Rat Poison - a lucky escape and a plea....

[tim]

We have rats - par for the course in the country.

Poison blocks went down last week under the deck, wired down - all done by council pest control but overseen by me as well.

Gardener comes to mow the lawn yesterday so I did a quick clear up of any dog poo - to come across some that is bright blue. Not good at all thinks I since this is in the last 24 hours.

Dogs look fine but its an anti clotting poison that doesn't act straight away. I lift the deck planks to see where the poison is. At least two blocks have gone, including the wires holding them. The assumption is that the rats have dragged the bait blocks somewhere where the dogs could have had access.

So off to the vet with both dogs, since its not clear who ate what. Vet is happy with their health, Vitamin K jabs administered, blood taken and Vit K pills provided to be taken for the next two weeks with visits to the vet today and in another 5 days.

It appears that they are both okay and they are certainly acting normally but it has scared the bejesus out of me since there is no way they should have been able to get at the bait blocks. The vet told me that they have seen a lot of dogs with poisoning this year with a very high proportion not making it. He also said that rats are more than capable of biting through steel wire and metal bait cages.

It appears that my or in fact, Monty's adventure has a happy ending but I won't be baiting for rats again. We think the rats have eaten enough to be poisoned but if not, I shall be getting an air rifle!

I know it could be seen as a bit knee jerk but I would ask you to think twice about laying poison (no matter how securely fixed) if you have animals or your neighbours do.

Cheers

Tim

 

[David111s]

i've heard this story many time before.

my former workplace had big rat problems and the boss put down poison only for a curios cat to slip in and consume the poison.

i insisted that we try a different approach and i ended up going in very early in the morning and shot 8 rats! (on overtime!!!)

get your self a .22 air rifle and a sit and wait its allot safer than poison!

 

[RogerS]

Tim..hope that your dogs remain fine. I was surprised that your local 'expert' used bait blocks. Around our way, the local vermin control experts ..by that I mean your 80 year old farm worker who's seen it all....have long given up on bait blocks because the natural reaction of the rat is to hoard.

So, of course, they will chew through the wire and then take the bait away for hoarding....not for eating then. That's the important thing.

The best is to use the granules....that way they have to eat in situ which means that you have a very clear picture of whether or not they are eating or have died. Disappearing bait blocks mean nothing, I'm afraid. Just a stockpile somewhere.

The other thing ...which may be grandma and eggs...is to remove all other sources of food.

 

[White House Workshop]

get your self a .22 air rifle and a sit and wait its allot safer than poison!

But those little beggars move jerkily - and fast! I have only managed to shoot two in as many years as by the time I spot them they're running and I don't get a good shot. The ones I did get I watched and saw where their run was, then simply pointed the gun at one exit and waited, and waited, and waited until a nose poked out - then BANG! They're also clever little sods - you shoot one and the rest find a different route.....just like wood pigeons; shoot one and the rest stay away from the danger area for ages.

 

[soundaz]

You can't beat a good ratting session with an air rifle, or a Jack Russell come to that. The only problem being is it can only ever be a bit of sport using these methods. The rate at which they breed is phenomenal, so the few you manage to get are of little consequence.

 

[Bodrighy]

I live in a cottage in a farm yard and rats and mice are an every day occurence. I have lived in this sort of situation for most of my life and have to say that you can shoot as many as you like, you will not get rid of them, only get some satisfaction from having got a few of them. Poison, as has been found is of little use and potentially dangerous, especially with dogs who will eat almost anything.The only real answer is to make sure that any food stuff is kept rodent proof and if you must, use traps, either humane or fatal. Even then I have known rats to get the bait and leave the trap untouched, or in one case sprung, they threw things onto it to spring it. Unless the rats are living in sewers and cess pits they are not as much a health hazard as people think and in fact are probably a lot cleaner in their habits than many humans :lol:

Living in the country, rats are not really something to worry too much about. If you live in a town and have them in your home, then you have a problem

Pete

P.S. They also make fantastic pets for kids

 

[Gary M]

