I have a rat (or 2) in me garden what am I gonna do, I have a rat (or 2) in me garden what am I gonna do.....
As UB40 sort of said....
Anyway, this is the story.
We have been living at our house for around 16 years, and over that time have never had a rat issue.
Ok, so, I feed the wild birds in my garden sunflower hearts every day using 2 feeders, and have a very healthy bird population such as goldfinches ( upto 30 at a time) , green finches, house sparrows, tree sparrows, dunnocks, a territorial robin, collared doves and the inevitable wood pigeon or 4, plus the odd sparrow hawk doing it's thing.
Other than the odd bird poo on my A5 because of this, I really enjoy watching my feathered friends.
Now up until about a month ago we used to get the odd field mouse eating the dropped seed on the floor which was no big deal, if I seen more than one I would trap them to keep the numbers down.
In my garden there is a concrete set of steps, with a 2 inch gap which is where these mice used to come from.
So, moving on, my next door neighbour decided to carry out some garden work.
He removed a large section of garden in order to increase his garden space.
In doing this, the mice dissapeared.
Only to be replaced by rats.
I have identified 2 different rats, one was pretty big, the other just an average size.
Not good.
Obviously these have set up residence in Mr mouse house and presumably ate them.
The rats come out during the day too and are obviously not shy, and are eating the sunflower hearts on the ground too.
Now, the logical solution would be to stop feeding the brds, and trap the rats.
I don't really want to stop feeding the birds as it's winter, and these birds have come to rely on me feeding them.
The gold finches in particular have this year's young with them, so I can't really stop.
I purchased 3 snap rat traps and taped copper tape around the perimeter of them to keep the garden slugs off them and laid them around the side of the wall where I have seen the rats.
I left these there for 3 days for the rats to get familiar with them having read that rats are clever and avoid new unfamiliar items.
3 days later I baited the traps with peanut butter, but did not set them.
Gradually the peanut butter was being taken.
Great I thought.
I proceeded to bait and set the traps.
Nothing.
The bait is being removed, but the traps are not being set off.
Hmmmmm.
I guess the slugs are actually not bothered by the copper tape.
So, bare with me, today I shall be putting salt around the set traps and will see if that keeps the slugs off.
If all that fails, I shall be calling in the A team.
Mainly a man with a couple of ferrets lol.
Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to give all the facts.
So,
To put it short, has anyone got any pearls of wisdom to share with me about how to catch crafty dirty rats?
Cheers!
As UB40 sort of said....
Anyway, this is the story.
We have been living at our house for around 16 years, and over that time have never had a rat issue.
Ok, so, I feed the wild birds in my garden sunflower hearts every day using 2 feeders, and have a very healthy bird population such as goldfinches ( upto 30 at a time) , green finches, house sparrows, tree sparrows, dunnocks, a territorial robin, collared doves and the inevitable wood pigeon or 4, plus the odd sparrow hawk doing it's thing.
Other than the odd bird poo on my A5 because of this, I really enjoy watching my feathered friends.
Now up until about a month ago we used to get the odd field mouse eating the dropped seed on the floor which was no big deal, if I seen more than one I would trap them to keep the numbers down.
In my garden there is a concrete set of steps, with a 2 inch gap which is where these mice used to come from.
So, moving on, my next door neighbour decided to carry out some garden work.
He removed a large section of garden in order to increase his garden space.
In doing this, the mice dissapeared.
Only to be replaced by rats.
I have identified 2 different rats, one was pretty big, the other just an average size.
Not good.
Obviously these have set up residence in Mr mouse house and presumably ate them.
The rats come out during the day too and are obviously not shy, and are eating the sunflower hearts on the ground too.
Now, the logical solution would be to stop feeding the brds, and trap the rats.
I don't really want to stop feeding the birds as it's winter, and these birds have come to rely on me feeding them.
The gold finches in particular have this year's young with them, so I can't really stop.
I purchased 3 snap rat traps and taped copper tape around the perimeter of them to keep the garden slugs off them and laid them around the side of the wall where I have seen the rats.
I left these there for 3 days for the rats to get familiar with them having read that rats are clever and avoid new unfamiliar items.
3 days later I baited the traps with peanut butter, but did not set them.
Gradually the peanut butter was being taken.
Great I thought.
I proceeded to bait and set the traps.
Nothing.
The bait is being removed, but the traps are not being set off.
Hmmmmm.
I guess the slugs are actually not bothered by the copper tape.
So, bare with me, today I shall be putting salt around the set traps and will see if that keeps the slugs off.
If all that fails, I shall be calling in the A team.
Mainly a man with a couple of ferrets lol.
Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to give all the facts.
So,
To put it short, has anyone got any pearls of wisdom to share with me about how to catch crafty dirty rats?
Cheers!
