[Mrs Bee]

Can anyone help?
We keep our allotment produce in a utility/ garage and something has been eating through the paper sacks and eating our spuds and apples. It is not eating our squash or onions. We have mice and rat traps baited with peanut butter and chocolate and they are untouched. There are no mice or rat droppings either. We keep our washing bin in the same place and several tea towels, aprons and the fabric of the washing container have been chewed as well. Actually whatever is there chewed through the bag to get at the apples that we popped in with the spuds as I read somewhere that this stopped the spuds sprouting.

We are mystified as to what is stealing our food. I tried an experiment to see if it might be a mouse or a rat and brought all the veg into the house for the night and just left an apple on the worksurface.
 In the morning it had disappeared with no signs of chewing left behind and no droppings. I wouldn't think a mouse or rat  could have eaten a whole apple  in one night and not left any signs or droppings.

We did spot some mice and rats earlier in the year but we caught them in traps and left baited traps at various places especially by the chicken house. 


Does anyone have any ideas? In the mean time we are investigating setting up a webcam to investigate.  We now have our spuds stored in a metal dusbin that we have drilled lots of small holes in and this seems to keeping them safe.

[Ice]

I'll move this to "grow your own"  where it will get more answers.  Please introduce yourself and let us know a little more about you.

[gobs]

 

A good who donnit! it can be some escapee pet, too.

[Yorkie]

I would usually have said mouse or rat - some rats are pretty big 

Failing that, a squirrel can easily move a whole apple but I've not previously heard of them eating fabric and bags to get at food.

PS Welcome to the site

[Mrs Bee]

If it were a mouse or a rat surely there would be droppings And there are none! And we are very successful in catching the little blighters. That why it is so perturbing!

[Yorkie]

On what basis are you presuming there will always be droppings?

[Mrs Bee]

Hi Yorkie. We live by the Epping forest and have had several mouse visitors in our loft and in the house generally. WHen we first moved into our bungalow we had one in the porridge box. I caught it in my hand but it was too wiggly and escaped. There were always droppings. SO I am always on the look out for signs of mice. There are always little piles of dropping by the chewed food, One of the little beggars shredded my living room curtain lining before we saw it scuttle across the floor.

We also had a nasty turn when we saw a rat in the house but we sorted that little blighter and his family out. We had a large hole in the utility behind the fridge. So we have been all round the property and filled up all the holes large and small except for the airbricks.

Also if it were a mouse or a rat I think we would have caught the brute by now as the traps we use have worked very well.
At one point this Autumn we had had 3 dead rats, 4dead mice and one dead hen, dead from old age, ( rest in peace Henny), wrapped in the dustbin. Don't know what the dustmen would have thought if they had checked what rubbish we were putting in the bin!

[TheSpartacat]

I wouldn't think a mouse or rat  could have eaten a whole apple  in one night and not left any signs or droppings.

POssibly not, but a few rats could have finished it off... or a strong rat could have carried it off to its lair... They're quite clever things
5z3ukAu4vIgAlthough i agree, a squirrel is more likely to carry something off and avoid the traps...

[PurplePixie]

One large rat will easily carry an apple off to eat somewhere else, I own quite a few as pets and they are very intelligent, strong and have incredible balance.

Don't worry I'm not going to get all funny about you putting traps and poison down! Pet rats and wild rats are totally different things and you should do what you can to stop them getting into your property and food storage areas.

If you think it could be a squirrel it might be worth putting down a larger live capture trap with various treats in, you've gone for the right type of things for rats with chocolate and peanut butter, I'd suggest Farleys rusks as well 'coz they love them!

Good Luck and and I hope you catch your little visitor 

[sunshineband]

It actually sounds like rats to me.

Quite  abig family too

Last winter we never saw a dropping, just the rats in the garage, where they ate through paper sacks of potatoes, gnawed at them etc for while before we realised what it  was.

We saw them from time to time (never a dropping) and eventually , by use of pasta bait from B&Q ( 2 and a half containers later, sometime stopping up the trays twice daily.... the onslaught stopped.

We never found a dead rat, and so far this year we are OK.

But pasta bait is always at the ready

Give it a go, it might save your food

[Mrs Bee]

Thank you Sunshine band. I will definately try that. I won't be beaten!!!
I will be off to B and Q in the morning. Though I am still perturbed that some of the produce is untouched while the spuds and apples are targetted. My pumpkins, winter squash and onions have not been touched.

If there were rats wouldn't we notice greasy marks on the walls where they touch them?
Also we haven't seen any as we did earlier in the year.

I love this growing your own; there is always a new challenge.
PS. Does anyone have any rodent proof methods of storing apples and spuds?

[Yorkie]

Metal containers are the only likely barriers - but your produce won't breathe in there, which isn't good news.

[allot2learn]

We have a couple of these around the house/garden. They do come in handy.

[PurplePixie]

If there were rats wouldn't we notice greasy marks on the walls where they touch them?

They're very clean animals and constantly washing themselves after eating and especially after picking up a 'human' smell. If they really like you they will groom you so that you smell like they do ... which is nice and clean   ... well, my litter trained ones smell nice anyway!

[shokkyy]

When I used to have mice in my kitchen, the very first thing they always made a beeline for was spuds. They luv spuds

But - a mouse will have a good chew at your spuds, but there's no way they could ever carry them away. And they really don't do team efforts. Squirrels could do that and so could rats, but not mice.

We have had rat problems in the past, but they're really very easy to keep out. They need a much bigger hole to get in than a mouse does. If you can't keep the spuds somewhere without easy access (i.e. in the house), then keeping them in a bin of some kind should do the job absolutely fine. And when their food source dries up, they'll move somewhere else. Rats really are only a problem if you leave them out a good supply of food.