Rats!

[alanc]

There seems to be a rat problem further up our street. Tilly and Toto (from next door) have been doing their best at biological control (My neighbor Jo and myself have been getting a lot of dead rat presents). However, Pest control people have recently been called in. Does anyone have any experience of how these people work and what they use? Apart from being ethically against the use of poison, Jo and myself are very worried about what effect rat poison might have on our cats. Does anyone know of any other method we might suggest?

[Lilith]

Hi Alan, I'd be worried too. But about 10 years ago when I had an allotment, the council sent round a regular 'rodent operative', if that's what they call them, and we had an allotment cat (a stray who'd been adopted by one of the pigeon men) who was a keen hunter, and many of us had chickens too (chickens eat rodents, dead or alive.) There were no ill-effects. Although I wouldn't like to think of any of my cats hunting poisoned rats, there's always been a high rat population locally (retail park/loads of fast food joints) and when my cats were feral they may well have hunted rats for food as well as sport.

The rat man used poisoned grain that he put, well-hidden from animals and birds, under sheds etc on the allotment site. I've seen metal containers of bait, marked with a warning, in the retail park; I'm assuming this is similar stuff.

The only fatality I saw was a rat; I was digging when the poor creature hobbled up beside me, more dead than alive. Luckily I was able to deal with it swiftly; a spade makes a very good guillotine; poor ratty knew no more.

I wish there was a more humane method of exterminating rats; snakes and terriers and even cats deal a faster death than poison. On farms they'll flush them out and let the dogs get them but I don't suppose that's very easy in a built-up area. Pity there's no such thing as a British Boa - a pack of those would soon polish off a rat infestation lol.

Joking apart - good luck and hope someone else knows a bit more and has more suggestions to make.

[alanc]

Thanks, Lilith. That's reassuring.

[bobbys girl]

That's worrying! In my experience those folks are not at all interested in 'alternatives'. They just want the job done and don't care about collateral damage.

If they use warfarin or other anticoagulants there is a risk to cats, dogs or any scavaging wildlife. They will tell you otherwise, but I would be very cautious about letting the cats out for a while, especially if they are 'hunters' (two of mine are, one is a Chancer the other couldn't care less)

[alanc]

Fortunately, neither Tilly nor Toto eat the rats they catch - just leave the corpses for us to admire! So far as I know, the Pest Control people have not done anything yet and a street meeting is planned early next week to discuss what to do about the problem. I want to be as well informed as possible beforehand as I would be absolutely devastated if anything happened to Tilly. This whole problem may be a consequence of Badger's death last year - a loss of one third of the rat extermination squad has made a serious dent in their effectiveness. He and Tilly used to work in tandem and were very effective as a team.

[bobbys girl]

Many years back, when I lived in England, our local hospital had a healthy collection of feral cats. I know they were healthy as a a nurse friend of my mum kept an eye on them. All was well until 'management' decided the cats were a threat to people's health and rounded them up (God knows what happened to them )

Within weeks the hospital grounds were overrun with rats. Flippin' serves 'em right!

My friend with 'the Car Park Cats has never seen a rat in her garden, even though it is surrounded by a farmyard, the back of a hotel and it's car park and a river bank.

[Ruth B]

I can't say anything about rats but one place I worked had pest control in for mice and they used little boxes filled with poison that were placed around the factory units. It was about 15 years ago, but somehow i doubt things have changed much.

I have lived at the same address for over 20 years, and had cats for more than 19 of those years. Until this summer the number of mice that i had had was 2 (frogs and birds being far more common), over the last 3 or 4 months Saturn has been bringing in a mouse at a rate of about 1 per week, mostly dead, a couple alive, it makes me wonder if one of the houses on the estate has been left unoccupied or as you say it maybe just that there has been a major change in the cat population over the last year or two.

Just to give you all a laugh, my valiant husband has got quiet good at catching mice himself. Saturn normally brings them in just after we have gone to bed. I am partially sighted with my contacts in, so at night I am pretty much blind. We can normally tell when Saturn is playing with a real mouse rather than a toy as it sounds different. A couple of weeks ago we were woken by a mouse's sqeakings so my OH went down stairs, saw the mouse and tried to pick it up with his hand, and got bitten for his trouble, in the mean time I had gone to get the bathroom towel thinking that that would be something to try and throw over the mouse which fortunately worked.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the cats were paying far more attention to all the boxes stacked under my OH modeling desk than normal and I started to get suspicious. Now because of the way things are packed and the number of kit boxes involved I decided the best hope would be to leave the cats to it and hope one of them got it, I also had to go into town that morning. when i got back there was no sign of a mouse and the cats seemed to be behaving normally so I was thinking that they had just been playing me up. The cats are allowed in the bedroom in the daytime, but not at night (I decided that a double bed is not big enough for 2 humans and 2 cats early on and have managed to keep to it). We went to bed as normal and about an hour later I was woken up by my husband yelling that he has the mouse. He had felt it run across his hand while half asleep and instead of snatching his hand away which would have been my reaction, he closed it on the mouse, fortunately this one didn't bite him. Said mouse then got dropped out of the window onto the porch roof and we spent the next couple of hours lying away wondering if we could hear mousy scratchings in the room.

