Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tips For Keeping Wild Rats Away
By Shellyane Bryan
A rat owner from England shares tales of living with her rats named Mouse, Slinky and Diddy.
Click image to enlarge
Photo Courtesy Shellyane Bryan
Slinky enjoys her life as a pet rat, never facing the dangers that wild rats do. |
Someone I know has been having rat problems of a different variety over the past couple of weeks. It’s a problem that I, up until a few days ago, didn’t really know how to deal with.
He has rats, but not of the domestic variety. Apparently a nest was disturbed in his neighbor’s house, and the rats that had set up home there have now set up home next door and are creating havoc!
Now, as someone who would never advocate poisoning or trapping even wild rats, I had to research some quick and inexpensive solutions for keeping away wild rats. Luckily, there are quite a few avenues to go down, anything from humane traps that only catch the rat in a small cage so it can be released into the wild to ultrasonic machines that discourage rats from the home and garden. I also discovered that rats aren’t very big fans of peppermint oil, so scattering that nearby any little hidey-holes is also a good idea.
Interestingly though, the gentleman having problems with rats did in fact catch quite a young one in one of the humane cages, and it was apparently very, very friendly. I’ve never encountered a wild rat face-to-face, but I had honestly expected them to be as vicious as any other wild animal might be. It really just goes to show that the image of rats many people have is really quite wrong.
I would also just like to thank Hannah for her excellent advice on keeping ratties cool in the summer! I tried out your suggestions and they worked really, really well, even better now it’s getting even warmer. Mouse the rat has now returned to her designated sleeping box, along with Diddy. Slinky is her usual self and never seems to sleep at all.
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