GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

10-07-2006, 07:40 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:
We have 2 sheds outside in our back yerd. They are quite a distance
from out house and I do not have a problem in the house, but one of
the sheds has been taken over with these critters. we clean the shed
out monthly and do not keep things like paper in there. we store ice
chests and 5 gal buckets etc. Now they have eaten 5 ice chests and a
plastic bouncing horse that we stored in there. they all have huge
holes in them, and have been thrown away as of this evening. The
floor is covers in droppings and it seems to be getting worse. We
have placed several boxes of Decon and we thought the problem was
resolved. It was not until I just read that the mice/rats will eat
the poison and get ill but will not die and then are learly of the
poison. we will find a couple of rats a month in the chicken coop,
that is next to the shed, and we discard of them. this is normally
right when the decon is put out and then they stop dying near the
chickens, it could be that the critters go in there for the water and
the chickens just attack them. Please help me with this problem,,
before they enter my other shed (that has all my husbands tools,
fridge, and storage items. we have not seen them in there yet.

Any help please!!!!!!
Sally

I doubt that you have rats AND mice, rats prey on mice and mice will not go
anywhere near rats, their nests, droppings, scent or anything else rat
flavoured.
Also I would be wary of putting down poison where chickens are being kept,
even the rats' droppings will be toxic....it's obviously the chicken feed
which is interesting the rats, the sheds are just a bonus, being dry, near
to a food source and fairly safe....I've never heard of the word 'learly'
before but I assume it means that the ras are eating the poison and then
becoming immune to it? - this has always been a problem and there are
different types of poison which are best used in rotation, although I would
use extreme caution with regards to the chickens.
It might seem too obvious, but the first thing you want to do is to fill
holes, gaps, runs and anywhere else that the rats are using as means of
getting about, holes in soil are best filled with water and rammed with
canes to make the insides like mud (in which they cannot burrow) and also to
drown any lurkers, fill holes in walls and floors with broken glass mixed
with either mud or mortar, if the shed is wood you will need to line the
bottom with metal plate and the same with the door, it doesn't need to be
thick, any cheap scrap metal will do, even wire mesh providing the holes are
half an inch or less.
If you go with the poison (and it's the only way to control an infestation),
I would advise putting water down so that the poisoned rats don't venture
into the coop, traps don't work for rats, unless you only have one or two,
and you haven't.