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Author Topic: Who's eating my rats?  (Read 3292 times)

Christian

  • Joined Jun 2012
Who's eating my rats?
« on: March 07, 2017, 07:28:43 pm »
Something lives in/under/around our barn (with goats, chicken and hay) that happily clears out our rat traps - on those rare occasions that we get one of them daft buggers. It seems to prefer 'back end and innards', leaving the head as a trophy behind. Should I be worried about the chicken (e.g., is it a stoat)?

Christian
Desperate Smallholders
Borders

chrismahon

  • Joined Dec 2011
  • Gascony, France
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2017, 06:43:49 am »
Without a trail camera you will never know for sure. You could try sprinkling sand around the trap and look for prints, but it is possible that other rats are eating them. We had a rat somewhere in the house that used to eat the mice caught in traps, leaving just the head.

Q

  • Joined Apr 2013
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2017, 07:17:23 am »
Second vote for other rats. Mine have had mice from the traps. I thought a mouse had escaped from a trap when I came to move it until I saw the tiny pair of legs and the head left.  The trap was left for a rat in the first place - I just ended up feeding it.
If you cant beat 'em then at least bugger 'em about a bit.

kipper

  • Joined May 2013
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2017, 07:28:32 am »
With poultry often comes mice or rats and it's hard to stop that
With my experience the rats eat the rats in the traps

I would have thought stoat would have done more damage than that by now
I always have a fenn trap set in a steel box so nothing else can get caught and I've only ever had a rat in it but they are good for stoats and squirrels also

Happy trapping

Christian

  • Joined Jun 2012
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2017, 01:26:02 pm »
Hi All,

thanks and 'yes' to all of you - it's rats on rats in our barn. I've got a CCTV set up to monitor my goat kids and it looks like we have two types of rats. Small brown ones with a soft spot for peanut butter (those I can trap) and black captain America type of things that live of raw meat.

Kipper, Fenn Trap in steel box sounds like the best way to go - where did you get yours from?

Best
Christian

Marches Farmer

  • Joined Dec 2012
  • Herefordshire
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2017, 05:39:16 pm »
Blimey, where are you?  The ship rat (Rattus rattus) is rare in the UK and I'm glad it is.  Worse news than Rattus norvegicus, the brown rat.

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Qui? Moi?
    • ABERDON GUNDOGS for work and show
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Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2017, 08:29:48 pm »
Borders near a big river
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Christian

  • Joined Jun 2012
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2017, 08:05:05 pm »
Yup, Tweed is just around the corner, about 20m away. Does 'rare in the UK' mean it is protected? Just bought Venn traps, see what we can get....

Thanks folks,

Christian
Desperate Smallholders
Tweedsmuir

Buttermilk

  • Joined Jul 2014
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2017, 06:21:29 am »
They were a target species on my rodenticide course.

landroverroy

  • Joined Oct 2010
Re: Who's eating my rats?
« Reply #9 on: May 01, 2017, 03:04:18 pm »
Weren't black rats the ones that brought the plague in the 17th century?
Didn't realise they were still around.
Rules are made:
  for the guidance of wise men
  and the obedience of fools.

 

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