Rats! How to get rid of them humanly.

[Goldenstar]

Rats are not nasty creatures they are clever and resourceful and great parents .

My experience is that if you get an infestation the only thing you can do is get an exterminator in to put down poison and remove the corpses .
Rats will if they can return to their sleeping den to die you rarely see corpses unless you have huge huge numbers .

I don’t get problems now three things are different .
One Bob who was my parents cat arrived ,having been an house cat he took to stable life with gusto.
Two I bought metal feed bins .
Three i went to almost completely forage based feeding no nice goodies in the muckheap anymore .
All these things happened at about the same time so I am not sure which of them helped the most .

 

[millikins]

I have never had a problem with rats, sometimes in the autumn there are signs they are about but they don't stay. I do have trouble with squirrels though and I wonder if, like fransurrey's rabbits, they out compete the rats. There is also a variable population of rabbits.
Regarding cats, I think their ratting abilities vary by each individual, I remember reading somewhere that historically known rat catching cats were worth good money.
And Birker, I agree, I think glue traps are utterly barbaric.

 

[scats]

I love rats and grew quite fond of the farm ones. It used to be break my heart when the YO put poison out. One rat used to come out every night when I had a coffee and he’d run along the wall. Fabulous little creatures they are. Lily dispatches them fast, and I barely see any around now to get attached to them.

 

[Thundering]

I love rats and grew quite fond of the farm ones. It used to be break my heart when the YO put poison out. One rat used to come out every night when I had a coffee and he’d run along the wall. Fabulous little creatures they are. Lily dispatches them fast, and I barely see any around now to get attached to them.

Thats my issue really. Hate killing them but know they carry disease.

 

[Sossigpoker]

I don't think you can ever get rid of rats in any sort of agricultural or Equestrian setting. There's always food and nesting material for them.
You could try humane traps ,.I successfully ejected some mice from inside my walls that way , but you might be surprised by how many there are then.

And would you then kill them after capture? I relocated my mice a mile up the road.

 

[Sanversera]

terrier

 

[Thundering]

terrier

yes im thinking that will be best

 

[GG13]

terrier

my dachshund is a super ratter too

 

[EventingMum]

We see very little evidence of them around the stables but have two cats that I assume deter them. However, a couple of weeks ago we were walking our dogs in the fields about 100 yards from the stables when one of the dogs dived into the long grass and caught and dispatched a rat. I was surprised that it was outside in a very wet, almost flooded area when it was pouring with rain when there were dry stables so close by. So far there is no evidence of others so hopefully, the cats are doing their job.

 

[HannahB]

They are not in house, they are in stables. I have only seen them on my camera. I have seen 2. I sweep up daily and food is in a feed bin. We have dogs around so I really do not want to put anything nasty down. I hate killing anything so would just like to get them to leave!

We had a similar problem but from the other end, one of our neighbours was using poison which had killed a rat. Our spaniel was sadly not very disciplined about distinguishing between being able to eat animals she had killed or found. So she came back with a rat one day and two days later she started having seizures then shortly passed away. That was a massive shock as she was only 5 so we've never used poisons since then. I keep good hygiene around the stable, and our current dog is passable at deterring them, but we don't let her eat anything we haven't given her

 

[mariew]

I was an a yard with lots of rats and pigeons. I'd take rats over pigeons any day. However it did mean investing in feed containers with metal lids you can close properly with some kind of lock/elastic band. I also used to keep my rugs in them so they wouldn't get chewed.

 

[suestowford]

Like Goldenstar I don't feed much other than forage now, so there have been fewer rats coming in to the pony shelter. Also the ponies do tend to hoover stuff up quite efficiently so there isn't much left for scavengers anyway. I do have some metal bins though, just for somewhere to keep stuff should we get a lot of rats moving in.
There used to be a chicken farm down the road, and whenever they moved the chicken houses all the rats living underneath would scatter and we'd all be suddenly dealing with loads of rats everywhere. They will eat the rubber handles on tools if there isn't anything else!
We use snap traps for indoor situations but due to little birds we won't put those outside any more. We also have an electric trap but the adult rats are too savvy to go in there. Also have a 'live' trap like a cage but we don't use that any more since the ratting dog next door died as I have no quick way of despatching the rat.
If you have a lot of rats, yes, professional help is a good thing. Neighbours of mine have used a pest control man. He puts poison down but apparently this is a new one which doesn't have the knock on effects of something should eat the dead rat. As these neighbours also have a few dogs and none of them have become ill, I am inclined to believe this.

