The Saga of the Rat

[peastix]

Yep I got it from Mitre 10 and put it out last night .. no bites yet .. ate through another plastic container though .. grrr

So annoying.They ate through our neighbour's plastic water pipes! You write so well made me laugh.Had a few mental pictures! You should put that talent to use and write some chook stories for the grands.

 

[duckmeister]

we're lucky our big black long haired tom cat pumpkin-head is quite the rat killer, usually always baby ones though, he leaves them on the door step regularly, so he must be keeping the population in check.

The Patterdale terrier gets a big rat once in awhile-they don't stand a chance once a terrier spots em.

 

[ryanhodapp]

Very entertaining reading. But I am sympathetic I have had them too not to the extent that you mention. I put bait in a pvc tube outside my coop and run area. The bate stays dry and only rodents can get to it. My chickens must be well fed because they don't eat worms or mice. They did peck a rat once. I found the corpse.

The mice were crazy this winter eating everything in site. 6 packs of demon to get them back under control.

 

[Rayelene]

One week later ....
It appears there are no more rats inside the roof …. I have found a number of them doing their best pancake impression in my rat trap in the garage. The bait has remained untouched for two days now and all is quiet in the ceiling .. I just hope there are no dead ones in there.
But in the chook run … well that’s another story. They keep digging under the wire and up into the run. And they are getting jolly cheeky too .. yesterday I went out and there was a rat, just sitting there, its head poking out of the hole, whiskers twitching, just staring at me. I took a step closer and it backed in a bit then popped back out again. It was smiling .. I tell you it was smiling at me. Actually it was more of a sneer. I stamped my foot at it to go back in the hole so I could cover it, but instead it bolted out of the hole and straight for me. Now I’m not quite sure what happened, some kind of involuntary reaction I think, but suddenly I found my legs doing a dance, a sort of Indian Fire-Dance and I came really close to kneeing myself in the face. Who knew my legs could go that high? And with a bung knee and all! Reminded me of an old song I heard as a kid (Knees up Mother Brown). While I was dancing, that rat took off out of the chook run at 90 mile an hour but not before it almost scared all the poo out of me.
Yesterday I had to assert my dominance in the chook house. My Rooster Dexter has been real stroppy, pecking at the girls, especially in the mornings, he's a right grumpy bum before he as been fed. I read a great article on here somewhere about that so when he came out in the morning and started pecking the girls, puffing out his chest and challenging me, I figured it was high time for a lesson in submission before he gets too much bigger. I backed him into the corner ( a weeny bit scarey .. hes a big boy) and caught him. I tucked him under my arm and squatted down, placing my hand over his head, and pushing it down a little, in a gesture of dominance. Then I called all the girls to come and witness the fact that I am the boss, which they did. It worked and after a minute or so he became really submissive and when I let him go he wandered off for food. Today he is really docile and not challenging me at all .. woohoo I think I might now be ‘Head Chick'
But the real fun happened in the afternoon when I was putting the chooks away. I shood them back into the run, opened the feed containers so they could fill up before bed and headed back inside. I got halfway across the lawn and there was a huge commotion. Loud squawking and flapping. I hobbled back as fast as I could, (my knee is still sore, and even more so after my impromptu knees-up dance). One chook (Alice) is running wildly around the run, squawking and all the rest are chasing her and making a terrible racket. Upon closer inspection I see she has a mouse in her beak. I know she cannot keep it because it might have eaten rat bait so I have to retrieve it. But I must admit I am a little impressed with her hunting skills. Feeling proud
First I try the quiet approach and squat down and try to retrieve it and I notice its moving .. oh give me a break ... Does it have to be alive? I have to retrieve a live mouse out of a chooks beak? And she is not giving it up easily, especially with the other chooks crowding around her trying to steal it. She bolts across the run with me hot on her tail. I nearly have her cornered but then she takes flight and goes over my head and heads back down the other end of the run. (As I thought about that later .. hen flying over my back with a live mouse .. I shudder). Knowing I've got to get that mouse before she eats it, I raced after her, but its wet and slippery. I lose my footing and it culminates in the most epic slide ever .. right into the corner where I manage to grab old of her . I tell you that tackle was impressive, worthy of a place on the NZ Allblacks team. But Alice is not so impressed and she is not giving up that mouse easily. It is wiggling all over the show .. I try to grab its tail and she screeches out a protest.
Dexter the rooster now thinks I am hurting one of his ladies and he enters the ruckus, giving me a loud telling off and flapping his wings at me. Feathers are flying everywhere, and I’m now spitting them out of my mouth as I yell at him “I’m the boss Dexter .. remember .. I’m the boss of this chook run .. back off”. I'm doing my best to look like I'm in charge from my prone position. Amazingly enough he walks off. Finally I manage to get a hold of the mouse and pry it out of her beak. I carry it out to the paddock amongst loud protest and hurl it into the grass. Those silly chooks are none the wiser and they run round and round the chook run looking for it.

