Humane Pest Control

Salmo thymallus · #1 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 04:46 PM

Sorry, probably been asked in the forums on numerous occasions but........most humane way to get rid of rats. They have scaled the bird feeder pole, they were able to navigate the plants either side of the bird feeder and have now figured out to jump from the plants post pruning. This all happens in daylight !

I appreciate they are wild animals and so on, but they are taking all of the bird food and I'm concerned about weils disease, although I'm probably more at risk fly fishing in the river. I've seen four at once today which is worrying so I'm toying with aquiring an air rifle as it's the quickest and most humane way of despatch. Poison is obviously a no-no.

Does anyone know any methods other than the aforementioned full and final one? Unfortunately my cat would rather sleep than can catch rats, although sadly she is partial to the odd finch.

On the plus side though, we had female black cap visit the seed tray today, obviously once the rats had left.

Cheers.

Dogghound · #2 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 04:51 PM

Do you mean to trap them then dispatch them with the rifle or other similar way?

salukiwhippet · #3 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 07:13 PM

Fenn trap mk.4 or BMI magnum 110 set in a tunnel, as required by the spring trap approval orders. Cages can be good too, but tend to take longer to catch.

Airgun can be efficient if you can shoot straight, but the lethal area on a rat's not all that big. Try to avoid the cheapest chinese models, they're just too variable.

Where in the country are you?

James

Salmo thymallus · #4 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 08:26 PM

Thanks for the responses.

Dogghound, was intending picking them straight off with the rifle from around 12m away. Trapping beforehand may lead to further stress.

Salukiwhippet, I'll have a look at the traps but need to be careful not to kill other species by accident. I'm in Leeds and have a colleague who hunts game so has various firearms including air rifles. He's lending me a Weihrauch with scope which I believe are fairly decent.

Thanks.

salukiwhippet · #5 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 08:41 PM

That's why they have to be set in tunnels with restrictors. Get in touch if you want more details. Does sound like the airgun might be a better bet in your situation though.

Weihrauch are a very good make, I have one (a HW80K to be exact) in my armoury. Mine loves RWS Hobby pellets, they're flat headed so tend not to overpenetrate and soft so minimise ricochets too. You still need to be 100% sure of your backstop.

Nice username by the way, not too many grayling in Leeds though are there?

James

Salmo thymallus · #6 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 09:12 PM

You're dead right Salukiwhippet, Leeds is a little to far down river for Grayling. I have to head an hour up into the dales and fish the mid / upper reaches of the Wharfe, Nidd and Ure. I'm not too far from Derbyshire either.

eeyore · #7 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salukiwhippet

Weihrauch are a very good make, I have one (a HW80K to be exact) in my armoury. Mine loves RWS Hobby pellets, they're flat headed so tend not to overpenetrate and soft so minimise ricochets too. You still need to be 100% sure of your backstop.

if the rats are climbing the bird feeder pole it ought to be fairly easy to bait them to particular sites where you can set up backstops so you dont get overpenetration problems

Ideally the bait needs to be something they have to chew rather than something they can run off with.

A few years back i helped a freind do a rat control job arround a swan sanctuary - we had to be ultra careful or ricochets and over penetration for obvious reasons so we used (out of date) loaves of bread for bait with a tent peg shoved through them to stop them being dragged away and set up sand filled trays propped up behind each bait site to catch any over penetrating ammo.

we also used bisley pest control pellets for that one which are hollow pointed to dump the energy.

the other key thing is to ensure the rifle is zero'd correctly to your eyesight (which may not be the same as your freind's)

salukiwhippet · #8 (**permalink**) 07-01-2010, 09:37 PM

Eeyore, that job wasn't with chap with the initials TD was it? Can remember reading about a job he did at a swan sanctuary, he had a custom Theoben made for it IIRC...

Salmo, I've never caught a grayling, though I've never fished for them either. They're on my list, along with zander and river barbel...

James

Salmo thymallus · #9 (**permalink**) 08-01-2010, 01:20 PM

Salukiwhippet, prior to me converting to fly fishing, started off coarse fishing then moved on to fishing for barbel only. Had some nice ones out of the Swale and Nidd. Just sold all my specialist gear on ebay, haven't used any of it since fly fishing for trout and grayling.
Cheers for all the advice.

eeyore · #10 (**permalink**) 08-01-2010, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salukiwhippet

Eeyore, that job wasn't with chap with the initials TD was it? Can remember reading about a job he did at a swan sanctuary, he had a custom Theoben made for it IIRC...

Salmo, I've never caught a grayling, though I've never fished for them either. They're on my list, along with zander and river barbel...

James

Hi james - no it wasnt that one - I read about that too

and we lifted some of his ideas for our use re the bait and backstops - my job was a year or so later

IIRC the "custom" theoben he had made went on to become the Rapid 25 -on our jobs we used 2 original rapid 7s in .22 with a BSA supersport and a HW77 as back ups