Produce > Pests & Diseases

Broadies under attack from rats

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JanG:
I haven't noticed a decrease in small rodents when I've had numbers of rats around as well. ☹️☹️

Digeroo:
Things are getting worse!!
The wretched beast have now discovered how to dig below the plastic bottles and eat the beans.  So they are getting up ended.
The rows of directly sown green manure beans have simply been eaten too.  There are regular hole where they have dug.
The poison stations have arrived from Ebay and the poison bought from Screwfix.  I really do not like doing this but otherwise I will not be able to grow much at all if they are just going to eat the seeds.  And I do not want Weils disease.  I know someone who got it and he was ill for quite a while.
I have also learned that Bay Leaves can kill them or deter them so some of those will be off the the plot today.  I have a large plant in my front garden.   
And the next lot of beans are soaking in Paraffin.  I got it from the Chemist, but it is actually rather thicker than I was expecting.

Vinlander:
I can't remember what viscosity you should expect from paraffin (except that it's thicker in winter), mainly because although it foxed them for a couple of seasons I had to stop using it decades ago when the vermin realised that following the paraffin smell would make it easier to find a meal - and in winter they were obviously too hungry to be bothered about the taste...

I got another couple of years by using white spirit, but even that got found out, so I've had to rely on mesh barriers. The key thing seems to be just keeping them from getting close enough to smell the individual seeds - or alternatively making it impossible to dig by laying mesh directly on the soil can also work - as long as the shoots can get out through the mesh and only appear when other food sources have already started. In the SE it's possible to sow in December to take advantage of this.

Cheers.

gray1720:
Having made the mistake of taking a lug from a bottle being handed round round at a Young Farmers' party, that turned out to have been used to light the barbie, I can tell you that you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that your rats will be able to sh*t through the eye of a needle when they've finished your paraffin-soaked beans!

Digeroo:
Much against my better judgement I tried poison.  That appears to be expensive rat food.  I think hitting it over the head with the plastic container might be more effective.   They seems to be totally unaffected by the poison. Saw one of the rats a couple of days ago and it looked very fit and well.  I have taken to banging the compost bins that seems to disturb them.   But I am still loosing beans.   
We have a hawk of some kind and that seems to be catching quite a few. 
I have some micromesh and I found them underneath, but I now have some very fine light weight stuff and they do not seem to like that I think they get caught up in it, so avoid it, so I might get some more in. 
I have been told that dogs have clear them out.  When I was a child my Aunt had a farm and a cocker spaniel called Markie.  And he was brilliant at finding rats.
I am planning how to keep them off sweet corn.  I put plastic bottles over them and will  not have to sellotape the bottom of the bottles back on.  My OH says he can drill a hole in the bottom for the stalk. 



                                                                   

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