It wasn't mice eating my rugs

MrsElle

MrsElle

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It was rats! I moved everything out of the shed today and you should have seen the size of the cartoon like hole they had knawed, as well as the huge droppings.

I absolutely refuse to go in there now until it is totally rat proofed! I don't mind mice but hate, hate, hate rats. We had loads the other year after the floods and I rung OH up in tears one day because I couldn't get in an outbuilding because a rat was sat in the doorway and wouldn't move!

I'm all trembly now, will have nightmares I'm sure!
 
do you want to borrow my terrier her record upto date is 10 in one sitting
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I dont blame you. Rats make my skin crawl.

We have one of those plug in repellant things. Seems to work.

Couldnt bare it if we had rats.
 
I hate rats too, really nasty creatures, hope you get them sorted as soon as possible
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luckly i've got 3 dogs, rats now know not to come onto our yard
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Our semi ferral cat is a good ratter, but seems to have missed these who have taken up residence in my rugs
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Perhaps I will have to lock her in the shed for a couple of nights and see if that gets rid of them, as well as hanging the rugs up out of the way instead of piled on the floor!
 
Respect to that terrier!

A few years ago one of my cats bought a rat into the house and then mislaid it.

The first I knew about it was when I opened one of the drawers in the kitchen and there he sat. Rat looked at me, I looked at rat and then it was like something out of a cartoon, my legs started running before my body
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Rat legged it in the opposite direction.

Thankfully my cat caught it a couple of days later, but I fully understand what you mean by feeling sick at the sight of them. Vile creatures!
 
2 years ago at our yard ....We had 5 of the dirty wee barstewards, The cheek of the little buggers were making themselves at home in missy's bed
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So got hubbie to come along one day , Stuck madam out into the field and with me standing on top of make shift stool, fork in hand and going through the bed, Hubbie at the end of the walkway, Air rifle in hand .

Hubbie got every single one of the little barsteards with no help from me and my squealing
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.

Max the cat kept them at bay over the past year, but poor max got hit by a car just a month ago, YO is getting a new cat soon ....So hopefully we won't have another winter of rat catching .....Leave that up to the new puddy cat
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I don't mind mice but bloody rats are revolting
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while cleaning stable block out yesterday think i disturbed a nest and numerous 4 legged things went running off, i found 3 dead critters this morning while cleaning stable out which I thought were mice, my mother informed me they were baby rats so i take it my horse doesnt like them and stomped on them. Hoping to find a few more tomorrow morning as can cope with mice but not rats and there were more that 3 that ran off.
 
My sister confronted a rat in the feed room of the place she used to work at, with a broom, she shoved the broom at the rat and it ran up the handle towards her. Exit one groom minus the broom______fast!!
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The stable next door to mine has had a rat burrow through the concrete floor and pop out out of the shavings.

I had no idea they could go through such solid obstacles.
 
At least you lot never touched the buggers.... I stupidly left a bag of feed on the floor of my old livery yard. Went in the next day to get a handful of mix and rat jumped on my hand, whizzed up my arm then jumped off and away.
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Que me screaming hysterically, just about passing out and my Mam and friend killing themselves laughing. I refused to go anywhere near the bag, but my Mam was saying 'oh don't be silly, there'll be nothing in there now.' So she opens up the bag (gingerly
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) and there's a frigging mouse in there as well! That must have been an awkward night for the rat and mouse - i'm sure they're supposed to hate eachother?
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I walked into the hay barn one day and stood on one which has curled up asleep in the loose hay - ugghhhhh it was vile, i felt its shape through my wellie, still makes me shudder

We used to get rat holes in the banks in the stables when we first moved in...gave me nightmares thinking of them in there with my horses. Got one of the plug in things now and they don't come any more thank god
 
QR..Rats can chaw through concrete, my OH used to work for Poole council on the dustcarts for a while and he said they were a nightmare and could chew through almost anything. We had them in the house a couple of years ago and they chewed their way in from outside through purbeck stone, through the bottom of the cupboard under the sink, i could see the pieces of rubble they had moved through the hole. the dog got some and we poisened the rest. Dieing rats seem to like to crawl into wall spaces to die, you cant see them but you sure as hell can SMELL them!!
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Quite prepared to be shouted down but an opinion is an opinion and that's surely what this Forum is about. Yard rats and pet rats are fundamentally the same. They could interbreed quite happily and the babies would be rats. They are intelligent as rodents go and are opportunistic feeders. Yard rats aren't evil, they're just rats and they behave in exactly the way that evolution has programmed them to behave. Rats in the wild tidy up waste that would otherwise eventually cover the UK a mile high. They are also a food for barn owls etc. The destruction of barn owl nesting sites has meant that rats can breed unchecked. It's the habits of man - whether essential through agriculture or wasteful through the results of our throw-away society that attract them and cause massive imbalances in what nature intended. Quite right - they need to be destroyed whenever they are a pest, potential or real, but for heaven's sake, don't let's get hysterical and imagine they are the spawn of Satan with strange super-powers.
 
Calm down deary ,i dont think it's us getting hysterical, what strange super- powers have we inadvertantly given them ?
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I'm probably going to get shouted at but I like rats!
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Admittedly not in my feed bags etc, but I think they have a lot of qualities to admire and I really hate it when they have to be killed. I moved a water bucket in my girl's stable once and found a baby rat cowering behind it with its eyes scrunched up. I didn't move for a few seconds and it opened one eye to look up at me, sat up in surprise and then legged it! YO had the rat catcher in a week later and I found myself praying the little fella had got away. Spiders make me puke though, so I can understand where every one is coming from.
 
Yep me too - I even hoiked one out of a water butt but I guess most people would have let it drown. Rats can't help being what they are.

Don't get me wrong I agree feedrooms should be rat free but I cannot understand the near hysterical reactions to them!
 
Quite right BOF, no need for stupidity they are just dumb animals doing what they are programmed to do.

So send a few terriers in and let nature take its course.
 
You say that, but you haven't met my pet rats.

The older one is ok, but the younger one is a 'show rat' so hes smaller, weaker, and more dumb. It took him 3 weeks to realise how the tube in his cage worked, and generally does very little except paw for affection.


We used to have an amazing rat at the stables - it was really really old and obviously thought it was king of the yard, I thin kit was blind too. It just used to saunter around bold as brass in the middle of the day (probably with a walking stick). I think winter killed him off though
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I don't hate them - they're just animals like any other. No different to rabbits or foxes or the birds who nest in the stables. If people don't look after their things then they will get rats - same as if I leave a plate of dinner on the floor the dog will eat it. All our rugs are hung up on the wall, and feed bins with lids on, which haven't been chewed through ever.
 
I was walking past my stable once and there was a rat near a paving slab that was leaning against the wall, now i,m not usually a quick mover but i yanked the slab down on top of it and "SPLAT". I had to scrape it up with a spade yuk !
 
My mum has had a fight with one before it was trying to get in the stable and mum was determined not to let it in and was there with the fork trying to stop it from going into the stable was funny to say the least
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We put our pony into his stable once and he went nuts rearing and stamping - quite scary - on something in the straw - when he calmed down we moved the straw to find 2 big brown rats fatally squashed.

Then we got the rat man in with his terriers. They showed no mercy.
 
The one thing nobody has mentioned yet is that rats carry disease that can kill humans and other mammels. The urine of rats carries bacteria that if gets into your body through cuts can lead to jaundice and kidney failure, i went to school with a chap who nearly died after contracting Weils disease.
 
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