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Rats (a question) and a bonus Charlie


pavman
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Farmer has a Rat problem under his chicken house, asked me to shoot them said there are 100’s one came out quickly dispatched with the NV on the HMR from just 25 yards...... it then went quite so after 30 mins of nothing I broke out the .243 and moved up a straw stack to scan for Charlie.

 

3rd look round there he is sneaking along a ditch towards the hen house to far for a shot, so i call farmer and ask him to close the hen house door and make some noise as it may push him in my direction. To my surprise it worked like a dream and Charlie makes his way towards me and at a fence line about 130 yards out I give him a click and he sits up offering me a nice clean front end engine room dispatch... job done, a big dog about 2 years old.

 

I went back to the Hen house and still no Rats running about so i packed up.

 

Spoke to farmer about poison as i really dont think shooting will be time effective, he said Mrs farmer feeds the hens sweet corn which makes Rats immune to poison...

 

So my question is whats that all about and how can help with farmers rat problem without the need to sit about for hours waiting for them

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Is the chicken shed movable.Either way get the terrier boys in, they will sort your rats out

no sadly not its a 6X8 shed... rats have made a hole from under the shed and get in and out farmer not even tried to fix it as he says they will just make another...

 

Traps sounds a good bet but expect farmer to bulk at having to pay out.... I don't mind sitting out if they show... is there a super rat bait that will get them to feed in an area so I can knock them over

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haha I am sweetcorn doesn't make rats immune, it just means they prefer that food source to the poisoned food offered.

Live traps in larger outdoor bait stations will rid a few, as well as live traps obviously, but Fenboy also has a good point, a smoker and terriers would make a good bit of sport.

 

Airgun as well, HMR a little noisy and overkill on rat surely.

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it's not sweetcorn that makes them immune, but any animal feed that has high doses of vitamin K

 

rats are constant water drinkers, so if you can remove all other sources and place a shallow tray of water out, that's one way

or the tin with holes idea, just tie it to something

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it's not sweetcorn that makes them immune, but any animal feed that has high doses of vitamin K

 

rats are constant water drinkers, so if you can remove all other sources and place a shallow tray of water out, that's one way

or the tin with holes idea, just tie it to something

Face palm moment, of course, Vitimin K would obviously reverse the effects of an anti-coagulant. However it is also a problem when there is so much other food source as it stops them sometimes reaching their LD50 from the bait as they'll eat a bit of this, a bit of that and a bit of bait etc and it's not a strong enough dose. This over a period of time starts to allow the rats to build a natural immunity to the AI in the baits given.

 

This was found at a well known grain terminal in a UK port that I was one of the team looking after with one of the only actual black rat infestations in the UK. We ended up using liquid bait mixed with bananas in bowls for a period of time as they wouldn't touch the dry bait with all that grain knocking about. Was one hell of a horrific place there, black rats are better climbers than their rattus novegicus cousins, and they'd allways be on the gantry's above your head and runing up the trunking on the walls and ceilings - not a place for a newbie pest controller for sure.

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