Airgun I guess?
Threes pretty good.
They don’t keep still for long.
As for numbers, Tip and Iceberg springs to mind ?

 

Is it possible to eliminate rats by shooting?

Only seen it once but once was enough, some kids said they seen rats and I went to investigate, one rat family in an old byre, it had a grate on the floor with a gap under where they were nesting and a gap under the door right next to bins, opened the door and they went in all directions, it was like a horror movie, I'm not a fan of poison but it was the only option and left it completely rat free in just a few days.

 

I used to hang a can of cheap dog or cat food with a couple of holes in the bottom, so that they had to stretch up and lick from the holes. At full stretch they can only drop, very little else (but there is always the exception)

 

I took a few pot shots when a rat lived under my old wooden shed. I didn't hit it but it soon left.
Have you been putting feed out for birds? If so, then don't, it will leave.

 

Signs at Blackford Pond telling people not to feed the water birds on the pond because of issues with rats. I took a walk round and there was a young guy ignoring the sign and feeding swans, ducks, black-headed gulls, et al. And as I stood and watched him, there were a couple of rats scurrying back and forth between the guy and their cover. I had the camera with me with the long lens on and I tried to get a decent shot of the rats. They were practically running under my feet...

I had to reduce the focal length to get the thing fully in the shot!...

Get them in the Botanic Gardens as well. Folk enjoy feeding the grey squirrels - they are all obese compared to normal ones. The staff quietly cull them when no one is around, but I don't know if they attempt to get the rats? If you are throwing grain and stuff for the birds at the Chinese Hillside pond, and watch in the background, there are rats picking up a lot of it. Last time i was there, I was managing to get the robins and great tits to take food out my hand. Quite a wee thrill! ?

Col

 

There used to be a problem with people feeding the squirrels in Princes St Gardens, they put signs up, first time I saw one there was a guy feeding one on his shoulder, it was the biggest squirrel I have ever seen, not far off the size of a cat!

 

A few years back, the Lioness told me there were little mice playing at the foot of our rowan tree .....
My Daystate Huntsman came out and I got three of the little rats, later either mummy or daddy rat came to call them in for tea and expired with barely a twitch.
We kept chickens and everything was kept neat and tidy, steel bins galvanised hoppers, food spills cleared up but the rats kept coming.
The chickens did nor like them and they would stand and "point" to any intruder and they were soon dealt with. A neighbour complained and we had a couple of unannounced spot checks by the local council but they were very pleased at the way we kept everything. It turned out that the complainant actually had rats in her loft space and my next door neighbour had them under his shed!
I was relating this tale to an aquaintence and he said they had had rats under their suspended floor and a mate of his brought a python round and let it into the rats access point, a grill that allowed air to circulate under said floor. Well the python was there for a week or more until they took some of the floor up, but no rats, it had dined well.

 

I quite like watching 'Snakes in the City' - with the guy and his girlfriend in Durban, South Africa, who get called out to remove snakes from folks' houses. It's amazing how many of them have been attracted into the house by extremely poor house-keeping - and so they are infested with rats. Quite often they are nesting under kitchen cupboards, and Simon has to pull out sackfulls of rat bedding before he can get to the snake... which more often than not turns out to be either a spitting cobra or a grumpy black mamba. He no doubt gets to deal with lots of much safer ones, but of course they don't make for good viewing! ?

 

My mate caught 44 in a bucket trap in 3 days. After that they became wise. I have fen traps out around the hen house all the time, which do a job. Cut the food source off and they move on; otherwise poison is the only sure fire way to remove. Some one once told me co codomol also clears them, sending them into a frenzy? First week in October after the combines have finished is when they turn up in the country

 

Also an excellent watch, when it gets repeated

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z094n

 

The wife reminded me of the ones that started breeding in our greenhouse, they came in under the floor and set up an HMO. I found the entrance and made up a smoke bomb pushing it well in and then watched for smoke inside the greenhouse there were 3-4 smoking tunnels.
Dug up the slabs, there were nests with babies who unfortunately got short shrift. Rats are amazing creatures, clever, adventurous, and dexterous, they have always fascinated me but their own adaptability and success has put them in competition with people.

 

How the hell did that get on there, this forum is really playing up.

 

I've got chickens.
I've got rats.
I've got a pellet gun.
I'm getting a .22
?

 

.22 subsonic can ricochet like a bastard after passing clean through a rat . I'd set up a bait station ( the recommendations for liquidised cat food are spot on ) with a backstop , and get some CCI segmented 40 grains they break up pretty well . Having said that you're not going to get on top of rats with a gun . Get some Fenn traps and make some tunnels. Bait the traps then you might have a chance .

