Now I’ll preface this by saying I’m posting for my lovely mum, who is deathly afraid of anything rodent-y, and I’m a vet student who’s very partial to a rodent, so this might sound a little biased! Recently, my parents went on holiday for a week and when they came back, the garden wall had been dug out (we had a family of field mice living there, so it was brushed off as being them). Yesterday, my mum spotted this little rat emerging from the wall and hoovering up the bird seed (much to her dismay!), and she came back at the same time again today (certainly the same rat as she’s got a little bit of white paint on her tail). Now for my question – how bad would it be to leave this little rat be? She’s obviously made a home in our wall (dread to think what’s happened to our field mice unfortunately). My mum’s stopped feeding the birds to try and discourage it, but realistically will it want to move on if it’s got a little home already? And my most important question haha, what are the chances of this being someone’s pet ratty who’s gotten lost? It looks and acts an awful lot like a pet rat, it’s so tidy and clean looking – but I would hate to box up a poor wild rat and bring it to work to try and reunite it with its nonexistent owners 😅
Hopefully anyone who’s dealt with rats in the garden before can leave some tips for helping them move on!
by cometmused
26 Comments
I had one in the garden eating bird seed about 3 years ago now. I got all the usual comments “if there’s one there’s 20”, “you have rat babies under your shed” etc etc. Did freak me out a bit but I just stopped feeding the birds like your mum’s done and never saw it again after about a week. They do go to where there’s a handy food supply – it may depend if her neighbours have spare bird seed mind you!
I hung suet treats only the following winter as they get eaten bare by the birds, and then fed as normal with seeds and sunflower hearts from the next spring. Still no recurrence of ratty as far as I can tell!
HELLO MR RAT! 👋🏻
https://preview.redd.it/hnisz7hnvtwe1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6537bbf232d4f5bb86b6da8a3ab7a84cf516f70
Here’s mine!
For what it’s worth, this looks exactly like the 20 or so rats we’ve removed from under our floorboards before finding the root of the issue, so I wouldn’t bet on it being an escaped pet.
It’ll not stay if it’s not got food, so unless there’s fruit and or veg in the garden or vicinity it’ll move on now she’s stopped feeding the birds. Probably worth checking there’s no sneaky rat entry ways into the house as well.
Friend!
Hello, big guy.
Put an owl box up in their garden.
It won’t be an escaped or abandoned pet. And even if it were, it’s wild now. Tell her to stop feeding them for a few weeks. It’s not like the birds need food now so no need to feel guilty for the feathered friends. The rat (and any subsequent babies) will move on. But he’s (or she’s) there definitely because of the ready food. Of it persists/gets worse, call in a pest control company.
Why are they so cute!!!!
Skinny tailed squirrel.
Air rifle!
My mother lives next to a railway line… Lordy the number of rats racing up and down it! Every. Single. Day.
Sucks to be a commuter into London.
I live next to a field so get a lot of rats, voles, mice. I made sure there’s no gaps in the roof or near pipes that they could get into the house through (expanding foam helped here) but have not had any signs or issues in the house the 4 years I’ve lived here. I do get them hibernating in the compost ever now and then but that’s the worst.
This makes my skin crawl
I think it’s key that the rat moved in while they were on holiday.
Rats do not like to be disturbed so as well as stopping feeding the birds I’d recommend spending plenty of time in the garden. (If your mum can bear it!)
You will also drive them off a lot quicker if you constantly sweep up, rearrange stones and generally mess with their environment. Just basically act like the landlord from hell, and hopefully you should get rid of your little furry friend.
Not cute at all – they piss and shit continually, they are naturally incontinent.
Rat meet Cat , Cat meet Rat .
Sweet. I know there’s potential for ratty troubles, but he looks rather pleasant and benign
I have one that lives in my compost bin. Big bugger but always looks scared when I lift the lid. Almost feel bad for disturbing it!
Noooo, is Siberian Hamster!!
Es Canar, Ibiza, about 15years ago – one of my favourite family holidays and all because each evening crowds came out to feed a cute little harbour rat at the shoreline.
It’s not impossible it’s a pet but it’s most likely a wild rat, they’re everywhere. Rats do keep themselves clean they usually look minging in the city because their main food source involves rooting through manky bins. When there’s a ready supply of bird seed and a cosy wall to live in, it has plenty of time to groom itself. If there’s one, there’s more and the best way to discourage it is to remove food sources.
I know they carry diseases but I still think she’s cute.
Sneaky lit’l git!
If you knack their home and/or their food source they soon sod off.
I had one last year and after putting away bird feeders for a bit I thought it was gone, but then I started seeing it occasionally maybe once every two weeks. I bought a live trap but had no success after weeks if not months. I finally resorted to rat poison and weirdly found TWO dead rats inside the live trap. I thought, problem solved… but I saw another two today in the middle of the day with two collies in the garden!
I guess my advice is, get rid if it one way or another ASAP. The gardens in my area are well kept, no mess etc. and I have a feeling it’s mainly the bird feeders that attracted them and a lot of plants I’ve planted in the last two years.
Get a terrier around and it will soon get the message to leave.
Hehe he looks friendly. I doubt you have a whole bunch of them. Just looks like the usual uk garden rat that lives under a shed or in a rockery (in your case) 😅 i kind of like them. I’d let bim live. Just dont purposefully feed it to encourage it. We had one who’d come and take bird seed on the floor and was never any issues. I think it moved on after about 6 months