Iv'e recently been bothered with rats around the garden.
In particular around my pond and waterfall where they seem to have burrowed into the rockery and made a nice cosy nest.
I made sure there was no food anywhere hoping they would move on. No chance.
The final straw was seeing two of the buggers in broad daylight swimming in the pond.
Now seeing as how it's me who has to clean out the pond and I really didn't fancy a bout of Wiels Disease I bought a couple of traps and set them up one evening.
Before I went to bed I wandered down and sure enough one had been caught. Bang to rights, lights out. Excellent I thought. It was dark so I left it until the morning before disposing of it and re-setting the trap.
Come the next morning I go down and what do I find? Nothing. No rat no trap.
After a bit of searching I found both rat and trap wedged up into one of the entrances they had dug to the nest. Hard up between two rocks.
I set two traps that night and caught two rats and sure enough one of them had been dragged to a place about 4 feet away towards the nest.
So the question is:
Were the other rats trying to 'rescue' Uncle Fred or were they trying to take the body back for food?
The body wasn't nibbled or eaten at all and there is no way it would have been the caught rats struggling to get back. They were as dead as it was possible to be so already.
I know rats are not dim but the idea of them trying to get back one of their own is kind of unsettling. Do they have emotional ties I wonder?
In particular around my pond and waterfall where they seem to have burrowed into the rockery and made a nice cosy nest.
I made sure there was no food anywhere hoping they would move on. No chance.
The final straw was seeing two of the buggers in broad daylight swimming in the pond.
Now seeing as how it's me who has to clean out the pond and I really didn't fancy a bout of Wiels Disease I bought a couple of traps and set them up one evening.
Before I went to bed I wandered down and sure enough one had been caught. Bang to rights, lights out. Excellent I thought. It was dark so I left it until the morning before disposing of it and re-setting the trap.
Come the next morning I go down and what do I find? Nothing. No rat no trap.
After a bit of searching I found both rat and trap wedged up into one of the entrances they had dug to the nest. Hard up between two rocks.
I set two traps that night and caught two rats and sure enough one of them had been dragged to a place about 4 feet away towards the nest.
So the question is:
Were the other rats trying to 'rescue' Uncle Fred or were they trying to take the body back for food?
The body wasn't nibbled or eaten at all and there is no way it would have been the caught rats struggling to get back. They were as dead as it was possible to be so already.
I know rats are not dim but the idea of them trying to get back one of their own is kind of unsettling. Do they have emotional ties I wonder?