 

I believe peanut butter is a good bait- it’s not something they can run off with.

 

Peanut butter or kitty kat, chopped up fine and mixed with Pilchard oil, so it is thin with no lumps, that was they cannot run off with big bits, gives time to take a shot. Better if you can shoot from above as the rats do not look up ? I used to shoot them on a farm from the roof of a shed (no more that 15m). If you tried to sneak up on them or try to shoot from a corner of a building, they would see you and disappear, not so from the roof.

 

I should have made that plainer, the cheaper pet foods are generally a sloppy paste so it drips from a holed can, no lumps it is a bait not a feeding exercise.
I have seen rats dip their tails in cooking oil and move off to safety to lick the oil from their tails and fur.

 

A friend of my uncle in Mayenne had rats in the walls of the house but he also had ferrets for hunting rabbits. So he put two ferrets down one of the holes and soon there were no more rats although we did hear some epic battles going on in the walls!!!

 

Peanut butter on a stick works well, 8" stick thrust into the jar then work on a good dollop, push stick into ground a bit, it makes the rats work a bit for their last meal and makes them vulnerable, gets their heads up a bit. Cheers

 

This is how I used to get my nighttime munchies of roasted mouse/rat when I worked in Zimbabwe, Little old lady used to sit in the maize field for hours catching them by whacking them with sugar cane, then squeeze guts out and roast with a little salt, quite tasty washed down with a Bohlinger?

 

I have poultry down on the allotment along with a few others & although most folks housekeeping is pretty good (feeders in at night etc) not everyone does this & rats are pretty constant.
I've had 32 in snap traps in the last few weeks + 1 that I nailed with a pitch fork! I'm no fan of rodenticide either but due to the numbers have deployed a couple of bait stations - activity is definitely slowing down......
I think shooting is ok for a bit of sport but not overly effective for control/eradication

 

I used to shoot on a farm with a fishing pond and the worst offenders were the groundbait dumpers,
unused groundbait thrown into the nettles rather than taken home.

 

They come into my house probably about once a year or so, so I have a couple of traps set on standby.

Nutella is the perfect bait. Some years ago I'd been baiting traps with nutella and then ran out of nutella and bought some Morrissons savers choc-nut spread. They absolutely refused to touch it.

However now that the budget stuff has gone a bit crystaline they seem quite keen on it.

In the past outside I've used the pink waxy block poison sucessfully. I've also found that blocking holes with a dry cement mix has been successful.

My neighbour has been quite successful shooting squirrels with an airgun

 

Take care if using fenn traps as they are no longer legal for catching stoats, so if you have, or might have stoats in the area use some of the new traps, DOC

 

If there were more stoats we would maybe not have the rat problem.

 

My hen sheds are rat and fox proof, however I have a shed that's fool proof and nether cats or hedgehogs can get in, rats aren't fools, they get in as they like chocolate block poison

 

One jar of chocolate spread.
One bottle of cheap cooking oil.

Take two tablespoons of chocolate spread out of the jar and use or throw away.
Place the jar of spread with the lid off in a pan of boiling water until the spread becomes runny.
Once runny top up the jar with the cheap cooking oil.

Allow to cool.

You now have a jar of runny chocolate that they will stop to lick when poured rather than "smash and grab" which allows for more accurate shooting and cleaner kills.
Pour on the ground. Do not have a rat reaching up for bait as they can soon drop back down which can lead to a miss or a foul shot. They may be horrible and unwanted but that doesn't mean they should not be given the respect of a clean kill the same as any other quarry. Nobody should be taking a shot that isn't safe or a clean kill.
You don't want injured rats going back down into the system anyway as that is free food for the the others and you more than likely won't see any more during that session or for a few days.

If you shoot one and there are no others in the vicinity allow it to bleed a little and leave a trail away from the place they are coming from. The scent of fresh blood will attract them.

Always bait up for your selected area for at least five to six days prior to shooting for better results - rats are always wary of anything new in their environment, especially chocolate spread but once they get used to it it is like a magnet for them.

 

Well up to 12 now, thinning them out nicely.

 

good shooting ,
GRAPHIC TURN AWAY NOW



talking to a country boy ,a few years back, said the best way is catch two rats alive and put them in a barrell with out feeding ,one will eat the other and become canibal then release it "

 

good shooting ,
GRAPHIC TURN AWAY NOW

talking to a country boy ,a few years back, said the best way is catch two rats alive and put them in a barrell with out feeding ,one will eat the other and become canibal then release it "

Survival of the fittest eh!

Surely that method would end up with the cannibal rat becoming the size of a shire horse after it ate the others.