[F.CUTHBERT]

Reg. Have you got a degree in nit picking and splitting hairs too? What are you like?.

Hello OtG if you don't mind me picking your nits perhaps you or Reg can clarify something. In you post you say the best method is to have bait stations down for 365 days a year this is my preferred method, a sort of bed & breakfast service for our rodent friends. Am told this is now illegal or a non- approved method, the correct way is to put down non lethal baits only switching it to lethal bait when you notice the non lethal bait has been taken by which time you probably have a good infestation.
Is this correct?

[Bodger]

None lethal baits? What are you proposing ? That you put food down as a welcome to the rats and then poison them once you've attracted them in? Common sense says that this amounts to nothing more than an Agent provocateur strategy that simply defeats one of the main weapons in stopping an infestation and that is managing your holding  so that vermin are denied a food source in the first place.
 
Practices in the use of rat poison may have changed over the years but by keeping poison down all year around,  the smallholder ( not the professional pest controller) will be able to prevent heavy infestations from bulding up. IMO, its too late to respond and the damage has already been done when your place is already over run.
 
 Common sense says that if there aren't any rats on your premises, then any bait you place in your baiting stations, will remain untouched, so whats the problem? You might as well have it there as not and take a proactive approach rather than a reactive one.

[tizaala]

The nanny state stopped us using the best stuff....CYMAG ...one dose fits all pests   wish I could lay my hands on some now.

[SallyintNorth]

I would love to hear from the pest control experts about the risks - and how to minimise them - of poisoning non-target species, particularly the farm cat, terrier, collie etc.  Not to mention buzzards.

[in the hills]

Me too, SITN.


Never used poison until last couple of weeks but couldn't "pretend" I couldn't see them anymore  . Really hate using it.


My first choice would have been to find someone with a terrier. Most humane and avoiding potential effects on other species eg cat, dogs, buzzard, kite .... I thought  . But couldn't find anyone. Apparently the local keeper had a good ratter but it's now too ancient to do anything at all and he didn't know of anyone else around here.    Tried live traps and snappy traps but ratty and pals seemed too clever.


Son has just bought an air rifle and is fine tuning his "aim".

[Anke]

I would love to hear from the pest control experts about the risks - and how to minimise them - of poisoning non-target species, particularly the farm cat, terrier, collie etc.  Not to mention buzzards.

Surely if you use the whole-grain type, in bait stations, it is unlikely that cats/dogs and buzzards (or other birds) get to it? That's what we do now routinely come autumn in the hay shed and near our goat shed. Don't think we killed anything other than mice or rats, maybe the odd shrew, and I do find the odd dead rat hidden somewhere, never out in the open... (it's actually the only animal I can't deal with - dead or alive, can't even put them away...   even when VERY dead. They do give me the creeps - need "a screaming and jumping on nearest table" emotiwatsit for this)

[SallyintNorth]

Hiding the bait from cats, dogs, buzzards, etc, isn't the problem - it's cats, dogs, buzzards, etc, eating the poisoned rats I'm worried about.

[Plantoid]

I've always worked on the fact that if you see one rat you have an infestation so do something about it on seeing the first one .
Baited cage traps & a .22 air rifle were the most effective for me  initially , but like most people also I used secured bait stations on the building perimeters and then gradually moved them out to the outer perimeter of the area I was trying to protect.
In my heyday I used a neat product on a mixed seed base that was called DRATT.
I used to mix it with a tin of plain cocoa powder six or seven types of bird seed , grated up soya bean  some pig nuts and corn in the cement mixer with a 1/2 a litre of corn oil . A barrow full used to last around a month .
Had to sign the posions register for it & was only allowed to buy a litre at a time
 It was very very effective . None of our farm cats or our dogs got secondary posioning , perhaps a few corvids  got hit eating carrion rat but I suspect that not many rats made it back out of their holes once they had had a feed .
 

[Lesley Silvester]

I have put poison down where nothing but the rats and a few spiders can get it. I've never found a dead rat but I understood that they went to their nest to die.

[HesterF]

You've all got me thinking - the only rats I've seen have been three (big) dead ones that the cats have brought in but how can we tell if we have a problem? I keep all the feed in bins and we put the poultry feeders inside at night (and I think their run is rat proof anyway). We also don't have piles of junk around the place. But how do I know that's enough? I don't really want to leave random poison around on the off chance. Somebody also said that rats are mostly attracted by poultry faeces, is this correct? There's plenty of poo around the place from their daytime free ranging!

BTW, another option is if you know anybody who flies hawks. Quite often they're looking for places to fly them so they'd come and clear some rats for free. The only concern I had was whether they could target the rats and rabbits as opposed to the chickens.

H

[Lesley Silvester]

Another consideration is the effect that a hawk on the premises would have on the chooks. When I kept about 20, I had friends visit, who brought their pet buzzard with them. It spent all day tethered to a perch inour shed, poor thing, and was flown every evening. My hens' egg production went from around 18 a day to around 3 and they hardly left the vicinity of the hen house.

[Maggie]

When we moved to this farm in Devon, even the workmen ran away screeching at the size of the rats.  Big jessies!   I have put down no poison or anything - just left my two cats to do the work of keeping them in check.  Occasionally, around lambing time when my ewes are in the barn - I see a couple of rats running a straight line along a rear wall.  When they see me... they stop and stare.. hoping I'll move on.  They are so comical looking.  Hah I can't get worked up about them because so far they do no damage.