rats!

[munruben]

Get rid of them as quickly as you can. I had some get under the bonnet of a car I had once and the darn things ate through all the power cables and was a massive and costly job to get it put right. They are just pests

[BamBam53]

Kill the buggers.

I have the house alarm connected to the shed and set it at night. It's not nice being woken at 2:00 in the morning by a 120 db siren because a rat is running around in the rafters of the shed.

I use rat bait to keep them under control

[cookie48]

Last year was the first time is 6 years I did not have mice in my shed. Found some very strange droppings in my shed. Asked a bloke that is knows droppings and he identified it as snake droppings. Now I know why no mice. Just wondering which is better. Snake or mice. As the snake is prob a brown snake good qhestion.

[Matador]

Hi Snowyskiesau ,
Two things you could try on rats . The first one is Tomcat pellets or blocks it is very good .
What happens is when the rats or mice eat it , it makes them very thirsty and then when they drink water , they will kiss their #### good by . Its good because they don't die in behind walls . The second one mix flour , peanut paste and concrete powder together put that out in containers dry . When the rats eat it wont work until they drink water then it sets like concrete . If they can't eat , they can't poo and if they can't poo they die . It doesn't hurt the wild birds or any other animals that like to eat the rats or mice .
I hope that works .
Cheers Graham .

[wun4us]

There aint no such thing as two rats!
Garbage bin filled with water to within 6" of top. Sprinkle either chaff, bran, rice hulls or shavings over water surface. A food can be floated in centre to speed up interest. Empty bin weekly. No more rats.

The quick and the dead....sudden death syndrome!!

Maybe a small wooden stick from the ground up to assist them?

[johnc]

Rat problems seem a constant around here, I've always relied on the common baits which seem effective. The worst we had was a run that took two and half large packets before the little devils stoped wating, must have been a whopper of a nest.

[snowyskiesau]

Installed some wax based baits today.

[Toymaker Len]

DON'T USE BAITS
The trouble with the baits is that the weakened and dying rats wander around and are knocked off by owls, kookaburras, pets etc. which often kills them. So the advice from the vets and the wildlife people is DON'T USE BAITS.
I tried the drum method a few years ago when we had a rat plague and it worked incredibly well. You just get half a forty-four with about six inches of water in the bottom, put a ramp up the outside to a little plank (25mm x 5mm) across the middle. The plank is hinged on one side and counter-balanced so that it just swings up to a magnet holding it up on the other side with the bait. The rats run up the ramp, smell the bait at the other end of the plank and run across toward it. Halfway across the extra weight makes the magnet let go and down goes ratty into the drink. They can't get out and after about fifteen minutes they drown and sink. After the rat drops the plank swings back up and the magnet catches again and the trap is reset.
At first I didn't think it was working then on the second night I shone the torch into the water and there were three or four big rats dead on the bottom. The first ones were big females and I caught about ten or twelve of them, then I started to catch juveniles and smaller rats, more than twenty of them then last of all I caught a huge male rat which was about as big as a small domestic cat and he had balls about as big as the ball of my thumb. I figured that he had finally come to see where all his harem had disappeared to. After that no more rats.

[wheelinround]

Geoff you sure they are not Tassie Devils they do roam wild down there.