This Is Horrid! Look!

[PlecMama]

I don't believe they use back-breaking-spasming poison for rats, it's usually a large dose anticoagulant and they bleed to death - it's not exactly fun either though. The guy who put it down for us told us that we might see one staggering about and it's best to hit it with a spade and end it if we find one. Thanks. Fortunately, we didn't.


This coming from someone who can eat a slab of cow without blinking but can't eat for days because she cut a caterpillar in half while cutting a tomato. Ah double, double standards

 

[Marshall..]

Try this guy: Pied piper,4 flute lane.Hamlyn.

 

[fenwoman]

sorry fenwoman, laying down rat poison is hardly a humane way of killing rats. It's exactly like using the trap method. The pain of having poison ouzing through their bodies, probably spasiming hard enough to break their own backs in a slow and highly painful death. its hardly a nice way to die.

Hmmmm it seems like you imagine all poisons to be the same.
I use tomcat 2. This merely thins the blood so that they feel unwell and cold they slip into a coma quickly. They die of hypothermia. On the advice of my vet, when I took my barn owl to him after it was attacked, blinded, maimed, and badly bitten by a rat (One of those poor things I poison), I started to use poison. He told me I was acting sentimentally and irresponsibly by not using poison and gave me lots of good information about what to use, what is safe for the other animals and which killed the quickest and least horribly. The symptoms you describe in part would be the effect of strychnine. Not a poison which is used here and in fact illegal to use.
He told me that the poison I use it the most effective, most humane way of dealing with rats.

but sacrifices must be made for the greater good, so culling is necessary. You cant let disease infested rats running around your garden, urinating every second on their path, for your kid to put down their lollypop on the ground and then pick it up and lick it again. Rats started the great plague that killed thousands or millions even. They might be cute but if you get bitten you and get rabies you wont think they are so cute now, would you.

So on the one hand poison is (in your opinion) horrible, cruel and vile. Yet on the other hand you recognise that rats must be controlled. How am I suppose to control and kill them kindly?

Personally, i'd just shoot them. Get a scoped (sniper) air rifle and aim for the head. Instant death. I shoot squirells as their numbers got out of hand and i make sure they are dead within a blink of an eye. However, they are tough lil creatures and i wouldnt recomend it if you are a louzy shot. It bounces off their stomache! I dont particularly enjoy killing them and i dont say "hell yea" and start jumping for joy. I rrun towards it and shoot again at point blank range to make damn well sure that its out of its misery. I just leave it at the back of my garden for a fox to take it, so nature takes its call. (and they dont eat the bullet as its goes in 1 side of its head and out of the other incase someone wanted to accuse me of poisioning the fox population ) If you are to use this method though, make sure its a powerful air rifle, my dad used an air gun once and let off 15 rounds (1 magazine) into it and assumed it was dead. 1 hour later i came out to shift it and it was still alive

So on top of all the work I have to do, I have to sit out in the cold with a rifle and shoot them one at a time,while the 'crack' would upset the chickens and parrots? hoping that my aim is true and I don't miss or injure one so that it crawls off to die slowly with a pellet in the guts? Shooting is innefective as a means of rat control. You can shoot only one, then the others disappear until you are gone. You have already described your dad firing 15 pellets into a rat and it was still alive. This would be totally unacceptable to me. Poison is quicker and less painful.Besides, I don't want corpses to dispose of, let alone attracting a fox to my poultry pens
Please educate yourself about modern rat bait before getting emotive.

I don't believe they use back-breaking-spasming poison for rats, it's usually a large dose anticoagulant and they bleed to death - it's not exactly fun either though. The guy who put it down for us told us that we might see one staggering about and it's best to hit it with a spade and end it if we find one. Thanks. Fortunately, we didn't.


This coming from someone who can eat a slab of cow without blinking but can't eat for days because she cut a caterpillar in half while cutting a tomato. Ah double, double standards

What is worse than finding a catterpillar in your salad?


Finding half a caterpillar hehehe

Try this guy: Pied piper,4 flute lane.Hamlyn.

