The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: spandit on December 13, 2014, 11:28:18 pm
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I have rats in my workshop. Poo everywhere.
I've put down a Nooski trap but so far they've eaten 3 lots of bait and made a nest in the trap without setting it off! At least they're used to it now and some of the bait is poisoned
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Chatting in the ag store this week and they are selling a bucket of bait every hour. It is stacked by the counter as it was not staying on the shelf long enough for the effort.
Every time we think ahh that's cleared them another wave seem to move in. The other day 3 of us dropped a bait packet behind the coal store within half an hour as the previous one had gone. The current packet is untouched after two days so fingers crossed that is it for a while again.
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My pet rat has now eaten 3 bags of poison. There's another bag emptied into the trap and I've set the camera up to catch a glimpse of the little love.
I'll put a different trap down in due course as I'd rather have the body to dispose of than a dead rat rotting under the floorboards...
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Chatting in the ag store this week and they are selling a bucket of bait every hour. It is stacked by the counter as it was not staying on the shelf long enough for the effort.
According to a pest control company up here, rats are really bad this year for some reason.
Our one seems to have disappeared, hopefully as a result of the 3 sachets of poison.
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Two mild winters have caused numbers to increase. When we moved here the previous owner told me to bait all year round and I have. The crucial time is Autumn when they move in off the fields looking for a warm hotel room for the winter. Our hay barn is floored by a layer of waste hay bales, so ideal for nests and runs but I always pour bait into the exit holes. I rarely find a dead one but we have at least 3 tonnes of bagged feed in the feed barn over the winter and if the bags remain untouched I know I'm on top of the problem.
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Well. Only put the camera up this afternoon. Already have video of the little critter... he's nibbled some of the poison bait but there's some left so perhaps he has a tummy ache! Hope so :D
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I haven't seen any this year. I hope it stays that way.
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Hi All,
Lesley, hope it stays that way.
We have rats in the loft at night, not sure if they are playing football, rugby, having a dance......... but don't they make a noise.
They are eating their way through copious amounts of poison, local store is doing well out of me this year.
I think I will follow your lead Marches Farmer.
SV
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Well, there are either two rats, one large, one small, or a rat and a mouse, which would be why the trap wasn't triggered. Still some poison left in the trap this afternoon, so maybe the tummy ache was terminal (they'd eaten the entire banquet I'd left out elsewhere)
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It's official, a rat and a mouse. I have them both on video and have caught the mouse in the act of eating the bait from the rat trap. Both of them still very much alive this evening so more poison going down tomorrow and I will set some old fashioned traps too as I'd rather have the body to dispose of...
...problem is, I bought a bar of cheap chocolate to use as bait and it's already been eaten... :innocent:
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Because rats & mice have bowel & bladder incontinence they leave a trail of pheromones for other rats & mice to follow.
The more used a trail is the greater attraction to the other rodents for rats 7 mice really only go walk about for some where new to live ,food , drink & sex ( a bit like some folk I know )
You could well have caused the demise of the original foragers and what your now seeing on the camera is the rest of the rat & mouse society in the locality, so keep feeding the traps & bait stations.
Only when you find it has not been consumed or tripped for a period of 14 days can you consider you're reasonably free of rodents. Even then you will still need to keep a baited & trapped perimeter protection especially around your feed stocks .
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I don't have any feed stocks, don't know what they're eating!
Is there any bait that mice won't eat that rats will? Rat doesn't seem to like the Nooski trap so I've set a couple of others with chocolate.
Just eaten a whole block of rat bait... Dairy Milk... :(
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We had a massive rat problem a couple of years ago, but cleaned em out with poison blocks, the trick is use enough and not too little, I would dot them everywhere, making sure no pets/poultry can get to em. You could always get pest control in to deal with em.
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One of my mousetraps has disappeared! The camera I have set up takes three pictures in quick succession and the first two show a mouse nearby and shows the trap clearly, the third one, it's just gone! Can't find it!
All the other traps and bait remain untouched so I presume the poison has done its trick. I'd rather see the bodies as they'll be rotting under the floorboards now but at least there shouldn't be so much poo around now...
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A rat will be wearing it as the latest fashion.
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A rat will be wearing it as the latest fashion.
Oh dear. I've just taken the card out of the camera to have a look if it's clearer on the big screen. As long as it is dead, I suppose the cost is irrelevant but I don't like the thought of an animal suffering unduly. That said, I'm guessing the poison wasn't as instantaneous as a trap would be
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I caught a mouse in the trap one day and decided not to move it straight away but but the evening it had been eaten out of the trap presumably by a rat - just a tiny mouse leg left to prove i didnt imagine it.
That may be where your trap has gone.
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Now you see it:
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk76/richardspandit/Old%20Farm/animals/IMAG0456_trap_1.jpg)
Now you see it (again):
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk76/richardspandit/Old%20Farm/animals/IMAG0457_trap_2.jpg)
Now it's gone:
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk76/richardspandit/Old%20Farm/animals/IMAG0458_trap_3.jpg)
5 seconds between pictures! After it's taken those it shoots 15 seconds of video but there's nothing on there either...
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At least you have an accurate time for when the theft was committed. The law likes to know these things :roflanim: