Back in the mists of time when our 80 year old neighbour Eric used to live next door we used to have a bit of a rat problem.
At least we thought it was a problem. Unfortunately Eric felt it was nothing of the sort and used to deliberately leave food out for them. He even had one that he had tamed.
Yes. Not good.
Mind you, Eric’s tame rat’s wasn’t the least of his little quirks. It was only when he moved out we discovered that he didn’t actually have a working toilet in his house. Instead he’d been doing the necessary in a bucket and then tipping it down an outside drain when no one was looing.
Yes. Not good.
Still, we sort of miss him really. He was a proper character and living next too to him was always interesting. I’ll never forget the annotated newspapers he used to shove through our letterbox at random intervals. And how many 80 year olds do you know that are ardent Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.
Plus lets not forget he once gave me all these comics:
Glorious.
Although on reflection they probably all had rat droppings on them.
Recently however I have taken over Eric’s mantel as being the rat feeder. I should point out that I’m not doing this intentionally. The little buggers are helping themselves to the food I leave out for the chickens.
I’m not sure what to do about this to be honest. I think they are actually nesting in a hole within the coop itself – and so leaving poison or traps down isn’t an option as they may harm the chickens. I’ve a feeling I’m going to need to call in a pest control service, but I’m a little loathe to spend the money.
It’s probably better than shelling out on chicken food to feed them month after month however.
Any other suggestions would be gratefully received.
They make these rat bait boxes that are about the size of a shoebox with 2-3 inch holes in the side for the rats to come and go- that way the poison can’t be got at by cats, chickens, kids, whatever.
Here we go
Of course then you have to deal with dead rats, ugh.
When we lived in DC, in an old row house on Capitol Hill, we had a neighbor who had 5 Cavalier King Charles spaniels and would let them loose in her courtyard and never clean up after them, so we had a bit of a rat problem on our block (rats love them dog feces). They tunneled under the row houses and there was no way to get under there to get rid of them besides chuck poison under, resulting in dead rats, smell, and flies.
For a while I seriously considered releasing some snakes under my house to take care of those f*ck*rs.
You need a heard of Cats. Outside cats of course.