And what does that mean in our house? The rats are out of hibernation. I am not kidding. We have rats, and they always get lively this time of year.
Let me give you the bullet points on rats:
* According to the county vector control worker that came out and checked out our backyard (which is where the rats are currently, NOT in our house) he said "All city dwellers have rats. You have rats, the neighbors have rats, we all have rats. The only difference, because of your chickens, your rats come out and you can see them. And because you can see them, you can kill them. Just think, your neighbor doesn't even think he has rats, poor fellow." Vector control guy had a sense of humor. He also loved our chicken coop.
* We have had worse years than other regarding rats. This year seems worse than others.
* Rats are stinkin' smart. They also have bad eyesight and move based upon scent. Tupperware airtight-ness serves a purpose.
* Rats can collapse their ribs and shrink up to the size of a quarter.
Okay, where are we this year. Well, the rats come out during the day and just leap right into our metal feeder for the chickens. In years past, we have seen them just romp between our city approved, rodent resistant compost bins and build nests in those. We have also seen them just sit under the bird feeders while the birds drop seed and they feast.
In years past, our dog has been ol' reliable when it comes to killing them. She had a kill one year of 8 rats. Go girl! So we are planning once we get some nicer days, to go shake up the compost pile. That usually causes a few to come leaping out. Especially if you have the husband standing by with a shovel, you can usually kill a few. That is in the works for this year as well.
In years past, I have put out rat traps, and watched the little suckers dance all over the rat traps, debait them, and run away. Have you ever set a rat trap? They are the size of a person's foot and will take your fingers off it you're not careful. I saw red when they were doing this. So I had given up on the rat traps for quite awhile.
So, this year, what is my objective and goal this year? Kill the buggers. We have sat at the back of our house for several days now with our pellet gun shooting at them. Problem, we aren't accurate and neither is our Walmart special pellet gun. However, it is quite fun.
But in our shooting the other day, we noticed a rat scurry along the garage, and into a rat hole into the garage. Okay! Keep your nests in the compost bin! I am ticked!
Well, let's do something! I decided that since that was a portal that they go in and out of, I am going to try my luck at rat traps again. And also run the risk of losing a finger. Today is Sunday, Friday night, I set a trap at the opening of that hole on the inside of the garage. Saturday morning, bingo!
Mom = 1, rats = 0.
Let's do it again. This morning, bingo! Mom = 2, rats = 0.
I'll keep you posted. I finally don't feel outsmarted by a rodent!
4 comments:
I think I'd rather live in my little bubble than think that we have rats in our house - thank you very much Vector control guy! Rodents and spiders are the main reasons why my husband resists going and checking in our crawl space under the house.
Good luck catching those tricky critters. We've had mice in our garage twice and they're not easy to catch too.
Just to clarify, the majority of us don't have them in our house. We don't have them in our house. But out in our yards, in our gardens, in our compost and trash bins, by our birdfeeders, you betcha! If you do have them in your house, yes, do whatever you can to get rid of them because of the health risks. I wanna get rid of them because I don't want them to multiply and start looking at my house as the place to send their kids when it's time to send them off to college.
AM: You better be careful making it so public that you're shooting these poor defenseless creatures. You might be upsetting the ecosystem there in your yard. =)
This explains why BW wants to buy a pellet gun and shoot pests. It must an OR thing. His dad does the same thing. But here in the People's Republic of CA, that's probably illegal - hell, everything else is.
I know, those poor defenseless rats. The kids wanted to name them names from Ratatouille. Ummm...no.
Here, it is illegal to shoot a gun in the city, but not a pellet gun. Here is where my redneck-ness comes in. My dad was a state champion 4H mouse killer. I have some great ideas from him. He has told me about some ammunition that used at full bore in a powerful pellet gun can kill like a .22. BW might wanna know about that.
Today is the first day of ML's spring break, not ours. So I plan to keep ML occupied with the gun at the back of the house. We've already had the conversation today, "Ma, whatyer doin' today?" I answered, "Killin' rats Pa!"
A pellet gun can be bought at any respectable Walmart.
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