Rat seen in the garden!

Should add that nowadays they don't worry if they see a rat.
It's part of country life. Only worry if they are in your house.

its suits us to hate rats. they are actually lovely creatures but then I worked at the Medical Research Council as an animal technician. Clean, bright friendly and the best parents of all the laboratory animals. Its the only one that no licence has to be got to kill millions in research...because nobody cares. They live in our sewers and waste because we can't tolerate the fact that they exist, without our permission. They are not aggressive, only when cornered and about to be destroyed by a dog...They are opportunists like us and because we can't exploit them in the wild we use about 46 million a year in experiments. We should all show some respect and turn a blind eye when they are taking a short cut through our property. Don't encourage them but please dont kill them with dreadfully painful slow poison. We owe them so much. But then if we liked them...we wouldn't be able to exploit them and kill them without a sense of the cruelty we are inflicting on them. After all they are used in experiments so much because they are deemed to be so like us...think on.

I currently live near a large park with wildlife ponds close to town centre and have noticed that the number of rats I see in the daytime has dramatically increased during Covid. I read that this is because of restaurant closures etc which has diminished their food supplies, making them look further afield. My daughter had one get into her house through a badly sealed waste pipe hole and had to call pest control.

I am moving to a country cottage needing renovation shortly, and shall definitely be blocking up any holes as one of the first priority jobs.

When we moved into our new house (forty years ago) we dug a lovely pond next to the rockery on the edge of the patio. Then we kept seeing rats on the patio. The Pest Control Officer the Council sent (they had that service then) said we'd built a des. res. for rats, they swim in still water and build their nests next door in the earth of the rockery. (And he told me the worst thing you can do is buy a DIY poison - only licensed professionals use the real stuff, find the nest and introduce the poison into it. Anything you can buy legally to put out will only half-kill the poor beggars.)

Lovely as rats may be (and I do know people who keep them as pets) wild rats are responsible for spreading diseases. They are a hazard in the garden and the home, not because they bite but because their urine and faeces can spread disease.
bpca.org.uk/a-z-of-pest-advice/brown-rat-control-how-to-get-rid-of-brown-rats-bpca-a-z-of-pests/189176

Knit it a jumper, and leave the poison alone!
You may damage other wild life when the poisoned rats crawl off to die.
Leave it alone, and it will leave you alone....

We had rats coming into the house under the floorboards, even though we had blocked up all possible entrances. They twice chewed through electrical wiring, which was the last straw as it can cause house fires. We tried a humane trap but only caught one, which we took on a long car ride into the country. There is never only one rat so poison was the only solution. Didn’t like using it but didn’t want the house burnt down.

We have about a dozen bird feeders in our large garden and most of the dropped seed is cleared by pigeons and crows, but I've occasionally seen rats in the garden (and mice in the greenhouse and sheds), only to be expected in a rural village area. We also have night vision cameras in the garden which show that badgers, foxes, owls, bats and buzzards visit our garden. So I would never put poison down, especially as we have a very curious dog. I'm more of a live and let live sort of person. Rats are everywhere whether you live in the country or a city, we just have to find a way to co-exist with them.

Thank you for all of your replies. So far I haven’t seen it again so it could have been passing through. We are going to tidy the garden up though and it has kick started that. I will continue to watch the birds being fed in the neighbours gardens and nothing will be said.

Where I live we are obliged by law to report any sighting of rats to the local rat-catcher, but I gather that doesn't apply in the UK.

Could you borrow a terrier for a day? Or a cat that catches rats?

Nothing else reallly scares rats away if your neighbours are careless with bird food.

Oh please - don't bring rats out to the country! We have our own.
What would you think if I brought one into your street and released it?

Last month I saw a rat in the garden and my Jack Russell was constantly barking and sniffing under our shed. I called the council and they came the next day and put poison under the shed. I discussed my worry of killing the hedgehog that sometimes visits, but was assured that they would not eat the poison. The charge was £70, which covered three visits a week apart. Four days later our dog lost interest and when the man came back for the 2nd visit he said the poison had gone and knowing what Jack Russells are like he assured me the rat was gone as well. Neighbours both sides had been putting food on their lawns for the birds, and had both seen the rat, and I'm sure they were delighted that I paid the bill!

I wouldn't use an exterminator or put any kind of poison down.
I think however careful you are poison will always be bad news for the wildlife, I say live and let live.
Get a cat?

Barbecues that aren't cleaned properly also attract rats. It took a while for DH to believe we had a rat coming through the garden wall from next door's bbq store, said I was imagining it. However, when he saw the monster he got a rat box which you place in the line of travel (they walk close to walls) put in poison and you never see them again. Hurrah. Next door's cleaned up their act and got a rat box too.

Diggingdoris you reminded me of visits to my cousins when I was little. They lived in the country and had a lovely Jack Russell which I adored, it was so friendly. My cousins told me stories of taking her ratting, she was apparently fearless and would go down any hole after a rat, only emerging when she had killed it. My cousins had no illusions about rats.

Sound like the rat is taking a short cut across your garden after having main course on one side of you and going for dessert on the other. Pest controllers are costly, even the council will charge you. Go to the hardware shop and get some poison, place it where you think the rat is entering and exiting and hope for the best. You could contact environmental health regarding the cooked food being out in the ground as this is clearly attracting the rats and is a very stupid thing to do anyway! Good luck

I also have a neighbour who insists on putting cat food out for a hedgehog..........he also has rats now.

I wonder how many rats make nests under the now fashionable decking. It might look attractive, but I would never have any because I would be afraid of encouraging them to nest there.

You think that's bad! The other night a bat flew into our bedroom! The window was only slightly open as it was a warm night. I have to say my DH did step up to the plate and get rid of it-no, not permanently but schooled it out of the window again. Anyone we told said that bats are a protected species and we would have been in trouble if we had done anything nasty to it. Well we didn't feel very protective towards it at three in the morning as it whizzed past our heads!

Shooed! Predictive text!

Most definitely nannypiano when the pest control came out he pointed to neighbours decking which is on two levels and said it is a haven for them

I love bats. We used to have a man who came round talking to groups of children about them. He had a couple that he had rescued but couldn't release because of injury. They were cute. Mind I don't think I'd want one flying about my bedroom at any hour!

Phone the council , or a post control firm. They will know the best way of dealing with it. But please, no poison. It would kill everything, including any wandering cats or foxes who may solve the rat problem for you!

Does your local council deal with rat infestations. Surely if you describe what your neighbour is doing re meat they will investigate and try to find where the rat came from. Failing that there are rat bait traps available to buy. Rat eats the bait goes off and dies. But rats are everywhere hard to find a place where they aren't known to exist.

We had rats and found they were in the house. The damage they caused was unbelievable, they had eaten through the wiring of the washer, the central heating, one had died and we found it in the condenser at the back of the fridge. You can imagine the smell. In the end we had to take the kitchen ceiling down because of all the wiring. We were told not to have any bird feeders at all. We called the rat man who put traps all round outside the house, we never got one. Since we stopped feeding the birds which is a shame luckily we have never had anymore trouble with rats.