i somehow acquired 2 runaways and i have questions. please help

[pollipazzi]

i just put a whole bunch of cotton wool bits in a little tub and dumped peppermint oil on them and stirred it up with some cinnamon. i stuck all the bits in the ridges of the roofing on the wall. that's surely where the mouse is coming in. maybe i should feed him so he gets fat and can't fit through the hwc!

 

[RoyalChick]

don't they have anywhere else to go? they have to ruin all the fun. are you still having trouble with them? did the treadle feeders help?

i think thelma (possibly both) would starve to death if they had to use a treadle feeder. thelma probably weighs the same as the mouse

No. Rats are gone. The mint incident was before the treadle feeders.
I have a very small hen who has trouble with the feeder so she waits for someone bigger to open it and eats alongside them.

 

[pollipazzi]

No. Rats are gone. The mint incident was before the treadle feeders.
I have a very small hen who has trouble with the feeder so she waits for someone bigger to open it and eats alongside them.

wow! that's great news! do you think the feeder is what did it?

poor small hen.

oh! here comes the storm that they have been saying was supposed to start last night. they are as slow as my feeder timer.

 

[BDutch]

No, peppermint here.


I zoomed in on our neighbours cat this afternoon. He was chasing something, couldn’t see what.

An hour later I was on our lawn to install a cable for the lights in the outdoor Xmas tree.

Guess what I found.
It was dead.
Brown.
Had a long naked tail.
Was lying on its back.

…

A rat …

 

[pollipazzi]

No, peppermint here.


I zoomed in on our neighbours cat this afternoon. He was chasing something, couldn’t see what.

An hour later I was on our lawn to install a cable for the lights in the outdoor Xmas tree.

Guess what I found.
It was dead.
Brown.
Had a long naked tail.
Was lying on its back.

…

A rat …

did you put it in a bag?

 

[BDutch]

did you put it in a bag?

I took a plastic bag and put it around my hand like a glove. To pick it up without touching it. Then walked to the green waste bin* with it and dumped the rat in the bin. The plastic bag went in the plastic waste bin immediately after.

I’m not the scary type as long as a small filthy creature doesn’t take me by surprise.
So I was a bit like ‘ieeck’ when I almost tripped on the rat. But to pick it up with a simple glove and dispose the rat is okay for me.

*This bin is for so called green waste (gardening/food) , they pick it up from the street once every 2 weeks.

 

[pollipazzi]

eep! you are braver than me! i could not hold the bag so that i could actually feel the rat's body or i would probably die. that's why i couldn't get him in the bin opening. it was very difficult because i was just trying to swing him in there with the floppy bag.
there was no way i was going to touch his body even if there was a bag between us. he would have surely come back to life and chewed me up.

our green bin is brown and they take it every week.
the bin man probably curses me because it's always full of garden waste and heavy.

 

[RoyalChick]

Sorry to be dumb/naive - but why not just leave the body where you find it? Or is the assumption it has been poisoned and is therefore dangerous to scavengers (in which case it probably shouldn't go in the garden waste bin anyway!).

 

[pollipazzi]

Sorry to be dumb/naive - but why not just leave the body where you find it? Or is the assumption it has been poisoned and is therefore dangerous to scavengers (in which case it probably shouldn't go in the garden waste bin anyway!).

i don't know about bdutch, but i moved the body so my friend could sleep at night. and he was in the middle of the path looking all scary.
they say you can put anything in our public bins and they will sort it. i don't believe that's true. i am pretty sure the rat in the path was poisoned.

 

[RoyalChick]

i don't know about bdutch, but i moved the body so my friend could sleep at night. and he was in the middle of the path looking all scary.
they say you can put anything in our public bins and they will sort it. i don't believe that's true. i am pretty sure the rat in the path was poisoned.

Got it.