Are you sure its actually a rat. It oculd be one of CArol Gulleys
children so call her up or send her a email and ask if she has any
renegade kids on the loose i your area, most rats originallay come
from that woman anyhow.

or

On 9 Jun 2006 07:49:44 -0700, "ChelleBell"
wrote:
Great thought and I wish he would consider this option as he has a
pistol type pellet gun, but he has not used it since I was little.
This is out of the question now. He would not even permit me to do it
for him for fear he'd lose a chippy. (and daddies girls try to avoid
upsetting their daddies) If only the rat was by itself this would work
but it is always with the chipmunks and the birds. Never alone.

I'm beginning to wonder if one of the spoiled brats in the neighborhood
let some sort of exotic pet out because they were bored with it, as
this has happened in the past. I haven't seen it, but mom says it
really doesn't look like a rat. Kinda fuzzy, much bigger than any
mouse we've seen, yet much smaller than any rat. We looked at
enature.com to see if the rat was there, but it wasn't.



JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"ChelleBell" wrote in message
ps.com...
I know they say; "Where this is one, there are many", but my dad has a
rat that thinks it's a chipmunk! He feeds with them under the bird
feeders (he doesn't climb them like they do) alongside the birds, plays
hide-n-seek games, runs with them in the yard, and hides food with
them!

His house is atop a mountain above the Ohio River. The only time rats
ever ventured atop this several mile hill is when the river has extreme
flooding, which is not often.

He loves his wildlife so the deterent must be safe. He especially
loves his 'chippy's', even named each one of them! And there are many!
And if the neighborhood were to find out that he has a rat and did
nothing about it.. well that would make the front newspaper!

My mom was told to place pepperment outside to eliminate just the rat.
(Which by the way, looks like a cross between something and something
else).


Thanks for any advice.....


This will sound counterintuitive, but the safest way may be a pellet rifle
with a scope on it. But, there are two aspects to the safety question he

1) Safe for the other animals? Yes, assuming your dad doesn't have shaky
hands, and he rests the rifle on some sort of support (which a person of any
age really should do under these circumstances). A pellet rifle is quite
accurate if adjusted correctly, and that wouldn't take more than an hour of
testing is on a cardboard box full of newspapers. Once that's done, just one
shot would take care of the rat. No poison or traps needed. A decent enough
pellet rifle can be had, with scope for about $100.00.


2) Safe for the neighbors? If you can see a house in the line of fire, that
house should be 500-800 feet away. But, since you'd be shooting toward the
ground, you can reduce that distance assuming the ground's not full of rocks
or tree roots which might cause a ricochet. And, of course, everyone
watching this happen would be wearing safety glasses / goggles.

It sounds crazy, but safer than wishing really hard that the "good" animals
won't be hurt.