Mass suicide at my yard today: Rat stylie!

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HappyHorses:)

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Emptied the water tug from one of the stables this evening and out plopped four, yes four dead baby rats :( Weren't there this morning. I have found the odd one before but four! Funny thing is I have seen no sign of rats around the yard so far this year.

I know I shouldn't like them but I kinda do and what a horrid way to die.
 
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I love (pet) rats :( used to foster them (they were fancy rats not wild rats!)
we found a dead mouse in the bottom of our box :( not a nice way to go and not a nice thing to see, poor blighters.
then again I do wish they wouldn't chew my things!
K x
 
Horses will kill them, I heard of a horse drowning them and witnessed a mare who used to lay in wait for them outside their hole and stomp on them as they came out.

I have a mouse nest in my muckers, needless to say am off to purchase some new one. Not sure what to do with the babies though!
 
I once found an enormous dead rat in my water bucket, at the bottom! I screamed, and ran out of the stable, leaving the door open so my pony escaped :D
 
FDC - pick your muckers up and put them somewhere quiet :) whatever you do don't put your hand anywhere near them - mum will bite your fingers to the bone!!
We have a mouse nest in our bankings, we just left them there and after a while they'd all gone :)
 
Someone up the yard found one dead rat in their water yesterday, don't know how she'd cope with four!

That's why L uses automic drinkers and not buckets ;)

ETA: as for stomping on them my old pony and other horses at the old yard would often kill them, it wasn't very nice mucking out the find a squished rat in the beds!
 
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Eww! Had this happen to me four times over the winter, first time there were two, second and third time there was one and fourth time there were two again :eek: Thankfully Red has moved stables now :) Think they were babies though :(
One mare at the yard squished a rat, she's one big girl ;)
 
My friend's (evil and borderline psychopathic) gypsy mare has been known to squash mice, and a baby swallow who fell out of his nest.
 
My mare used to kill rats, found seveal in her bed over the years with broken backs. never had a dead one in the water though, only mice.
Not pleasant.
 
I can beat that! End of winter I went to dip into my sugarbeet and floating on the top were 6 dead rats, all fully grown!
I couldnt believe it, I mean i've had the odd one or two in the water buckets, but there were 6!! Needlesss to say my sugarbeet now has a lid on :D
 
Thankfully, I have never found a dead rat in either bedding or water or feed bins, I think I would be a bit girly about it. I don't mind rats and mice as pets but when I see one skulking about at the stable I involuntarily say "eek" and it really pees me off!
 
I *think* poisoned rats will go to water and then drink themselves to death.
I hate finding them in the buckets but even worse when they're squashed in the stable. *touch wood* We haven't had any this year yet.
 
ewww, I love hearing all this gruesome tales! Rats are yucky! I found one once that had tried to get into the dog's kennel, through the metal grills. It was at waist height and had got it's front end through but not its bum, and had obviously got wedged in there somehow and died. What a slow and horrid death! Removing it was not pleasant either - it was all stiff and crispy........<<<< (dry heaves) :D
 
Rats that have been poisoned by an anti-coagulant based poison would develop a raging thirst, and often drown themselves in water buckets etc trying to quench their thirst.
When we had real infestation in the chop house and laid poison, we would often find between 3 and 6 in the bottom of water buckets put out specifically for the purpose of drowning the blighters!! Not nice when you find them in the neds feed or water tho is it?! x
 
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