I touched a rat!!!!!

[jumbyjack]

My own fault as I didn't put the lid on the bin properly. The light is behind me in the feed room so bin is a bit dark, put my hand in to get the scoop and grabbed something furry that squeaked!! Recoiled in horror shrieking oh my god it's a rat several times, rat now running in circles round the bin and trying to jump out, I'm running in circles in horror because I touched it! Bloke on yard put the lid on the bin and carried it outside and tipped it, and as no-one was prepared to wack the rat with a shovel it ran off. Bloke then helpfully says it could have run up my arm, thanks mate! Rat problem is huge at the moment in spite of ongoing poison programme, I'm going to buy an air rifle! Still freaking out about it!

 

[TPO]

The only option is to cut your hand off. Perhaps bloke will help with that?

Honestly my absolute nightmare!!

I like domestic rats and have had pet rats but the wild ones give me the heave. We've got some here and I hate them. Unsurprisingly they are also smarter than me and whilst I catch some the majority avoid my cunningly hidden traps easily ?

 

[holeymoley]

Hahahaha

?

Sorry. Lol. I’d have been the same. Thankfully the last time I touched one was whilst going through a friend’s old tack/equipment. I thought it felt a bit heavy... thankfully it was stone cold solid and dead but it was huge! Groundskeeper lifted it by the tail and flung it away.

 

[Amun]

Oh dear, totally understand your horror I would have done the same but I really laughed reading this ?

 

[southerncomfort]

Yuck!

I once put my hand in a bag of compost and found myself holding a frog ?. Have never recovered from this.

 

[Squeak]

OMG my literal worst nightmare. Thank god you didn't get a tail or teeth though.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go near my feed bins today after reading this.

 

[Bernster]

? yikes! So funny to read though. Both of you freaked out by the other!

 

[Red-1]

I was once rummaging in my boot box. Felt some furry ones. Hmm, I thought, I don't remember having furry boots? Grabbed the furry boot to pull it out, found myself griping a dead rat! Ugh!

 

[Keith_Beef]

Ugh! I'm another that has no problem with domestic and lab rats, but would not want a filthy, scared wild rest near my hand.

Last week I was getting the post it of the box near the gate when I felt something bump against my finger. I turned the stack of letters over to see an enormous spider... I put her back in the letter box.

Last year we found a note left in the letter box from the post woman, asking us to remove the spider because it scared her.

 

[criso]

A few months ago someone at the yard opened a feed bin to find a rat had given birth in there and there were over a dozen teenage ratlets running around in there.

 

[Xmasha]

Grim ! Many years ago when on livery I put my hand in the feed bin and felt something furry . It was only a mouse as opposed to your rat .. but I screamed the place down . So much so a fellow livery came running round to see if I was ok . She had assumed I had an accident , she gave me the ‘for god sake stare ‘ when she realised it was a mouse . Still makes me feel yuk.
I’m now going out to give our two cats some roast chicken to say thank you for keeping the blighters at bay

 

[Batgirl]

I was in my stable with the vet once, heard a shriek from one of the staff. Scooted into the feed room, rat in the feed bin.
I grabbed it by the base of the tail, took it outside and trod on its head.
The vet was amused, the staff member horrified ?

 

[Evie91]

I feed the birds (and badgers and fox by default) so occasionally get rats. Can’t poison due to my own pets and worries for wildlife. Could smell them in my stables, so cleared out whole thing and found where they were living. To cut long story short saw four, three got killed, knew last one still in stables, managed to get friend to help and herded it into a trap that went off but didn’t kill it just stunned it! Grabbed it by the tail and walked with a wriggling rat into local woods and let it go- it was panting hard and we both looked at each other, then I walked home. The end ( I hope so anyway, that it didn’t follow me back!)

 

[muddybay]

My horse lay on a rat and killed it some lucky person found it squashed in his bed!

 

[Cortez]

When I was a child I once went to put on my wellingtons and got bitten on the foot by a mouse. This was a useful "teaching moment", especially when I went to live in a hot, dry country and didn't have to learn the hard way about scorpions and snakes in boots and shoes.

I also have had a mouse run down my arm and out of my coat sleeve whilst driving the car. Never found the mouse, so perhaps it's still resident in the car? (Not: this was years ago, and the car's been sold.)

P.S. The shock/revulsion reaction to rodents is instinctual, I actually quite like them (but not, obviously, in the feed room), but they still make me jump and squeal.

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

I would have screamed the place down that sounds awful!! I can barely cope if I see one disappearing into a hole in his stable as then I know its there...

I was taking him back to his stable once in the dark and one ran out right in front of me. I screamed!

 

[rabatsa]

I had one drop from a door jamb and onto my shoulder, it made its getaway down my arm before jumping off. I grabbed another instead of a bale string in the dark when getting a bale down off the stack in the dark. Both times I was alone at the farm.

I hate the things.

 

[doodle]

Not funny or having a go, but I now have a picture in my head of the rat running home and shrieking “I touched a human aaarrggghhh” ?