[alanc]

Thanks for the replies, folks. Much appreciated. Ruth, I can sympathize with your husband! My mouse catching ability has also improved greatly in the last 6 years, benefiting from intense tuition by Badger and Tilly!
On the rat front, there have been some recommendations by the Pest Control people. They are advising that the rats should be persuaded to leave by removing their sources of food, by stopping bird feeding for a week, removing all compost heaps for at least a week and removing all fallen fruit. Only if this fails should poison be considered. Best news I have heard all week! I shall definitely be voting for this approach (as I suspect will the other cat owners).

[bobbys girl]

Compost heaps should only be a problem if people are putting meat or cooked food on them - you'd be surprised what folks will put on a heap. It just smells and attracts rats.

Before Purdy joined us we would see rats climbing up the bird table to pinch food. Haven't seen a rat in YEARS!

[Lilith]

Yes, a good gardener won't give rodents much opportunity for feeding in the compost heap; there'll be richer pickings elsewhere, but rats and mice will nest in compost heaps, unfortunately. While a bad compost heap is neither use nor ornament, a good compost heap is warm - des res with central heating for an ambitious rat. Even with those tall plastic bins that you can wedge in the earth, rodents can dig their way underneath if they want. It's a bit drastic though, ordering people to 'remove' the compost because there are so many rat hiding places, like under sheds, tree roots, anywhere where debris collects and is neglected ... I've found a large plant container in my yard excavated by rats; in snowy weather there are often ratty footprints. And (to my shame) the old outside loo at the bottom of my yard has a little round hole gnawed in the door ... with the main drag at the top of the road, famous for its pubs, clubs and takeaways, this isn't really surprising.

I suppose that at this time of the year the compost heap could be spread on the garden, just to make sure nothing was lurking in it, and any unrotted stuff re-composted in spring, but rats are so damn resourceful. If there are any in the heaps, they'll find somewhere else. But if everyone becomes rat-conscious and makes life uncomfortable for them it's an alternative to poison.

I do hope that the problem can be resolved without poison. I confess that I'd want to keep a roaming cat in, in those circumstances, just to be on the safe side, despite never having known a cat fatality round here although I too used to receive many ratty presents, but I can imagine a stir-crazy cat deprived of its routine and sport and trying to demolish the catflap could be quite horrendous to live with!

Good luck!

[alanc]

Afraid I have no idea how the compost heaps up the road are built or maintained. I think the general idea is to remove all rat food sources so the rats go elsewhere, rather than trying to find rat nests. As I have no bird table (would be tempting fate with a hunting cat like Tilly), compost heap or fruit trees I know I'm going to be asking for others to be doing things when I won't have to do anything myself. However, its their gardens that are attracting the rats, not mine! And its my neighbor Jo and myself who are the ones who get the dead rats on our doormats! Even if the proposed measures do not remove all the rats, it will hopefully bring the numbers down so Tilly and Toto can cope. If things do move to rat poison, I can see Tilly being booked into the cattery for a week as keeping her in could get traumatic.

[alanc]

Well, we had the big Rat discussion this evening. Been agreed to try the removal of food sources route plus buying a few rat traps (apparently you have to release them over 2 miles away to make sure they don't come back). I think most of us are not keen on poison, except as a last resort.

[Judy Barnett]

I recently found the first rat I've ever seen in our garden in 14 years. It was frozen with fear after having had a dusting by one of our cats. I'm afraid you'll all think I'm mad, but I picked it up (with gloves on of course), put it in a box with torn paper and shut it in the greenhouse to recover. A couple of hours later I heard it scuttling about the box and carried it to the wood behind us where I released it, much to the disgust of my two cats

[danwiz]

I wouldnt fancy my cat's chances against a rat, she's only small! Caught her fair share of mice in the past but I've heard rats can be very aggressive!

[bobbys girl]

Hi danwiz and welcome to CC.

That would all depend on your cat! My Purdy is a real skinny minnie, but has the heart of a lion. Rats are nothing to her. I've seen her go after hooded crows - and they are enormous!

[alanc]

Hi Judy and welcome back. If I were to take a live rat I had removed from Tilly and dump it as close as that, it would just result in the rat's rapid reappearance in Tilly's jaws and her saying "Now, daddy, pay attention this time and I will show you again how to kill it"!
Hi Danwiz and welcome to Catchat. Being a Maine Coon, Tilly has certain advantages in the rat catching business; many generations of breeding to excel in keeping rodents under control in New England which a few generations of being a domestic pussy cat have not blunted! Still, as Bobbys girl says, size isn't everything. Next door's Toto is a smallish cat (well, he would be, if he wasn't rather fat ) and he is as deadly as Tilly. (He also has a habit of dumping his prey under his mummy's bed, Tilly at least uses the doormat.)

[John123john]

Maybe try to use any ultrasonic pest repeller as a method ? Do you try this? As an alternative, you can use electric trap, i think cat don't touch this one. The mouse or rat just go inside and die.