 

[oddball_lover]

Squirrels are NOT rats. The rat is of the species rattus rattus, the squirrel is Sciurus vulgaris completely different species.

Sorry to be picky

The brown rat is of the species Rattus norvegicus.

The very rare black rat (now *mainly* confined to ports and other coastal areas) is of the species Rattus rattus.

Rats started the great plague that killed thousands or millions even.

Rattus rattus, the black rat, was the plague carrier - not Rattus norvegicus, the brown rat being discussed here

They might be cute but if you get bitten you and get rabies you wont think they are so cute now, would you.

As far as I know, Rabies has only been passed to humans by rats in the Far East - even still, that is very rare. There has never been a case in the USA (if that is where you are), and rabies was actually eradicated from the UK in 1922

I believe the only rabies on this fair isle is Bat Rabies, from which there was a single death in 2002. Which rats *cannot* carry

So no worries about rabies. Leptospirosis however...


I'm on the fence for this debate - but there you go, a couple of useless bits of trivia

 

[tinat]

i think rats are lovely i have a pet rat an shes gorgeous an lovin towards me (except when i have food in my hands) lol

 

[StrontiumDog]

Hi Fen, I'm not gonna point fingers at the person/s (neighbour) but in my opinion they are the cause

The rats come onto my land from next door where they nest safely and get plenty to eat off their bird feeders, bits of sandwich, sweets etc dropped by the children. However, they smell my animals, they smell the food and eggs etc and come under the fence to investigate

Have you spoken to them and informed that what they are doing is not helping the situation. If you have and they still wont help by stopping there bad habbits. Try your local council for vermin control (which you probly have done anyway ) maybe they can talk to next door and educate them a little more.

other than putting poison that the vet has recomended and getting your local council to do their bit ( there bound legaly I think )

hope things get better

 

[vancouver]

Buy a cat and the rats will disappear.. easy solution

 

[oddball_lover]

Buy a cat and the rats will disappear.. easy solution

Yes....a very expensive, long term solution

Surely if she's worried about her children, having cat poo everywhere would be just as bad...mmmm, toxoplasmosis anyone

 

[fenwoman]

Squirrels are NOT rats. The rat is of the species rattus rattus, the squirrel is Sciurus vulgaris completely different species.

Sorry to be picky

The brown rat is of the species Rattus norvegicus.

The very rare black rat (now *mainly* confined to ports and other coastal areas) is of the species Rattus rattus.

Rats started the great plague that killed thousands or millions even.

Rattus rattus, the black rat, was the plague carrier - not Rattus norvegicus, the brown rat being discussed here

They might be cute but if you get bitten you and get rabies you wont think they are so cute now, would you.

As far as I know, Rabies has only been passed to humans by rats in the Far East - even still, that is very rare. There has never been a case in the USA (if that is where you are), and rabies was actually eradicated from the UK in 1922

I believe the only rabies on this fair isle is Bat Rabies, from which there was a single death in 2002. Which rats *cannot* carry

So no worries about rabies. Leptospirosis however...


I'm on the fence for this debate - but there you go, a couple of useless bits of trivia

hey no info is bad info. I stand corrected on the rattus info.
BTW nahnahnuh nah nah we have no rabies in the UK
My own pet ratty boyses are the genus Rattus cute-icus

Hi Fen, I'm not gonna point fingers at the person/s (neighbour) but in my opinion they are the cause

The rats come onto my land from next door where they nest safely and get plenty to eat off their bird feeders, bits of sandwich, sweets etc dropped by the children. However, they smell my animals, they smell the food and eggs etc and come under the fence to investigate

Have you spoken to them and informed that what they are doing is not helping the situation. If you have and they still wont help by stopping there bad habbits. Try your local council for vermin control (which you probly have done anyway ) maybe they can talk to next door and educate them a little more.

other than putting poison that the vet has recomended and getting your local council to do their bit ( there bound legaly I think )

hope things get better

Not spoken to them. I can manage by putting bait down. I have absolutely fantastic neighbours who put up with a lot of noise from me. If the bait I put down, kills the rats on their land, I am quite happy. I would rather buy my own rat poison than burden the council's stretched resources. Besides, I can put down as much as I like, when I like and not have to wait on the rat man to find time to get to me. Independant old beggar aren't I?