Anyhow ...Once again they are on 'lock-down' tonight because I have put more bait down the holes. Dang .. another early morning to get up and check for any rat bait before the chooks get up (which is quite early if you are a rooster). This is a lot of work and still not one solitary egg.


The next day ... with the netting now buried properly (on an angle) nothing is coming in from the ouside. But here is one trapped inside the coop under the baby chookhouse. I'm going out now to move it and get rid of it. God I hope it doesn't run up my leg or anything ... wish me luck ..

 

[Ironsights]

[COLOR=5F5F5F]I have no time for rats.  Yes I know some people find them adorable with their cute little whiskers and fluffy fur but I am not won over by them at all.  For the past two weeks they have intruded on my idyllic country life by stealing their way into my chook run, so until I have got a more ‘rat-proof’ set up I have to remove the food every night and bring it inside.  However because there is now no food out there for them they have made their way to the house.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]As I lay in bed last week I heard a scratching sound in the roof and I knew exactly what it was, so on payday I purchased a rat-trap and loaded it with peanut butter (seems to work well for mice) and sunflower seeds.  I wobbled my way up my pink stepladder and removed the manhole cover in the garage and carefully placed the trap just inside the roof cavity.  I must confess, as I lay in bed that night I felt more than a little guilty but I consoled myself with the thought that at least it would be quick.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]But victory was not to be mine for on checking the trap in the morning I found it was still set.  I waited another day and checked again.  Still nothing.  On the third day I forgot and it was very late in the evening before I remembered.  I climbed the stepladder, torch in hand and lifting the manhole cover with my head I poked my head into the roof space.   I froze … right in front of my face, frozen in the light of the torch was the rat.  Its beady little eyes were staring straight at me.  An involuntary noise, not unlike a squeal escaped and I dropped my torch.  That rats eyes got really big, its whiskers twitched and it squealed back.  I got such a fright that I slid right down the ladder, scraping my knees on the way down and then fell backward on the floor on my butt.  I could hear mad scampering in the roof as that terrified, but happy little critter absconded into the darkness.  Those cute rats in the movie ‘Flushed Away’ are nothing like ‘real life’ rats and I decided in that moment that my dislike of them is totally justified.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]I decided too that, apart from the dangers of climbing the ladder, this pesky rodent would be very wary now and was not likely to return to the manhole cover, so I removed the trap and placed it on the floor in the garage hopeful that it would prefer the trap food than the wiring in the roof.  As I slept that night I dreamed about that rat.   It was sitting at the rat trap with a little knife and fork, delicately dining on sunflower seeds and peanut butter, and in my dream it threw its little head back and laughed and laughed.  [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]I was really disappointed the next morning to find the trap still un-sprung, but right beside it stood a plastic bucket with sealed lid in which I keep the chook food.  That sharp toothed fiend had chewed away a corner of the plastic lid, and given more time, would have gotten into the bucket. There was no sign of the little knife and fork though, which confirmed to me that part at least was indeed a dream.  I cleaned up the mess and yesterday I put some of the chook food on the trap to tempt that critter, placed the trap right beside the bucket it had chewed, confident that this morning would see that rascal dead in my trap.  Wrong again.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]I woke this morning to find the trap still loaded, the bucket untouched and all my vegetable garden seeds (about 45 packets of them) chewed up, the remains strewn on the garage floor.  Not a packet left intact.  I sure hope he enjoyed the feast and appreciated the fact that most of those seeds were expensive organic seeds.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]So today I spring cleaned the garage. I moved every item and swept it out.  I then removed all food, including the chook food and the blood and bone bag it had attacked.   I have placed the trap once more on the garage floor and sprinkled some food on it.   Even now as I type this I can hear scurrying sounds in the roof, and if I listen hard enough I’m sure I can also hear the faint sound of laughter.  It mocks me.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=5F5F5F]I might note here that all feelings of guilt are now gone and if that disgusting thing is not in my trap in the morning I’m going to pull out the big guns and buy some rat poison.   Meantime .. I'm off to google on how to make my method of feeding my chooks both rat and mice proof [/COLOR]

I've got them too, it's been a bad year for them. And one chewed through my daughters water line under her concrete slab of her house. Plumber said around US$ 1500 to fix.

