

 

You can reduce the risk of rats being attracted by having the feeders over a hard surface of slabs or similar and cleaning up the overspill every day. Don't use fat balls as even the residue left will attract vermin.

 

I can imagine. We can't blame them for making good use of any congenial environments we provide.

 

Just proves that if you provide, wildlife (including rats) will make use of it.