Hope the dogs are ok Tim,


A warning for all about rat poison !!!
A few months ago (tale end of summer) anytime i visited my Mum(normally daily),I could notice a strange smell in her back room.
It was not there all the time, only now and again i could smell it. but it seemed to be getting worse.
My Mum had a large plant which sat in one corner of the room and i was convinced that it was causing the smell. after a few days with the plant out in the conservatory, the smell was still there ??
Dear old Mum couldn't smell it and had started buying air fresheners because i was convinced there was a smell.
One morning i called, Mum said my sister had called the day before and had brought her dog (rottweiler). The dog had been sniffing the corner where the plant had been ??
When i bent down and put my nose to the floor the smell hit me !!!
Something was dead !!! you know the smell !!!
I had to painstakingly lift the solid oak floor i had laid for her a few years ago only to find a dead rat starting to turn gooey !!!
The next door neighbour had seen a rat in his garden and put poison down !!!
The thing about rat poison is you never know where the rat is going to die !!!

 

[Bodrighy]

You can get poisons that act by dehydrating the eater and there is little or no smell as the body has no fluids left. The dangeris that, as you said, you don't know where the rat will ensd up and dogs will eat carrion, cats are usually more picky. It can effect other wildlife however birds, badgwers and foxes all eat carrion as well. Poison is a no no as it is so indiscriminate.

Pete

 

[tim]

Living in the country, rats are not really something to worry too much about.

If we had a few I would agree with you but we have upwards of 20 and they are undermining large sections of the garden and flowerbeds - and they are getting into the house esp the roof spaces. As the birds start to nest the rats will kill all the fledglings and eat the eggs.

There is a balance and it needs realigning here.

I'm afraid I don't buy the 'rats are clean, intelligent animals that make good pets' argument as a reason to leave them alone. We used to both keep rats as pets when we were younger but these are not pets. Pigs would also fit the same criteria but you would do something about a herd of wild boar in your loft wouldn't you! :roll:

Cheers

Tim

 

[Bodrighy]

I agree that rats in that sort of concentration are a problem. I would still recommend traps if there are other animals round and also try and find why they are there. They tend to congregate like that where there is a good source of food.

I apologise if it seemed I was making light of your problem, not my intention but reading back it may have seemed that way.

Pete

 

[tim]

I agree that rats in that sort of concentration are a problem. I would still recommend traps if there are other animals round and also try and find why they are there. They tend to congregate like that where there is a good source of food.

I apologise if it seemed I was making light of your problem, not my intention but reading back it may have seemed that way.

Pete

Pete - its fine. My point was that this isn't just the odd farm rat.

Cheers


Tim

 

[Digit]

I think all country dwellers live cheek by jowl with rats and other animals as well. I tend to try and practice a live and let philosophy, but when that can longer be sustained I use an air rifle or baited traps.
I prefer traps as they are most unkely to trap either of my two soppy hounds, I don't need to use poison bait and I don't get left with a smelly corpse.
Years ago my family moved into a house that had been empty for some years and the mice numbered in their hundreds! We found that the only way to deal with such large numbers was an old water pitcher with some corn in the bottom and a piece of wood resting on the lip.
The problem then of course what to do with the dozens we caught in the first hour!

 

[Rich]

It used to be so easy to call the council and they would send a ratcatcher out, but now, round here they charge you £25.00 for doing it, this puts a lot of people off dealing with it, coupled with the new regime of rubbish bins only being collected fortnightly, merely compounds the problem, oh how I wish I could live high up in an ivory tower, what happens in the summer when the bins are stinking I dread to think.
Rich.

 

[Digit]

The answer to that Rich is let the rats get at it! No smell and nicely recycled. :twisted:

Roy.