 

[peastix]

One week later ....
It appears there are no more rats inside the roof …. I have found a number of them doing their best pancake impression in my rat trap in the garage. The bait has remained untouched for two days now and all is quiet in the ceiling .. I just hope there are no dead ones in there.
But in the chook run … well that’s another story. They keep digging under the wire and up into the run. And they are getting jolly cheeky too .. yesterday I went out and there was a rat, just sitting there, its head poking out of the hole, whiskers twitching, just staring at me. I took a step closer and it backed in a bit then popped back out again. It was smiling .. I tell you it was smiling at me. Actually it was more of a sneer. I stamped my foot at it to go back in the hole so I could cover it, but instead it bolted out of the hole and straight for me. Now I’m not quite sure what happened, some kind of involuntary reaction I think, but suddenly I found my legs doing a dance, a sort of Indian Fire-Dance and I came really close to kneeing myself in the face. Who knew my legs could go that high? And with a bung knee and all! Reminded me of an old song I heard as a kid (Knees up Mother Brown). While I was dancing, that rat took off out of the chook run at 90 mile an hour but not before it almost scared all the poo out of me.
Yesterday I had to assert my dominance in the chook house. My Rooster Dexter has been real stroppy, pecking at the girls, especially in the mornings, he's a right grumpy bum before he as been fed. I read a great article on here somewhere about that so when he came out in the morning and started pecking the girls, puffing out his chest and challenging me, I figured it was high time for a lesson in submission before he gets too much bigger. I backed him into the corner ( a weeny bit scarey .. hes a big boy) and caught him. I tucked him under my arm and squatted down, placing my hand over his head, and pushing it down a little, in a gesture of dominance. Then I called all the girls to come and witness the fact that I am the boss, which they did. It worked and after a minute or so he became really submissive and when I let him go he wandered off for food. Today he is really docile and not challenging me at all .. woohoo I think I might now be ‘Head Chick'
But the real fun happened in the afternoon when I was putting the chooks away. I shood them back into the run, opened the feed containers so they could fill up before bed and headed back inside. I got halfway across the lawn and there was a huge commotion. Loud squawking and flapping. I hobbled back as fast as I could, (my knee is still sore, and even more so after my impromptu knees-up dance). One chook (Alice) is running wildly around the run, squawking and all the rest are chasing her and making a terrible racket. Upon closer inspection I see she has a mouse in her beak. I know she cannot keep it because it might have eaten rat bait so I have to retrieve it. But I must admit I am a little impressed with her hunting skills. Feeling proud
First I try the quiet approach and squat down and try to retrieve it and I notice its moving .. oh give me a break ... Does it have to be alive? I have to retrieve a live mouse out of a chooks beak? And she is not giving it up easily, especially with the other chooks crowding around her trying to steal it. She bolts across the run with me hot on her tail. I nearly have her cornered but then she takes flight and goes over my head and heads back down the other end of the run. (As I thought about that later .. hen flying over my back with a live mouse .. I shudder). Knowing I've got to get that mouse before she eats it, I raced after her, but its wet and slippery. I lose my footing and it culminates in the most epic slide ever .. right into the corner where I manage to grab old of her . I tell you that tackle was impressive, worthy of a place on the NZ Allblacks team. But Alice is not so impressed and she is not giving up that mouse easily. It is wiggling all over the show .. I try to grab its tail and she screeches out a protest.
Dexter the rooster now thinks I am hurting one of his ladies and he enters the ruckus, giving me a loud telling off and flapping his wings at me. Feathers are flying everywhere, and I’m now spitting them out of my mouth as I yell at him “I’m the boss Dexter .. remember .. I’m the boss of this chook run .. back off”. I'm doing my best to look like I'm in charge from my prone position. Amazingly enough he walks off. Finally I manage to get a hold of the mouse and pry it out of her beak. I carry it out to the paddock amongst loud protest and hurl it into the grass. Those silly chooks are none the wiser and they run round and round the chook run looking for it.

Anyhow ...Once again they are on 'lock-down' tonight because I have put more bait down the holes. Dang .. another early morning to get up and check for any rat bait before the chooks get up (which is quite early if you are a rooster). This is a lot of work and still not one solitary egg.


The next day ... with the netting now buried properly (on an angle) nothing is coming in from the ouside. But here is one trapped inside the coop under the baby chookhouse. I'm going out now to move it and get rid of it. God I hope it doesn't run up my leg or anything ... wish me luck ..

I'm laughing so much but I bet your dodgy knee doesn't get the joke.Also you can't even have an egg breakfast for compensation!A lot of work burying all that wire.I'm currently digging up the site of my future chook pen and hoping a double row of pavers all the way around the edge will help.Hope you've managed to deal to the last remaining rat.