Rats!

My Jack Russell was useless with the rats but my pup, Willa, a mongrel, decided she was a ratter and became very efficient at quickly and cleanly dispatching them.

 

when I was a teenager I had a whippet and she would run wild in the grass and we knew she was after a rat and then would throw it in the air , we would all run as fast as we could not knowing where it would land , she did get bitten on the nose , but only the once

 

M41A Pulse Rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher.

 

My only phobia in life is rats, I start welling up with fear just thinking about them. My previous dog got very ill from previous exposure to them which only worsened this fear.

That said, apparently the recent decline in Barn owls has been increased because of the use of rat poison, as they eat the rats who contain the poison.

two suggestions - Jeyes fluid or powder is an effective deterrent to sprinkle in areas other animals don't go, such as sheds or greenhouses. Or how about humane trapping and then get the local council or pest council to dispatch of them quickly?

I feel for you, I'll be a hopeless mess if I see one in my garden, best of luck xxx

 

Rats are terrible things.
In the sugar cane fields of Kwazulu-Natal (about 600KM away from me, thank goodness) they get really big and apparently the locals like to catch them for a tasty meal, yeech suddenly I've lost my appetite for breakfast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_cane_rat

 

I caught Weil's Disease from Rat wee

 

I find where the rats are living, buy loose bait, and put the loose bait right down the hole where they are living, after 5 days they are gone

Weil's Disease is not nice.So it's all the way

 

If they'd have been Mice Merle i could have sent the chooks round........they're better mousers than the cats round here....don't think they could tackle a rat but i bet they'd try....

 

Well I put some rat poison down (the type that comes in small bags that they are supposed to chew through) on Friday. Plucked up the courage to check yesterday and they hadn't even chewed the bag, so I tore it open and put it back down. I removed the other source of food, ie I've stopped feeding the birds temporarily but next door have chickens so wonder if they are getting food there?

 

I feed the larger birds Shiney, so the feeders are all open, hence why there is a lot of spillage. As you said, this normally gets cleaned up, but next door has chickens so I wonder if that is something to do with it.

This is the sort of thing I have (two of them) but with a few more trays attached.

 

Since Willa decided she is a ratter I have been removing bodies from around the place and I am surprised at how many there are. I had seen the odd one or two and found evidence, especially in my poor polytunnel, of more but had no idea how many there were. Secretive little buggers! Still, she seems to have sorted the problem out for now, thankfully.
Sorry I don't live near you Merleworld. I'd have brought her to you to deal with it.