Buy a cat and the rats will disappear.. easy solution

Yes....a very expensive, long term solution

Surely if she's worried about her children, having cat poo everywhere would be just as bad...mmmm, toxoplasmosis anyone

oh stop. I have 10 cats, have always had lots of cats. Neither I nor my son ever had toxoplasmosis from them. With that mind frame, nobody would ever have a pet of any sort since you could catch something of any one of them. Salmonella off chickens and turtles, psittacosis off parrots, toxoplasmosis off cats, toxicara canis off dogs and I'm sure fish tanks have something nasty in too.
Good hygiene will prevent most nasty things, including a regular worming and defleaing regime.
Pets are great. People need pets.

 

[AndyDrew]

erm sorry to butt in but everything that lives should live .. hmm !
if u went into a lions place of living would u like it to get rid of u ?

 

[oddball_lover]

oh stop. I have 10 cats, have always had lots of cats. Neither I nor my son ever had toxoplasmosis from them. With that mind frame, nobody would ever have a pet of any sort since you could catch something of any one of them. Salmonella off chickens and turtles, psittacosis off parrots, toxoplasmosis off cats, toxicara canis off dogs and I'm sure fish tanks have something nasty in too.
Good hygiene will prevent most nasty things, including a regular worming and defleaing regime.
Pets are great. People need pets.

Don't worry, that's what I was meaning to imply

i.e. someone mentioned about dropping a lollipop into a patch where the rat had peed then licking it - they may equally drop their lollipop into a patch of cat poop

 

[The-Wolf]

erm sorry to butt in but everything that lives should live

does that include viruses like MRSA or bacteria like salmonella?

 

[julibob]

Blimey, I really did start something didnt I? I said I wouldnt tell, but as much as I despised doing it, I did in fact put poison down for the Rat. There was only the one it seems, as the same rat came back to my Greenhouse to die, and no food has been taken since.

I see all sides of the story, but this particular rat was enjoying my garden by day, and I will not put my children at unnecessary risk! It was a huge male rat (18" from nose to tip of tail), and I didnt want it joining my children for games.

Julia

 

[fenwoman]

erm sorry to butt in but everything that lives should live .. hmm !
if u went into a lions place of living would u like it to get rid of u ?

really? So you never get rid of white spot or worms? If your child had worms or headlice you would not kill them? You don't eat meat?

oh stop. I have 10 cats, have always had lots of cats. Neither I nor my son ever had toxoplasmosis from them. With that mind frame, nobody would ever have a pet of any sort since you could catch something of any one of them. Salmonella off chickens and turtles, psittacosis off parrots, toxoplasmosis off cats, toxicara canis off dogs and I'm sure fish tanks have something nasty in too.
Good hygiene will prevent most nasty things, including a regular worming and defleaing regime.
Pets are great. People need pets.

Don't worry, that's what I was meaning to imply

i.e. someone mentioned about dropping a lollipop into a patch where the rat had peed then licking it - they may equally drop their lollipop into a patch of cat poop

when my son was little he was taught that if he dropped food onto the floor he was not to put it back into his mouth. Basic hygiene.

Blimey, I really did start something didnt I? I said I wouldnt tell, but as much as I despised doing it, I did in fact put poison down for the Rat. There was only the one it seems, as the same rat came back to my Greenhouse to die, and no food has been taken since.

I see all sides of the story, but this particular rat was enjoying my garden by day, and I will not put my children at unnecessary risk! It was a huge male rat (18" from nose to tip of tail), and I didnt want it joining my children for games.

Julia

Well I for one applaude you for being sensible and doing somthing which was obviously difficult for you.

 

[nukeonekitty]

woo