 

[srs]

Having recently moved to the wilds of Suffolk, we have been having an ongoing problem with rats, the house we brought had been empty for some months while the mill further up the stream was being turned into flats, so the resident rats left quiet home one for our home. Luckily they were only in the loft but you will be surprised how much noise they can make.
While we were waiting for the pest man to come out I did slip up into the loft with a CO2 air-rifle, if you have ever wanted to know the terror felt by US soldiers who had to clear the tunnels in Vietnam please come round my house. The loft is only about 5 foot high at its best point and I’m 6’ 3”. I had an LED headlamp on and all around you can hear the odd scuttling …… talk about a Blair witch moment, I did manage to pick off 7 before one ran up my leg (luckily I had taped up around my boots so no ferret moments) and I left the loft head first screaming like a little girl.
My advise is to get them to put down the small black grain poison this cleared to loft is under 48 hours with no evil smells in the house.




Simon

 

[Oryxdesign]

I can definitely relate to that story, I thought I was ok with rats until one ran over my leg when I was working in a loft. I wont go into a loft with any signs of rats anymore, I'm a scaredy cat.

 

[Orcamesh]

When we moved into our new house (2.5 yrs ago), we had rats in our loft too. Absolute nightmare. When lying in bed you could hear them climbing up the wall cavity behind your head. Lovely. Just like your loft, Simon, you can only crawl around it (like Vietnamese ferrets). As soon as you opened the loft hatch, under the cold water tank was a mountain of rat droppings, which stank and potentially could have been detrimental to health. It took me about 5 months, fortunately we were not overrun, as I trapped one (just above our bedroom) at 1am which the missus thought was a gunshot! The other took some of the poison which is now scattered all over the loft in trays (chocolate flavoured pellets), and it died in an internal brick wall cavity between the downstairs toilet and understairs cupboard. It stank of steamed cabbage when you put your head in the understairs cupboard! A third rat got away, as it's whiskers were caught in a trap. Maybe it too had taken poison, but fortunately died outside. We also have ultrasonic devices in the loft and kitchen area. Outside climbing plants have been cut down on the wall of the house, and any other ways of enabling easy access to the roof. All pipes have been checked and drains uncovered and inspected. Since then no rats, but the loft is like armageddon with traps everywhere and bait trays. There are a couple of skeletons too which the previous owners lovingly left us! Now the loft is out of bounds, and it would take a brave man to restore it to it's rightful status. Personally I have made it a "no go zone" or at least an "unless you really have to go zone". It took months before I was satisfied that they had gone, I was always listening when going to bed for every scratch and movement. Now we have a pet hamster called Lily! Nice. :lol:

 

[StevieB]

The only thing to watch Hawk Moth is that the poision pellets have a limited active lifetime - I was told 2 months by my supplier (pestcontroldirect.co.uk). Was advised to change bait every 8 weeks or so if I was using it as a preventative measure.

Steve.

 

[Orcamesh]

Hi Steve, yep, I was told all the do's and dont's by the Rat catcher who I eventually drafted in to help after I ran out of ideas. He gave me these professional choco pellets, which are much stronger than your normal shop counter ones. Anyhow, like I said it took 5 months to get rid of them 2 1/2 years ago, so whatever is still up there is not needed now as they have gone. I just cant be bothered to go up there to clear it all away as it is so health hazardous and difficult to crawl around, so I have left them where they are.

Thanks
HM

 

[Losos]

I know it could be seen as a bit knee jerk but I would ask you to think twice about laying poison (no matter how securely fixed) if you have animals or your neighbours do.
Cheers

Tim

Thanks for posting this Tim, it's all too esy to overlook the consequences of using poison. We have two lovely Newfies and we would never ever use poison of any type around our place.

Amazingly, considering we are in a very rural area, our main problem is mice not rats. I use home made humane traps sometimes but also the 'Big Cheese' trap 'cos it's so easy to put bait on it and it can be reset by foot action. I've found the 'standard' type of mouse trap to useless, the bait has to be wired on and they always seem to get away after triggering them.
The 'Big Cheese' has never failed me yet.

Even so I don't like the idea of the dogs getting their noses caught so I put the traps inside a large metal biscuit tin with some holes around the sides. I tape the lid on just to be sure.

So far our two canines haven't been able to get inside and I've caught loads of mice.