Foo - Rats!

They're eating the fruit on the trees in my yard. :notamused:

http://i552.photobucket.com/albums/jj352/CbadRider/IMG_0033.jpg

How do I stop them? I have a very small yard and the fruit trees are grown in large pots. Unfortunately there are neighborhood cats who roam outside, so I'm wary of putting out poison.

Any ideas?

Two jack russell terriers make an awesome hunting team :D

That sucks :( rat traps not cat viable? I would hate seeing my fruits, etc be chomped by rats, etc (stoopid things too - they are just chomping things and not eating the whole fruit - yay)

<edit> you haz fruit?? :( we don't even have flowers here!

Two jack russell terriers make an awesome hunting team :D

My two indoor cats would have a problem with that. :P

Your choice. Get better cats or outsource the job to some Terriers.

This tends to work. No colateral damage with rat shot.
Essentially turns a .22 rifle or pistol into a mini-shotgun.
196481

It is time to deploy your own cats and get some return on investment. Put a long lanyard on their collars and tie the other end of the lanyard to a stake planted in the middle of your yard. This will give the cats tactical maneuver room while preventing them from escaping. Your cats will thank you for the excitement in their otherwise humdrum lives.

A couple of Yellow Rat Snakes will do the job, they'll stay around as long as the rats are there.

I'll second the idea of the Jack Russells, I have a toy poodle male who catches and kills a couple rats or mice a week, I call him "The Killer" :lol:

Anyway you can attract a hawk or eagle to your yard???

http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/scripts/bart-the-mother

Kent Brockman reads the news.

KENT
Our top story, the population of parasitic tree lizards has exploded, and local citizens couldn't be happier! It seems the rapacious reptiles have developed a taste for the common pigeon, also known as the 'feathered rat', or the 'gutter bird'. For the first time, citizens need not fear harassment by flocks of chattering disease-bags.

Later, Bart receives an award from Mayor Quimby outside the town hall. Several lizards slink past.

QUIMBY
For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.

Skinner talks to Lisa.

SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?

SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!

SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Anyway you can attract a hawk or eagle to your yard???


Staking the cats out in the yard should do it.

<edit> you haz fruit?? :( we don't even have flowers here!

My apple tree got confused last fall. My daughter didn't water it while I was on vacation for 2 weeks in September so it almost died. I watered the heck out of it when I got back and it figured spring was coming so it bloomed. The apples are not quite ready - still a little green. I had about 10 of them and now there's only 1 left. :mad:

Rat Terrier.

It is time to deploy your own cats and get some return on investment. Put a long lanyard on their collars and tie the other end of the lanyard to a stake planted in the middle of your yard. This will give the cats tactical maneuver room while preventing them from escaping. Your cats will thank you for the excitement in their otherwise humdrum lives.

This is my yard, the fruit trees are in the back near the little retaining wall (this is an older photo, they are bigger now). Can't really tie up the cats and I don't want them running around the neighborhood loose.

http://i552.photobucket.com/albums/jj352/CbadRider/IMG_0306.jpg



A couple of Yellow Rat Snakes will do the job, they'll stay around as long as the rats are there.

I'll second the idea of the Jack Russells, I have a toy poodle male who catches and kills a couple rats or mice a week, I call him "The Killer" :lol:

Right now, a dog is out of the question. The rats live outside my yard and come over to eat the fruit so I think the dog would have to be outside at night.



Anyway you can attract a hawk or eagle to your yard???

I have seen a couple of hawks in my neighborhood. I don't know how to attract them, though.

Easy peasy. Tie the cat lanyards to the leg of the patio table.

I have seen a couple of hawks in my neighborhood. I don't know how to attract them, though.

That's easy. Spread out some more fruit around your yard. That'll attract a bunch more rats ... which in turn will attract the hawks. Win Win!!!

Stop by my house and pick up one of the feral cats. They've already cleaned out everything within 100 yards of here.

They like Jack Russells and hawks too. It's like the other white meat.

http://www.pitaara.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Billy-the-Exterminator.jpg

You could hang those planters, learn macramé, eh?
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d126/telehammer/Macreme.jpg

http://www.pitaara.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Billy-the-Exterminator.jpg

He looks like he has a leech on his chin. :twitchy:

Try a fake owl. You'd have to move it occasionally so the rats don't get wise.