 

[littleshetland]

I digress slightly....OH (who was a chef at the time) was working hard in the pub/restraunt kitchen and noticed one of our furry friends scuttle out of the kitchen and into the public restaurant area. Instictively he picked up a meat cleaver and strode after it, trying to look...er...casual. There were only one or two diners there, but as he tried nonchalantly to spot it, one of the gentlemen diners, whilst eating his dinner, said, quite calmly 'It's gone under there mate...' nodding towards another table. Then suddenly, one of the local regulars who was in the bar (and slightly worse the wear for drink)has got wind of this, burst in, and thrown themselves at the hapless rodent in an attempt to catch it, the rat latches on to her hand, teeth well and truly sunk in at this point, all hell breaks loose...plenty of screaming and shrieking as she shakes her hand and the rat flys off through the air, land in the middle of the restaurant in full view and scuttles off to get stamped on by the barman. Drunken regular gets hauled off to hospital for lots of injections and check up and diners get free food that day. I would like to add, this was some years ago now, and the pub in question has had a complete revamp, and is a lovely place to eat out now! It did remind us of that episode of Fawlty Towers - Basil the Rat!

 

[The Xmas Furry]

I was in my stable with the vet once, heard a shriek from one of the staff. Scooted into the feed room, rat in the feed bin.
I grabbed it by the base of the tail, took it outside and trod on its head.
The vet was amused, the staff member horrified ?

That's how I've dealt with them in the past on a yard I was working in!

 

[Prancerpoos]

Urghh! I once picked up a squashed rat whilst mucking out, thought it was a bit of a large, odd shaped poo - then shrieked the place down as I saw what it was and dropped it and ran round the yard (me). The YO (bloke) thought it was very funny.

Bit unrelated - but about 20 years ago I was in the first class lounge in New Delhi airport with a friend and 2 American guys. We are all sitting on one side and the Americans' wives were sitting on a sofa across from us. Let's just say that the wives looked more than a bit 'high maintenance'. Anyway, while we were chatting, 2 huge rats appeared on the back of the women's sofa and proceeded to chase each other across the top, right behind the HM hairdos. The best bit was that not one us changed expression or said a thing as I think we all had the same simultaneous thought of the mayhem that would ensue if the women knew. Still gives me and my friend a good chuckle when we recall it.

 

[DirectorFury]

My little terrier would like to come and live with you guys - we're very much rat-free here to her eternal disappointment!
The worst I had was going to scoop some Pink Mash out and finding something wet and furry. A little mouse had got in, eaten a lot, and it had obviously expanded inside the poor thing and, er, burst it. I still feel really bad about it, such a horrible way to go .

 

[Archangel]

Cat had let go of a rat and it ran off.
I was wearing a long skirt.
Rat thought a long skirt was a brilliant place to hide and ran up the inside of it.
I was still screaming a week later.

 

[Carmen6]

Awwwww, how can you guys not love ratties?!



(I'm teasing, I know wild rats aren't adorable...)

 

[dreamcometrue]

Even if you had whacked the rat it would have survived, believe me. Me and friend once took turns to whack a rat and scream in horror. The rat was oblivious to our antics. Luckily the farrier arrived and did it properly.

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Even if you had whacked the rat it would have survived, believe me. Me and friend once took turns to whack a rat and scream in horror. The rat was oblivious to our antics. Luckily the farrier arrived and did it properly.

Its knowing how to despatch effectively in one go.

 

[little_critter]

We had a rat in our loft at home. I bought some rat snap traps (they are bloody lethal, nearly lost a couple of thumbs setting them)
We heard the trap go off so I popped my head into the loft to check. There was nothing in the trap, but there was some blood so I figured the rat had had a near miss. I turned to turn off the loft light and came face to face with dead ratty. I nearly fell down the loft ladder.

At the yard a friend had a surprise, she has a stack of heavy rubber feed bowls and she just chucks the clean one on the top of the stack. She picked up the top bowl to find a semi-squashed (but alive) rat who must have had the misfortune to be in the top feed bowl when the next bowl was thrown onto the stack.

 

[Xmasha]

Cat had let go of a rat and it ran off.
I was wearing a long skirt.
Rat thought a long skirt was a brilliant place to hide and ran up the inside of it.
I was still screaming a week later.

some of these stories are just urrghhhh . But this one ?

 

[jumbyjack]

I'm loving the rat stories, some of them make mine fairly ordinary!! I'm not going to pick one up by the tail ever though!

 

[Equi]

I must be really lucky that I’ve never seen a rat before! I don’t really know how, I have rivers all around, I’m not great with my feed or bird seed, there is plenty of places for them to hide and the cats are too fat to chase a rat! I’m not complaining of course. My dad put the fear in me as a foal by telling me one ran up his arm and latched itself onto his neck when he was ferreting, the ferret then went for the rat so he ended up with the two of them swinging from his neck ? I was never allowed a pet ferret.