I don't know about the rats but I'm sure it's illegal to cut down native bush these days, you can't even cut down a single tree around here

What you need, wishful, is a nice snake population for some balance. A carpet if you don't like the thought of a brown, or a taipan. Seriously, all I can think of is.... sick mice like to die out of sight, and can you take the feed containers up overnight?
How is the ficus by the way?

nicefrog - illegal here too - they put in development applications and trees X, Y and Z are protected and required to remain on the property. Once they start clearing - 'oops' there goes another tree :(

Rose - I know they are meant to die out of sight - but I kept seeing these rats for over 2 weeks after neighbour first put out bait - in broad daylight! middle if the day! so assuming they were already eating the bait, and already sick......... eek!

I live on tenterhooks that the ficus is going to sprout green buds overnight..................

Hi wishfull. First off dont leave any food out for the rats or mice to get, all of ours chook food is in the chook houses in fruit tins in brackets nailed to the wall, so its dosn't get wet or visiting birds cannot get at it and it stays there and the chooks have to come into their house to eat it, you will be surprised at how less those chooks eat when only they can get to it.

If you dont want to use bait for the rats, well buy a couple of rat traps bigger version of mouse trap and get a needle and cotton put it through a pumpkin seed and tie it to the trap where the bait goes and brush linseed oil on it that will make it a bit slippery and the rat will have to grab on to it harder and bang off will go the trap.

Dont ask me why they like linseed oil but they do and believe me it works, so give it a go...Cheers...MM.

thanks misty - I can cope with mice in traps - (the whole lot goes in a bag in the bin) - call me a woos, but I honestly don't think I could get rid of a rat in a trap. which is why I have been baiting them.

*sheepish grinning smilie here*

A Jack Russell? Pet ferret? I like the carpet snake idea too, but don't get one till the chickens are full grown! Isn't there an enclosed rat trap? Then you wouldn't have to look at it while disposing of it.

A Jack Russell? Pet ferret? I like the carpet snake idea too, but don't get one till the chickens are full grown! Isn't there an enclosed rat trap? Then you wouldn't have to look at it while disposing of it.
Perhaps they're just bush rats that have been forced into closer quarters by the loss of the bush. Just a thought.

Hmmmm...how did that happen?

Do do doo doo

rats eating the puta cables?

if they are bush rats raymondo, it will get worse before it gets better - we border on a 3 acre site that has recently got council approval to be developed. In 3 stages no less. The way townhouse developments go round here, I'll be living next to a building site and rat breeding ground for the next 5 years.

i found for rats you need to be sure you are using a good bait not any of those from the supermarkets they eat them like dessert. i buy tomcat blocks from the produce agency.

you have to get in and get control or it will get far worse before it gets better. if they get into the house they will chew all and any cables almost their first chore dunno what it is that attracts them maybe the electric field??

so the priority is to keep them out of your wall cavities and roof cavity, we had one find it's way into the house and it chewed through nearly all telephone cables (lying on the floor as they do) first up and then ac cables to tv etc.,.

baits take time to work they don't kill instantly so keep them out and fresh so to speak. no good blaming neighbours etc.,. they will make a home anywhere they love living and sharing with us humans, for the paw paw trees try putting some sort of skirt around the tree a fair way up like an old 8" with bottom cut out and slit down the side so as to slide it around the trunk, but you need to minimise their food source.

not all rats will go to a trap the best bait pumpkin seed or potato, and if yuop set traps leave it unsprung so the rat gets a couple of feeds and gets used to eating from the trap then set it you will get a very surprised rat that way.

and even when the rats appear to be gone keep the baits there to get the next wave early.

len

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thanks Len. My Dad started Amalgamated Pest Control before I was born (sold out when I was 2 ROFL! - no great inheritance there!) so I can honestly say that the only time till I was 20 that I ever saw a mouse, rat, cockroach or ant inside a house was when we went to visit my maternal grandmother in the country! So I consider myself very brave to cope with the mice, cockroaches etc (I refuse to get my house sprayed - the chemicals my father used for those few years have left a terrible legacy on him, and my siblings and I).

Our chicks are not quite 4 weeks old yet. I'm assuming it will be a few months before they are big enough to tackle a mouse - even a sick one. So for the time being I'll keep baiting. One of the chicken books I borrowed from the library had a really good idea for a bait station - pvc pipe with a "T" junction - at least 60cm long along the ground, with the "T" bit in the middle (upside down T), with another length of pipe 1m or so long. The tall length of pipe has wire attached to hold it up against the fence, and a cap on top to stop the rain. To add bait, just take of the cap and drop it down. Living in the middle of a building site has its advantages - finding pvc pipe was not a problem, I just needed to buy the T connection and a cap. So I'm quite happy to have these out in my garden - mice, rats, and probably the odd baby cane toad or imported Indonesian gecko are the only things that can get into it.

how is your wife? hope everything is well with your family, and you're enjoying the school hols with the grandkids.

A dob of peanut paste/butter for bait on traps is good. Rats and mice love it and can't take it away. Most of the time you don't even have to re-bait it as the trap usually catches them before they finish eating it.

g'day wishful,

we make bait covers from icecream containers you know the 1/2 gallon ones, cut an opening in 2 alternate sides cover the bait which is most likely sitting in a tray made from those bikky trays that bikkies come in and a small rock on top so it don't blow away. the tomcat bait people say their bait is all weather anyway. but the pipe idea sounds good if you have the stuff laying around.

len