You need some big traps, and attach a wire to them so the rats won't carry them off. But be prepared for when you catch rats in the traps and they aren't killed.

Many, many years ago (a whole different lifetime for me) we planted some tomato plants in our small backyard garden. A day or 2 later we saw that the plants had been eaten down to the ground. We didn't know what did it but someone told us rats (and we live in the middle of the big city). I bought a couple of big traps and set them out, and started catching rats. Over a few months I caught a dozen or more, and my dog got almost that many.

One night about bedtime I was going out in the yard to check on the dog, when I opened the back door to walk out a big rat walked in. My wife was screaming bloody murder so I went back in. We figured out if we opened the door we could shoo the rat back out, but he knew the dog was out there and took off running down the hall and around the corner. My wife said we weren't going to bed until the rat was out so I started looking. I went into the living room and started taking cushions off of the sofa. The rat ran from under the sofa into the bathroom. I quickly shut the door and got my airgun. The rat jumped into the tub so I slid the shower doors closed. I was standing on the toilet looking over the shower doors. The rat climbed the hose attached to our shower head and jumped on my shoulder. I knocked him off and now he is on the same siad as I am. He was running around on the floor and one time climbed up my leg. I knocked him off again and finally shot him with the airgun. All this time my wife was on the phone giving a play by play description to the neighbor. We finally got the rats under control and got our garden in.

A few years later she decided she wanted to be single so I found a new place to live. She had a rat that started living in her garage. I told her she should get rid of it before it did serious damage to the car or maybe electrical wiring so she got one of the big traps. One night she called me, in tears. She had caught the rat but it wasn't dead and she couldn't kill it. I came over with my airgun and killed the rat for her then left. The neighbors would have thought it very suspicious to see me drive up real fast, go in the house with what probably would have looked like a big gun, then come out a few minutes later and drive off real fast, knowing that I wasn't living there anymore.

Well a few years later I have moved across town but I had one big rat that decided to live in my garage. I tried traps but that didn't work. I decided it would work better if I took the dogfood out of the garage. I had a 5 pound bag I had recently gotten as a promotional thing but hadn't opened. When I picked it up it was half empty, and had a small hole in the back. With the easy food gone then the rat was caught in the trap. That rat measured 16" long from nose to tail.

My new wife brought her cats so no more rats for us.

He looks like he has a leech on his chin. :twitchy:

We call that a 'landing strip'.

Damn, beaten to the parasitic tree lizards.


I knew it, x136 is a CHINESE NEEDLE SNAKE!!!! He's climbin in your windows He's snatchin your people up

If you can find tunnels the rats use you can put sulfur bombs in there, light the fuse, cover up the entrance. That will kill them w/ scant collateral damage. Also, when you fill in the entrance, you might see smoke coming out other entrances so you would learn to cover those too.

Try a fake owl. You'd have to move it occasionally so the rats don't get wise.

+1

Sticky Glue Ring (http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20103021985.html)

He looks like he has a leech on his chin. :twitchy:



We call that a 'landing strip'.

That's the nut scrubber?

Try a fake owl. You'd have to move it occasionally so the rats don't get wise.

It looks like Home Depot has them (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100495558/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053). I'll give it a try.

It looks like Home Depot has them (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100495558/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053). I'll give it a try.

For even greater effect you could add a speaker by your window with some owl calls. might bug the neighbors though. lol

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php

There are also snakes you can hang in trees to deter animals. Some use something as simple as a pie pan that swings in the breeze to scare away pests. Back when I was in the retail nursery business, we also sold netting to place over trees to keep birds out, but I am afraid a rat would chew right through the stuff. Might be a good idea to rotate your scare devices so the animals do not get used to just one. Owl, then snake, then pie pan, etc.

I thought fake owls were for pigeons.
Owls will eat just about anything, so the vermin all fear the owl.

