Brown rat

[jackieaswain]

Hi everyone,
Have the same problem with those ***!! brown rats, I had a family of them under my shed. I watched them running round the garden but really objected to them digging up my newly planted runner bean seeds, so invested in some rat bait, peace at last. The saying goes that you are never more than six feet from a rat. The local cats are not the best hunters and no sign of any other predators despite my garden faces open countryside.
jackieaswain

[sandieP]

Hiya I'm new to all this but here goes ! I too have a family of rats but they are under my chicken coop in the garden. Today I saw an adult rat and at least 6 youngsters( yes I am sure there are plenty more).
so how do I humanly get rid of them? If it wasnt for the disease I would ignore them, which i supose i cant do as again i supose I will get over
run with them!
Please give me some advise, I love creatures and although I apreciate something needs to be done,I dont want to be cruel!

[montysmum]

I feel the same - I think the one I have has been encouraged by the fact that I put food out for the birds in hangers, on the bird table etc and he likes feeding from the bits the birds drop. I guess the food you feed your chickens would also encourage them into your garden.

I am going to try the sonic deterrents - you can order them online from various places. They apparently emit a high pitched noise detectable only to rodents and it scares them away. I am not sure how effective it will be but it's worth a try. I am also going to stop feeding the birds for a couple of weeks so that there is nothing to attract them into the garden.

I think if you are going to carry on feeding your chickens (dont think there's much of an option there), and if there are baby rats under the hen house already there might be a problem because those baby rats are soon going to be growing and having babies of their own, which would be a worry for me!

I think if the sonic devices dont work then I will be putting some poison down. I dont want to do it but I have young kids playing in the garden and I dont want them to get ill because I dont want to hurt a rat!

[Mr Mag00]

are there any poisons that will not migrate in the food chain for rats?

[nightshade]

I have had Rats trying to settle here in my garden,they breed prolifically
they bred in the gardens either side of me and were poisoned and trapped
in the end just us being out in the garden seems to have moved them on
(oh! and our dopey cat)
Look around for signs of digging ,under sheds or out of sight in rockeries etc.

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Mr Mag00

are there any poisons that will not migrate in the food chain for rats?

If you want to get rid of it Don't use poison.
Kill it in a trap or shoot it..