Rats in garden

In message , michael adams writes

Cue the furore over someone drowning a live capture Squirrel....

I live on a farm and rats are a problem from time to time.

The cheapest place I've found for these kind of things is Farmrite, now trading as Fane Valley Stores;

I bait with poison, have some breakneck rat traps and if all else fails, I have a .410 shot gun.

In which case, you might as well get a shot gun.

yes. Or a .22 rifle of serious stopping power, or larger.

I've got a .22 air rifle JUST under the FAC limit and trust nm its pathetic.

at 60 yards its dropping 4-6 inches in trajectory, and unless I get a lucky shot whatever it hits walks hops or flaps away wounded. I tried it a couple of times and now use it on a target alone. Its not a killing machine by any stretch.

at 30 yards it possibly is, but the wildlife knows that, and runs away..

Mind y there isn't a lot left in a shotgun at 60 yards either, with small shot loaded. Enough to cripple a pigeon maybe.

There are three holes near the fence where I think the critters have their burrows. What can I do? Is a rat infestation notifiable? Should I get the council to send out a ratcatcher? I don't fancy dealing with the little blighters myself because I know they can be dangerous when cornered. This is rural England, so since we all are apparently less than 5 metres away from a rat, it's still unpleasant, especially if they find a way of getting into the house. I've stopped putting out ~any~ food for the birds.

Before I do that, which will be costly for sure, can't I put down some rat repellent? I don't particularly want to poison them as stray cats come into the garden often and might eat the poison. And poisoned rats die a horrible death apparently. I'd much rather just drive them away.

I mowed the lawn this morning for the first time this year and discovered two or three holes that look suspiciously like the entrances to burrows to me. Some suggestions I've already found on the web:

- fill the holes with stones/gravel

- pour human urine down

- use rat repellent

- use an electronic rat repeller

- put liquorice down the holes

Don't any of these work?

!news.astraweb.com!border5.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail

Cut off their food supply and you won't have a problem. I noticed the really cheap bird seed from Aldi contained a lot of wheat, which our birds tossed aside with contempt, providing a reliable source for less fussy visitors.

Not really, my non-FAC rifle (rated just below the 12ftlbs limit) will go through a 3/4" softwood board at 10m and will take out a rat easily at up to 20m, as I have demonstarted a number of times. Much beyond

We have a cat that loves to hunt but it's rather inconvenient when he brings in a live mouse or rat in at bleedin' 1 in the morning even though he eventually kills it

Well that's not what I call 'decent'

I want it flat trajectory to 100m and capable of killing a bunny stone dead at that range.

I fired one shot once on a borrowed rifle that was like that.

I settled it on an old WWII bit of pillbox, and not trusting its owner aimed for the biggest bit of bunny (chest) that I could line the cross hairs up on, and squeezed the trigger. The bunny jumped a foot in the air and fell over stone dead. When I got to it, the entry wound was EXACTLY where, to a few mm, the cross hairs had been. at 80m.

THAT is a decent rifle.

Our local deer shooters are of the same opinion: they are using high power silenced small calibre rifles. They wait till they have a clear head shot and take out the brains. If they cant, they don't shoot. Deer is dead on the spot, no meat is wasted, and no suffering is caused.

Shotguns are OK for birds, but they have very limited stopping power or accuracy at range. And they litter the place with shot too.

with pigeons you probably haven't got an option and a 410 or 20 bore is a good thing, and it will make a mess of a rat at 30 yards too, but i'd rather have the rifle if its safe to use. You seldom just wound with a rifle, if you are a careful shooter.

Its a better death than any rat normally gets for sure, left to nature.

I hate poison after seeing what it did to a cat once.

Dragged itself home on its front paws covered in diarrhoea and died in its owners arms.

Italy: Strychnine we think.

Nope, trap and hit on head with hammer, or shoot stone dead. Or let the terrier snap their necks with a quick head shake.

shows how to clear out every last rat on a pound.

Note the shake of the head until the rat stops moving then they all join in tearing it to pieces.

Note also how the terriers will identify where the rats are underground, and try and dig them out.

This is what terriers are bred to do. Dig up, chase and kill small furry things.

yeah. I had a rattercatter once. came back to find the bathroom covered in blood and a dismembered rabbit in the middle

Best ever was this was ell before the days of video, was his battle with two weasels. Boy he was careful. ON one occasion he won, on the other it got away, bit it was a 5 minute long battle with the weasel turning round rearing up and baring its teeth then the weasel would turn to run and he would be on him.. .

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

That would be HMR based on the old 0.177 bore. They seem acceptable to police firearms dept. because the round has a ballistic cap which breaks on impact and does not cause significant ricochets. Supersonic so hard to silence.

Not my scene but I think the minimum bore size for legal deer shooting is 0.240". Because of the fragmenting design, a head shot is the only way with HMR.

Of course, that's very true, but I wouldn't fancy my neighbours shootings rats in their gardens with that sort of weapon. Horses for courses really.

Ah well don't have any neighbours within 250 meters

A soldier killed last year while eating his lunch at a range by a "stray" round over 1,000 m from the weapon. First news report google found for me:

In message , Dave Liquorice writes

The subsonic hollow point I use is *dangerous within 1 mile* and high velocity stuff 1.5 miles. Basically, in a built up area, you don't shoot anything up a tree.

Someone I know had a friend killed* next to him at around 2 miles range while on patrol in N Ireland. The shot came from the Irish republic.

Large calibre hypersonic round.

No accident.

I believe the chap who ordered it was having dinner with the Queen last night...