196547I would get the kind of rat traps that look like overgrown mouse traps and bait them with peanut butter and place them in the pot at the base of the tree. An airgun to finish off wounded rats, or for taking pot shots at targets of opportunity would also be a valuable tool.
If they are only bothering your potted fruit trees it should be an easy matter to trap them at the base of the tree. No rat or mouse alive can resist peanut butter.

Doesn't look like an option in your neighborhood but rats make a very satisfying "plunk" when hit by a 22 short hollowpoint fired from a long barrelled rifle.

I've added a picture that you can print out and use for target practice.

A couple of Yellow Rat Snakes will do the job, they'll stay around as long as the rats are there.

I'll second the idea of the Jack Russells, I have a toy poodle male who catches and kills a couple rats or mice a week, I call him "The Killer" :lol:

this

It looks like Home Depot has them (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100495558/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053). I'll give it a try.

I bought an owl house.

Wood Ducks moved in. They look cool, but do nothing to eliminate the critters.

edit: my mistake. I thought you were trying to attract real owls...

For even greater effect you could add a speaker by your window with some owl calls. might bug the neighbors though. lol

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds.php

Or get a moving owl (http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Gardener-8021-Defense-Electronic/dp/B000FJRSOW/ref=pd_sim_ol_3). It could double as a Halloween decoration.

You can put wire snares on the trunk and major branches if you don't mind killing rats and removing rat corpses. Snares are cheap and easy (sort of like Jsharr) to set up and easy to reset. Here's a link of an example: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?catalogId=10001&langId=-1&mode=article&objectID=28917&storeId=10151 .

Sit in one of those chairs with a 12 gauge and a bottle of wine and shoot at the rats. If you get drunk enough you won't care if you hit them or not. As a bonus your neighbors will never knock on your door and bother you again.

You can put wire snares on the trunk and major branches if you don't mind killing rats and removing rat corpses. Snares are cheap and easy (sort of like Jsharr) to set up and easy to reset. Here's a link of an example: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?catalogId=10001&langId=-1&mode=article&objectID=28917&storeId=10151 .

you have free and cheap confused, again.

http://i552.photobucket.com/albums/jj352/CbadRider/IMG_0306.jpg



OMG OMG OMG.... a fire thingy!

Do you know how much I want one of those things? Fire! Rube hates cold and loves FIRE!

OMG OMG OMG.... a fire thingy!

Do you know how much I want one of those things? Fire! Rube hates cold and loves FIRE!

I got that at Costco. It runs off of a small propane tank.

It's for outdoor use only though, you can't use it to heat your kitchen when you're working on your car.

I got that at Costco. It runs off of a small propane tank.

It's for outdoor use only though, you can't use it to heat your kitchen when you're working on your car.

lol... watch me :D

lol... watch me :D

Remember to drain the gas before you weld up the hole in the tank.

lol... watch me :D

Eyebrows are overrated.

If you can find tunnels the rats use you can put sulfur bombs in there, light the fuse, cover up the entrance. That will kill them w/ scant collateral damage. Also, when you fill in the entrance, you might see smoke coming out other entrances so you would learn to cover those too.

Road flares much cheaper and far more volume than the pest control sulphur bombs.

I knew it, x136 is a CHINESE NEEDLE SNAKE!!!! He's climbin in your windows He's snatchin your people up

lol....

http://www.smashboards.com/image.php?groupid=2375&dateline=1284418253

My cat was freaking out last night, staring out the sliding door to the garden. I turned on the outside light and saw the last little apple from the tree sitting on the ground outside the door. The stupid rats got the last one, and it was almost ripe, too.

This means war.

don't know if you saw my suggestion on page 1...

Sticky Glue Rings (http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20103021985.html)

"Applying a grease or glue band to your fruit trees is an easy and cheap way to prevent problems during the fruiting season and to help ensure a pest- and disease-free crop."

http://www.howtodothings.com/home-garden/how-to-use-grease-or-glue-bands

I agree with the glue ring, if they're coming up over the edges of the pots. With the location of the tree, is it possible they're creeping into the tree from on that wall and dropping down from above?

Pellet gun....Crossman makes a pistol with 600 fps (.177 cal). That would be perfect for rats.