Mum bought some seed potatoes (Desiree), chitted them, and then delivered them to us direct to the allotment. I couldn't be bothered to take them home and put them with the rest (in the spare bedroom), and when I went to the plot today, I found that something has been eating them one by one.
There are now only 6 whole ones and one half eaten left in the seed tray they were in.(Out of a 2.5 kilo bag), and no sign of the others. None of the 6 has any marks on them at all. They were in a sort of lean to coldframe on the side of the shed, not completely sealed at ground level.
Any idea what might have been eating them please?
I know one thing, I won't be leaving anything up there ever again, and they are NOW at home with the rest.
rats??
I found a half eaten spud under the tarpaulin covering my muck heap â€" something had been enjoying a snack in the warm and dry >:(
it had rodenty-looking teeth marks in it, so probably rat.
Sorry, I completely misunderstood the title of this thread!
It brought back a childhood memory of my Dad's seed potatoes getting cooked and served up for dinner .... he was not pleased when he realised ....
Are you absolutely sure they'll be safe at home? ;)
Quote from: greyhound on March 08, 2007, 17:32:32
Are you absolutely sure they'll be safe at home? ;)
Yes I am sure. They're all GREEN now and with dark green chits on them. Also they're no where near the kitchen, and it's only me and OH that live here.
Thanks for the concern though.
BTW rats was my first thought, but wasn't sure if they would eat raw potato.
The rats here in Gateshead will eat anything. I caught one last year it was 18 inches long (nose to tail tip) :o
Was it carrying a bag of spuds? ;D
It had eaten two packets of pea seed, so I bought some rat poison and gave it a treat.
Defo sounds like rats.Had the shock of my life 2 months ago when I took the lid off one of my compost bins to put more stuff in and there was "ratty" sat staring up at me :(
No cooked food went in,only the usual stuff apart from some windfalls from the apple trees...........could have been those the rats were after.
ooh quizzical dont like the sound of rats up there i know bert caught a few mice the other day but dont fancy tackling rolands!!
The mice in my lottie shed must be really hungry. They've eaten the bar of soap I keep there.
I saw little teeny toothmarks round the edge of it a week ago and just thought it was funny. Now it's gone: all that's left is crumbs. :-X
Mice will eat anything; they can even live on the glue in the bindings of old hymnbooks. What else would a church mouse eat?
;D ;D Perfectly true, Robert! Hence 'poor as a church mouse', of course...
I'll pass on the gem about bookbinding glue to our choirmaster. We have some not-so-old hymnbooks (clearly created by someone who's never sung a note) that I suspect he'd just love to see consumed by mice!
Sorry for hijacking thread...
Quote from: hazelize_uk on March 08, 2007, 21:52:48
ooh quizzical dont like the sound of rats up there i know bert caught a few mice the other day but dont fancy tackling rolands!!
Yes it might be mice. Dont worry hazelize_uk there are rats everywhere anyway you just dont see them.
Last year something had dug up the potatos I'd planted in the allotment and I thought it was rats but I found out later the culprits were grey squirrels (rats with furry tails). So it could be them
Rats got my JA's from out of the ground! Proof that they'll eat anything!! Lots of exploding rats round our way.
We had a problem last summer of the foxes digging up the spuds. Rats will eat just about anything but fortunately foxes like rats as well. Where's David Attenborough when you need him? ;D
Hmmm, if I put down chicken poo, it might attract the foxes (I learnt this from here - Tim posted it as a thought, IIRC) who might then eat the rats (the foxes might, not Tim), what with the absence of chickens. It might just work...