 

[Magia]

Our riding centre is full of mice. They chew their way through everything, including plastic food bins. You find their droppings everywhere ? 
But, since there are useless dogs and an equally useless cat around, poisoning is not allowed.

My only desperate remedies are cleaning regularly and thoroughly our wooden tack locker with alcohol and ammonia (not at the same time! The combination can produce harmful vapours) and keeping everything in robust plastic or metal containers. The smell of alcohol and ammonia keeps the rats off at least for a while.

 

[soloequestrian]

England have banned the sale and use of glue traps by the general public - see 'Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022'. I hope they eventually remove the ability to licence their use too, and that Scotland will follow quickly.
I got a feral cat from Cats Protection and he has helped my rat problem.

 

[Sandstone1]

England have banned the sale and use of glue traps by the general public - see 'Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022'. I hope they eventually remove the ability to licence their use too, and that Scotland will follow quickly.
I got a feral cat from Cats Protection and he has helped my rat problem.

I have seen glue traps for sale in local hardware shop. I would never use them as think they are horrible but I saw some as recently as yesterday.

 

[teapot]

No amount of humane effort will work if you don't address the cause of problem, sadly.

 

[MagicMelon]

You can get humane rat traps, they do work. I trapped loads one night when we once had an infestation, I then drive far away to a forest and let them go. Thats as humane as it can get I think, I cant think of any other ways. Those sonic things I very much doubt work and if they did then surely everyone would have one! I often have mice (only once rats which came from next doors smallholding but I think they poison them now...), but I realised I hadnt had any mice this winter and then noticed an old back of sugar beet at the back of my tackroom Id forgotten about... I think they must have eaten some and I imagine gone away and died (although not found any bodies but I know it kills them).

People can be so cruel to them, at a toddler group the other day a fellow school mum is a farmer and was merrily recommending to another mum that to sort out her rat problem what they do is trap one alive then chuck it in a big bucket of water so it screams as it drowns which apparently scares the rest away, sounds horrific.

Ive had pet rats in the past, and they were the sweetest things. Sure wild ones are different, and theyve gone for me through the bars in their humane trap but still - they're living animals!

 

[millikins]

I have seen glue traps for sale in local hardware shop. I would never use them as think they are horrible but I saw some as recently as yesterday.

I don't think they are banned though Wales at least is proposing this. The RSPCA are keen to know who is selling them and will write to individual stores to discourage sales. I gave them details of a feed store local to me last year, I admit I hadn't remembered to check if anything had been done.

 

[Rokele55]

I had a mouse infestation at home once. One morning several of the little blighte rs had got into an empty bin and couldn't get out. Instead of my usual trick of letting the terrier have them I decided to be merciful and took them out across a few fields and let them go. Of course, they were home before me and the terrier picked them off as they came through the door

To be fair, I don't think relocation is any kinder than killing them.

In the end it had to be poison. the dog had no interest in dead mice but there was a bit of a pong at times when they died inside the walls.

 

[Getbackboys]

i feed the resident field cats so they keep rats away, just a wet cat food pouch a day keeps kitty happy and rats at bay.

 

[D66]

We put a Blink camera at ground level by our front door so that OH could see when the cat needed to be let in. It also picked up a rat trotting past in the evening presumably to clear up round the chicken run.
We put traps out and caught two, haven’t seen any more on the camera - yet.

 

[Getbackboys]

it will be a blue block square from the pest company, takes rats at least a month before they trust it and est ut, rats are vert clever and know when something is diff or new. ultimately you have a few choices - poison its fairly quick, cats, terriers, pest control, humane trapping various ways, speedibeet feeding, cleaning up but if there is a food source they will be therr

 

[southerncomfort]

I don't know how you encourage stoats to move in, but the rats here have disappeared since the stoats arrived.

The rabbits are much reduced too.

 

[SDMabel]

Always found the most humane and quick method of dispatching is to get the terrier men in.

There are plenty of local clubs about now that are more than happy to come and work their dogs.

We've never found a method of keeping them away, when there's food about you will get rodents.

 

[nikkimariet]

Electric bait boxes. I get mine from screwfix. I also put down rat and mice traps with peanut butter. I take these away during the day as unfortunately little birds go for the goods when they’re about.

 

[Carlosmum]

Eliminate their food source and living area. Straw bales are a favourite, but rats will live anywhere warm and dry. Expert tunnellers too. Look for holes in the surrounding areas under walls, in hedgerows etc. We have a nightmare in our yard this winter as we overwintered a large stack of straw just outside the barn.