Saturday 4 October 2014

A new inhabitant?

This video was taken with our wildlife camera on the 2nd October, it is several 10 second videos joined together.

The camera was located in the bottom of our chicken coop, fortunately the chickens don't really use it. (For scale the boards you can see are 20 cm wide)


We think it is a brown rat...

At the moment it is doing no harm, other than digging a few holes around and about.

The big question we have is, should we let it get on with life or should we get rid. My other question (Col) is will it eat a chicken or even three... The interweb appears to say... Yes Yes Yes Please...

Any advice would be appreciated...

The camera is going to look at the feeder tonight... Watch this space.


3 comments:

GaynorB said...

I haven't got any advice other than to say I'd get rid!! It certainly looks well fed.

Susan said...

Hmm...tricky. Personally I would wait a bit and see if something eats it, rather than it eating your chickens. Getting rid of it is unpleasant -- you don't want to poison it, and traps aren't very effective with rats I don't think.

When you say 'will it eat chickens' do you mean hens or chicks? I imagine it will eat eggs and young chicks given the chance, but an adult hen is probably more than a match for it.

There is a health issue to be aware of, which is that it will urinate on everything as it goes. Just be careful not to touch where it has been with bare hands or make sure you wash.

It's probably young. If male probably not a problem. If female, then she'll have babies -- you probably don't really want that happening.

Borrow a terrier for a few days if it's still there in a fortnight.

The rat in my compost heap disappeared after a few weeks -- eaten by something I imagine. But my compost heap isn't near anybody's house...

Jean said...

Rats are nasty, horrid critters. All gardens are better without them.