Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: flowerpot51 on September 07, 2013, 10:07
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We have only had our allotment 2 months but the trouble we are having with rats I have been told to plant lemon grass and mint but I swear these rats are not stupid my son planted mint and lemon grass at his allotment and they just took a detour lol We have bait stations all over but they are learning to avoid these also. I am not frightened of them and I do realise they are only trying to survive but I just wish they would move house and learn to survive else where. Lol :ohmy:
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Rats are horrible creatures. At present there is plenty of natural food for them. As Winter approaches they will move from the fields into our buildings looking for food. Your bait will then become more attractive.
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Personally, I don't mind rats and am not frightened of them, but they can carry pathogens that cause various diseases that affect humans, some of which are capable of doing that if a cat, say, eat a diseased one. As Salmo says, nobble them in winter with bait.
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Horrible little ******* have you many chickens near you as these attract them big style.
Ive got chickens myself but have to keep bait stations down all winter as they seem to appear round about now.I just keep topping them up until they stop eating it.
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They tend to appear after heavy rainfall as they get flooded out underground. A good terrier will soon sort them.
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Thank you for your replies. We have 2 chicks named Chester and Daisy and 2 ducks named Ezmay and Polly so maybe thats why the rats keep visting.
The weather on friday was heavy rain but so far we have no more holes but like you have said winter is approaching so I reckon we will end up with sitting tenants lol hope not though.
Thank you for all the advice you have all given me. I bought some jeyes lemon powder what use to freshen the wheelie bins with I think I will sprinkle it about see if that detures them but some how I feel I will be barking up the wrong tree. :mad:
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.410
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We found a dead rat in the chicken run yesterday.
No idea what killed it - possibly drowned if the heavy rain thing said above had anything to do with it.
We disposed of the said creature.
Annoyingly, there was a lot of corn on the floor of their run when everyone up there knows to keep it to the hanging feeders. >:(
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We have rats at our site, and the bait put down by the council from time to time keeps the population down quite well.
Who owns your site flowerpots? Perhaps you could contact them and ask for some assistance.
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what size was it DBG ? my buff orps used to kill half grown ones.
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what size was it DBG ? my buff orps used to kill half grown ones.
I've seen bigger but it was fairly hefty.
Our girls are fairly savage - wouldnt surprise me if they'd attacked it! :D
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.410
.22 works for me. Or you can make a trap from a bucket, peanut butter and a coke bottle
(http://www.ohdios.com/img/t/l-219984.gif)
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a trap from a bucket, peanut butter and a coke bottle
brilliant
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Save some human urine and pour it down their holes, it worked for us.
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we are on a stream so rats are a fact of life. But with no chickens, or chicken manure/pellets or bone meal to attract and we seem not to have a problem - certainly in the scale of pests that I have death ray thoughts about :ohmy: they arent in the top five.
(At one time we had the compost bins dug out by something and rats were one of the possible creatures blamed for the mess, but it seemed more than a bit extreme. When we worked it out, we were using torn cardboard as the 'brown' layer in the compost bins and some of the boxes had held dried cat food. It was the pieces of those - and they weren't very big bits - that were being dug out and discarded in frustration by a fox! the smell and the reality just weren't matching up ::))
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When we worked it out, we were using torn cardboard as the 'brown' layer in the compost bins and some of the boxes had held dried cat food. It was the pieces of those - and they weren't very big bits - that were being dug out and discarded in frustration by a fox! the smell and the reality just weren't matching up ::))
Foxes are the same with dried chicken poo here - it then becomes as question of their IQ and how long it takes them to learn that it tastes very much like cr@p and leave it alone (although when it comes to BFB I find their IQ never rises to the challenge. :()