Topic: Oh rats, we've got rats!!!

[glosterwomble]

I decided to run up to the allotment today to do some tidying and get ready for planting Broad Beans.

When I arrived my plot neighbours were there and informed me that they had been watching "my" family of rats running up and down the plot and swinging about on my sweetcorn plants!!!  :o

Sue (neighbour) and I walked over to the said sweetcorn to find all the cobs stripped!!! Whilst standing there her OH came over and suddenly said 'look there's one'.
 Right by the shed door was a little bas**rd grinning back at us, followed 10 mins later by his son standing by cabbage bed and his wife 30 mins later climbing over the compost heap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, maybe I'm over reacting but it makes me shudder to think of them all over my plot. This is the first time that we have been aware of any rats at my plot (I was aware that they were on the site, a guy about 20 plots along from us sits waiting for them with an air rifle!!!!!) We back onto a railway line with scrubland between our shed and the railway so there is lots of room for them to live. However we have also just had lots of work done on the site as the company in charge has finally decided to strim all the overgrown plots and give them to people on the waiting list, so I'm wondering if they have just been moved along to our plot.

I reckon I'm going to put down some poison that I have left over from mice in the house last year.

Has anyone else had this prob and if so what have you done?

[mellor]

yes i have the same problem, they have trounced my corn this year. i have had a few with the air rifle but i have made friends with a cat (never thought i'd say that) who comes and takes a couple a day. other than that the old mans jack russells normally bag a couple when they visi

[glosterwomble]

maybe I need to buy an air rifle then!  ::)

[cornykev]

Yep same here, I caught one of the barstards stripping my corn, old Sid on the next plot said he had never seen a rat eating sweetcorn in all the years he had been on the lottie, two days later I went over there and he said he seen the rat eating his, so he cropped the 32 he had left and took them home.  >:(   ;D ;D ;D

[glosterwomble]

My sweetcorn were over there best by so I had left them thinking I could use them for seed next year, so I'm not upset at having lost the crop just beside myself that I have RATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :o

[quizzical1]

I've heard it said that wherever you are on land in this country, you're probably no more than 10 yards away from a RAT. You just don't see them that often as they tend to be nocturnal.
However, I quite often watch them playing in the bushes where I have to park when I go to pick OH up from work. Big bu**ers they are too.

[glosterwomble]

I've heard it said that wherever you are on land in this country, you're probably no more than 10 yards away from a RAT.

That is exactly what Sue (my plot neighbour) said!!  :) I've heard it said before, I just don't want 3 of the bu**ers watching me whilst I work!!!  >:(

[saddad]

Sorry to hear that but I'd invest in the air rifle...
 :-X

[mc55]

hmm, I think I have them too, although we like to kid ourselves that actually we have mice and voles .. but I'm pretty certain they have to be rats.  Sadly I'm the only one with sweetcorn on my row and something has been nibbling away very happily.  The baby pumpkins (which won't come to anything now) are also being nibbled as are any ripe tomatoes  >:( little buggers.

[mellor]

I'd recommend an SMK XS-19, a cheap full power air rifle, just be sure to read up on the law etc!!

[Kea]

Do they shred the sweetcorn to get to the cob or is it the pheasants? I seem to have both.

[glosterwomble]

Do they shred the sweetcorn to get to the cob or is it the pheasants? I seem to have both.

The cobs are still on the plant but completly stripped of any corn, just as if a person had cooked them and eaten them! The only consulation was that the sweetcorn had 'gone over' and become tough so I wasn't actually going to harvest any more, I had just thought I'd leave them to dry for seed next year.