[bib]

Hi!   

Can anyone tell me about a fox machine that was mentioned before please?  Or did they just mean a gun? And about mink and what to do about them - I dont have a gun and I'm waiting for someone to lend me a live trap. Ive live traps for rats in the steading but the bait has gone and the traps are still open. Hope the trap Im supposed to be borrowing for the mink works better! 

There were a couple of recent slight snowfalls which were perfect for footprints, and the mink (I think its a mink) has been all over the place - all the way up around the steading where my chicks are.  And the fox has been around.  The llamas are in a trailer + sheep gates at nights just now,  because of the baby and the weather and I dont know if they would see off a mink anyway
Any advice appreciated and if I dont reply quickly it sbecause Im not on line in caravan!  bib   

[doganjo]

Did you leave the rat bait in poly bags or loose?  if left in bags they take it away to the nest and it kills the young too - keep on putting more bags out till there is one left - then you know they are all dealt with.
James Lindsay mentioned the fox trap I think.

[harry]

i didnt know that i must bag it up, ive got plenty of large rats. are you sure they take it back to the nest..... problem is if they leave it on open ground for the poultry to eat it.

[bib]

its not poison its just dogfood - I dont want to use poison, although if they'd actually get caught in the trap, and die in there it wouldnt be so bad - I dont want the wrong animal to eat it, or something like the red kite eat the poisoned rat after it dies outside, as Im not convinced that its not harmful

[harry]

that doesnt seem to make sense, youre useing live traps, and hope they die in the trap, thats odd, they would probably take weeks to die, you have to kill them and not release them so its becomes someone else problem, the point of a live trap is to re release the pest.

[jameslindsay]

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, not been on for long the last few days. The equipment that I swear by is called "Fox watch". We have them all over our land and have had no further problems with losing hens or ducks. They are small machines around £30 each, you put a battery in them, dig them into the ground and all you have to do is check the batteries every so long. You can buy them and use mains electricity. You buy as many as you need, the instructions tell you what size of area 1 covers and you work it out from there. We lost several hens and ducks before we bought these things and nothing since.

How they work is if you cross their path it sets off a high screach sound, which we can't hear - nor can your livestock, but it is at a frequency which the fox are terrified of apparantly. Good luck.

[bib]

- thank you harry but  no I check the rat traps every day and dont know yet how I'll kill them, didnt mean Isd just leave them in there - think drownings supposed to be too cruel, and I thought I might drive into the middle of a huge foretsry bit and let them go, which I guess some people say is a bad thing to do.  And thansk james - I will have a look on the web for the fox watch, it sounds good.  and today whil browsing at work I came across rat poison - eradibait - which isnt poisonous but kills by dehydrating the creature, it cellulose based or something.  Has anyone tried it? 

[harry]

i think thats normal rat bait i think they hemoridge when they drink again, not sure but still deadly for your poultry as well,If you catch a rat in a live trap you need a air pistol at least, i cant think of any other way to kill it apart from drowning. by the way you will never get rid of them, only control the numbers.

[bib]

- maybe I should get a little ratting dog although that'd probably cost about 200 quid, and anyway my dog might not like it, I cant even get to the stage of seeing a rat alive in the cage or dead in the little mousetrap type rat traps yet!  Last try was a bit of raw lamb elastic banded  to the thingy inside the cage trap so surely one of these days the thing will spring and actually catch the beast.  I got one single cage and one 'family' cage and thought Id have several generations of the things by now ..!  I will get my stockman/agricultural advisor/ditch digger/evrything elser to dispatch any but the last time he saw off rats a hundred or so years ago he says he shot them .. but now he hasnt got a gun. Are airguns legal without a licence?

[shrekfeet]

Are you Buddhist?

Where there is life, there is death. If you keep livestock then you need to deal with predators in the right way. This may involve you having to kill some of them. Or re-evaluating what you are doing and why.

We had several 3 day old chicks taken over night by a rat. We lost 3 hens to a fox last week. Believe me, there comes a time when you are happy to see them dead!

Why don't you adopt a cat from the Protection League? I haven't seen a single live rat this year since we started to keep two cats outside. We were overrun last winter.

[bib]

~ om shanti ~  no Im not actually,  and Ive already eaten some of last years lambs, just dont have a gun and dont want birds or cats or other things eating poison or poisoned rats

might get a     tho', but some are better mousers (and presumably ratters) than others, so Id have to pick carefully.

I think the llamas work for foxes too, but you cant have a llama in every separate bit .. ,

peace man  & thanks for the tips & advice 

[sagehen]

I have a cat, but I think you'd find that most cats might kill baby rats but they tend to leave the adults alone. I also have a problem with rats, and have tried a lot of suggestions, including Annie's ratbait in bags suggestion, but either I have a lot of rats, or the ones I've got won't die!

Shrekfeet - if you are Buddhist, you wouldn't be keeping livestock 

[harry]

 this is what you do, buy a good air rifle 2nd hand that way i got a £400 gun for £150, no licence required, then you buy off ebay a vermin call cd, i have one it plays fox calls, rats eating, rabbits in distress for foxes and loads more even elks, havent seen an elk in norfolk lately, then you buy a personal cd player from asda £5 and an extension speaker £5 with a built in amp  and a red light torch,  at dusk you place you cd player in a good place put the cd on RATS and press repeat play, then sit around and wait for the rats to come out and then use you air gun, a 410 is better as easy to hit a moving rat. NOW THESE CDS WORK, i used mine 2 times the rats came out, then next night i didnt use it and they didnt came out, used it again and they came out, going to use it again any day now.

[doganjo]

Now THAT'S what I call fun!!!!

[shrekfeet]

Sagehen it was a rhetorical question

We had a cat turn up on our doorstep heavily pregnant. We strted to feed it in one of the outbuildings, wormed it and made it a bed. It gave birth in there and started to feed the kittens. Some mornings it would have brought in as many as 3 adult rats for the kittens to chew on. They took great pleasure playing with the left over tails and heads. The mother even catches cock pheasants and small rabbits.

The Protection League will find you a good - outdoor cat. Feed it but not too much. Remember that it is the prey that controls the population of the predator - not the other way around. If the food runs out then they move on