I wouldn't doubt it. Here we do have raccoons which will eat out the center of the fruit and leave the skin on the tree. From my experience though rats usually eat some of the fruit and go to the next one on the tree. :p

What kind of rodents you have in your area? Groundhogs/woodchuck, raccoon, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, etc.. Any of those can wipe out an entire crop if you don't get rid of the animals. They can bite through netting.

These are AZ roof-rats. We paid Terminix $thousands to rid them from our attic & put in new, deterrent, insulation. Fine. Now they are living in our trees & oleanders with their cousins the bunnies. Like bunnies the rats multiply ....... The traps simply don't catch them & we don't want poison in our yard (12 fruit trees & a garden....). We've read that rats pick & store apples. This year's crop of apples are GONE. They eat the insides from lots of citrus too....faster than we can collect & toss fallen fruit. Any successful solutions appreciated...... Why grow food if it's for predators, not us.

Your best option would be go to a local shelter that adopts out barn/feral cats. These are cats that want to live outside 24/7 and not interact much with humans. You give food/shelter they will take care of the problem.

My mother grew up on a ranch....and had awful stories about finding cats in the house, munching on mice. She refused to have any (tho we loved our dogs). So.... I don't know. I'll run it by my husband, though. His folks had both dogs & a cat. Are feral cats mean...scratching humans if they get in "their territory" and so forth?

Roof rats are typically a neighborhood problem.

Potential resources for help and/or advice include the county Extension Service office; the county /Health Department; and/or the county Vector Control District.

Also see this: "Roof Rats" http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/RoofRats.asp

My family adopted two barn cats from the family that gave us our first chickens. They both are used to living outside and mostly fending for themselves. They sleep in the barn, eat a little kibble and drink from their dishes, and keep the mouse (and rabbit!) population controlled. Neither one is at all mean or hostile to humans. The smaller one, Theodosia, is standoffish and solitary, but not aggressive (to humans--she's held her own against a number of overly-curious dogs, though). But the larger one, Thomas Jefferson, considers himself to be a pet kitty no matter how much we insist he's a working animal. When we come into the barn to collect eggs, he runs up to snuggle around our ankles. When I'd sit in the garden, setting out a bunch of little transplants or something, he'd curl up next to me and purr. Once I found him lying asleep ON HIS BACK, in a completely un-catlike way, under a huge tomato bush. Yes, there are rodent corpses to deal with. But appreciably fewer live mice.

What I'm trying to say is that having a barn cat is a delightful way to have most of the fun of cat ownership, without the fur and furniture damage of having a house-cat. Barn cats are wonderful. If you have so many rodents that you're not getting any fruit harvest, I think you should get one.