Rats in garden and feeding birds

[feathered-friend]

The best bet is to make the food inaccessible to them.

We put plastic bottles, with the bottom cut off but upside down like a funnel, half way up on all our feeder poles, this seems to have stopped the rats and mice getting to the feeders. I think the surface is too slippery for them.

Make sure the feeders are away from fences so they cannot jump on them and only put enough food out for the birds to eat in a day. Clear any waste of the ground at the end of the day if possible.

I would not leave out poison, some animal or bird you do not want to kill will find it. We have caught a bird in a rat trap before even though it was tucked away so please do not use these either.

We have not seen evidence of rats for some time although I am sure they are around as we live semi-rural.

I'm sure you will have other advice soon, so good luck!

[captivebolt]

Best technique is to get a hundred or so ball bearings, about 2mm. Make up a strong solution of sugar in water, chuck the ball bearings in and boil dry. You will than have 100 ball bearings heavily coated with sugar. Last thing at night, scatter the bearings around the bird feeders. The rats will come to feed and thinking the bbs are sweeties, swallow them. Then the next day wander round your garden with a big FYT magnet. The bbs will be attracted by the magnet, and you will get rats going Ping! Zoom! Clang! as they fly through the air and end up on your magnet. When you have a big furry squeaky bad-tempered bundle of Rattus norvegicus on your magnet you sneak the whole lot round to the house of the person you like least and bung 'em through the letter-box.
Kevlar reinforced motorcycle gauntlets are highly recommended.
The great thing is, if the furry marauders try to chew the sweeties, they'll break all their teeth and starve to death!
I must confess that I have never tried this method, but my brother-in-law knew a guy at work who met someone down the pub whose grandfather swore by it.
Would I lie to you?

Captivebolt

[salukiwhippet]

WOW! Anyone want to swap a few dozen fenns and a lakeland terrier for some ball bearings? How can it possibly fail?

In all seriousness, it sounds like the rat man is using a bait they're resistant to, or not using enough of it.

Making the food less accessible will help a great deal but it's not as easy to achieve as it sounds.

I'd be looking at fenns or magnums in a suitable tunnel, or a decent airgun if you can shoot straight. Where in the country are you?

James

[blackb1rd]

It should be quite easy to make a compost bin rat proof (depending what type of bin it is) and that would definitely be the first thing I'd do.

As a side note unless you really are over run with them then I really don;t see there being a big problem. Yes rats can carry diease but so can a lot ofother animals (many of which you can't stop getting into your house let alone your garden) and actual recorded cases of Weil's are incredibly rare - worry more about your kids crossing the road to be honest.

Don't poison them as it isn't very humane, could kill other animals and will leave rotting rats under your shed/bins/walls etc. Trust me they smell terrible.

My best advice wouldbe to rat proof your feeders to make less of a food source for them and then block their tunnels and generally discourage by rat proofing obvious hide-outs (like compost bins).

They should then simply move on to somewhere else where the food and accomodation is less effort.

Or just ignore them, they're only rats.