Bird Feeding Ruined By A Rat

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slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
Gardman bird feeder.jpeg
We have a couple of Gardman feeders like this......

If a squirrel jumps onto it, the tube slides down protecting the nuts. We hung ours on long lengths of string but they still perform the most amazing contortions in order to get the food. It's hilarious to watch.
 

Saluki

World class procrastinator
We had a board across our ropes when we had a boat. It stopped the rats. Square board, hole in middle, rope through the hole sort of thing. Just put a board half way up your table pole. Should do the trick. I've a couple of ratters that I could loan you for an afternoon. You might suddenly discover that you have more than one rat though when you count up the bodies that they will leave you.
 
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andyfraser

andyfraser

Über Member
Location
Bristol
We had a board across our ropes when we had a boat. It stopped the rats. Square board, hole in middle, rope through the hole sort of thing. Just put a board half way up your table pole. Should do the trick. I've a couple of ratters that I could loan you for an afternoon. You might suddenly discover that you have more than one rat though when you count up the bodies that they will leave you.
We are tempted to get a cat but that's mostly because we wanted a cat before we moved (this house is owned by a cat friendly landlord) but if we do it'll make it much harder to feed the birds again.

My OH's dad has had a rat problem in the passed. He's going to see what he can do in the short term. He's good at this sort of thing apparently.
 

Sara_H

Guru
I happened to look out of my kitchen window today to see a rat climbing up my bird feeding station. I dashed outside and scared the rat off but to be on the safe side I've had to throw away the food and remove the feeding station.

I actually feel quite upset by all of this. I enjoyed looking out at the birds. There was a blackbird and a robin that visited every day. Today they looked confused. All the birds did. I feel so sorry for them.

Does anyone know the best way to get rid of a rat? I might put some humane traps down but I won't use poison. I don't want to hurt anything that's not a rat.
I don't know if this will help you or not, but I got inundated with pigeons on my bird feeders so I installed squirrel proof ones and now the pigeons don't come.
You could try and see if it works against your rat.
 

gavintc

Guru
Location
Southsea
The RSPB encourage the feeding of garden birds so they can't be that bad. People actively destroy rats because they're a health hazard.
One group is pretty, the other has poor PR?
 
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