What burrowing animal would do this? Shrew, skink

16 years ago

First, please forgive me for killing these rats. Yes I use a spring trap to get them from my vegetable garden. But I'm in a fairly rural area of SW Florida and if I don't get rid of the "Veggie" rats I can not grow tomatoes. I even covered them with high density polyurethane netting (ever seen a truck of scrap metal on the highway covered with netting to keep the load from falling in the road?) and these rats chewed thru. I had a dozen tomatoes just getting pink and overnight all but 2 were gone.

So I trap them and leave them for our local bob cat on the edge of our yard. But he must be on vacation (or full) and the 3 dead rats were attacked from underground.

I did a little searching online and I can only come up with 2 options. At Wikipedia I found that some skinks will eat small rodents. I have seen many in our yard, but they really don't seem big enough to deal with these 5-6 inch rats.

I also found that shrews are very aggressive meat eaters and will actually attack a live rat. I've never seen them around but I do see lots of tunnels in parts of our yard and especially in the vegetable garden. I always thought they were moles. Do shrew tunnels, if they tunnel, look like a mole tunnel?

Here are a few photos of the dead rats as I found them this morning.

3 dead, half buried, rats (not for animal lovers, sorry)

I really am sorry to have to kill these animals, I suppose I could buy a cat, but what's the difference? Besides, there are so many around that even our bob cats don't keep them controlled.

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Comments (9)

animaltracks
16 years ago
they are voles (vegetarian surface tunnelers)
jean001
16 years ago
No animal has done that damage. Instead, various insects have. Insects which attack any & all carcasses they find. Those insects belong to nature's recycling crew.
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Wow I never thought I'd see comments from this post again that was like 4 years ago. Yes I have plenty of the blue tailed skinks and some are very large, very. I think what the skinks do unless they are using toads tunnels, is make tunnels all through the ground. I think that's why the ground seems almost hollow in that area and I have seen skinks come out of the little holes. I believe I have had voles before but my kind dogs dug up the whole yard to get them and now they are gone. :/ I don't think the skinks are the roses roots that may have been voles but the skinks do a number on the spoil I think. I made chicken wire cages for the other roses along the back fence where I have the skinks problem. I don't kill the skinks, voles yes skinks no. ;)
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Dear friends, thank you so much for your continued, kind and thoughtful support. Still giving thought to the fence idea, my husband does not want to make such a fast decision on this. But he does see my plight. We are kind of helpless if these animals keep coming mercilessly by night and by day. I was going into a panic buying mode and thanks to your differing and experienced input I am going about it more circumspectly. One of the areas I am growing will not be fence-ble and I will have to find an alternate method for that zone. bcomplx and exmar: Thank you! I looked up the sprinkler system. It looks like a very good idea. Some say it is a little flimsy and a lot of additional plumbing (washers, gaskets) is necessary to secure leaks. Did you find this to be true? Would I need to do that? There is another brand, orbit : http://www.amazon.com/Orbit-62100-Enforcer-Activated-Sprinkler/dp/B009F1R0GC/ref=pd_sim_86_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1KH10HRMMNPYZMFQ6493 Some say the orbit is a little sturdier and comes with a built in timer. This should work too right? And at what height would you stand it for skunks and raccoons? I wouldn't want water to miss them. I will return the above gizmos, I think they won't work. Thanks for that advice. Lot of you are trapping the animals. I wouldn't know how to that. And even if I learned, what would I do if I caught any???? We are not allowed to kill anything other than mice and rats where I am. And this morning I see squirrels have started going for the eggplants and few remaining peppers. WHAT do I DO?? Thanks, K.
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animaltracks
16 years ago
forgot you wanted to know the predator.... hard to tell from the picture, is that soil around them? and are their heads missing?
animaltracks
16 years ago
sorry three responses haha... didn't see the bottom two pictures. Apparently the scroll feature is not over-rated.

Thanks for posting this, I am not 100% confident on what the predator is and wish I had the opportunity to see it in person. My best guess is a weasel... I don't know where you are from but I'm assuming least weasel to be able to fit into the vole's burrow. Weasels have an innate instinct to kill as much prey as possible if the opportunity arises. The reason they do this is because they have a high metabolism and take the protein as they can. If they have excess food they will sometimes only eat the brains or in most cases they will store the food for a later time. Fishers also make food caches and a few others in the weasel family.

I believe this picture shows a weasel's "cache." I don't think the weasel will come back and finish off the vole family because i'm sure some bird or insect will get at them first (especially because it seems like you live in a pretty warm area). Still... it may...

Pretty awesome find and it seems like you found a natural pest control! no more trapping!
User
16 years ago
Carrion beetles ... they burrow under the dead animal and lay eggs, and as the larvae feed the animal "sinks" into the soft dirt where the larvae are. Something the size of a rat can vanish in a few days.
animaltracks
16 years ago
I am 100% sure nothing about this story has to deal with carrion beetles and other invertebrate. I am pretty sure the poster wanted to know two things

1: if the dead things are "rats"- which they are not, they are voles.
2: and what killed the voles- and this was most likely a weasel
User
16 years ago
animaltracks ... the OP said, "First, please forgive me for killing these rats."

They may have been mis0identified, but the cause of death was not weasels.
animaltracks
16 years ago
yes you are right. thanks!
kimmiea
16 years ago
I think animaltracks is right. We had a really similar problem with weasels. I guess that's why they got their name (dumb joke, I know). We really did have a problem like that. Just try to treat it as such, and see what happens to appear in your live trap!

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What burrowing animal would do this? Shrew, skink

Comments (9)

animaltracks

jean001

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