get yourself a cat. Mine has bought home as a gift LOL three ugly rats this summer. eeewwww. The disposal of them is a problem one must not put it in the garbage when there is a week to go before removal. ppphhheewww after some hot days. Now the paddock next door gets them. LOL. The other way to do it is get a hose down the hole and fill it up and when they come running keep the hose on them in the hole. I have drowned them this way too. But that isnt pleasent when your actually murdering them right there. I much prefer the cat to do it for me. Hes my hit man he he. Jan

Haa! I grew two lovely Qld blues last year up an Ivy next to the garden. When it came time to pick them I found a neat hole on the backside of each where the rats had entered and eaten all the seeds. Surgical terrorism!

I used some rat poison in a blue wax cube (can't remember the name, got it at Woolies) and nailed them to the bottom of a tennis ball can as I have heard that rats will collect and store excess food to eat later. Fixing the bait makes sure they eat it there and then. Might be wives tales, but I've had no more rat problems. Wear gloves if you have to touch the baits, they are nasty stuff.

the best bait is tomcat buy it from the produce agencies, that stuff they sell in the supermarkets is like lollies to them. but remember rats take longer to kill than mice do as more of the bait is needed to be consumed by them. but try it i think you'll find it works better keeps the bush rats in check up here. we buy the block one but their granular works just as well.

len

Adamus, I was reading that some people put out plaster of paris, they mixed some, I think it was icing sugar in it and left out a bowl of water, the plaster of paris sets in their insides, presto you have rat knomes, if you can't poop you die.

karn

Thanx everyone for the excellent death ideas for rodenta pissmeoffa. I can't wait to try them all. I love a bit of overkill. And to think I was once a Buddhist. Oh well, things change, move on.

Sorry to rain on your parade, as usual, but - even if you use some (or all!) of the methods described above (and not forgetting that some deaths can be more painful than others) you won't have solved the problem as more rats will appear. They usually live in groups (we once caught a whole family in a repeating trap: mum, dad and 2 kids; the 2 other siblings followed the next night) and unless you destroy their lair (which, looking at the damage they did to one of my gardens, can extend for metres in all directions) and dispose of its occupants, the problem will repeat itself.

Better to use a live trap daily for a while and dispose of them or relocate them somewhere else. Or, in the case of corn, protect the cobs by a barrier like fly-screen mesh or metallic tape.
Rose-Marie

How about a Jack Russell terrier!! LOL It would get the raus but do just as much damage!! My cat has always been too lazy to chase even mice. Does the local council have any policy for killing rats? It is icing sugar with plaster of paris. I tried everything with my mice, even sulphur from the chemist mixed with a bit of meat and left in a safe place. But as solanum says, unless the nest is eradicated, they just come back.

Come on you wouldn't want to relocate them, they are full of disease, far out, kill the buggers.

yes i go with the kill them view hopefully they'll die in the garden soils and become fertiliser. if you use live traps (expensive they are) then you need to drown the critter people find that less palatable, never relocate they probably will return then. you will find they are breeding somewhere else and populating any gardens in your neighbourhood.

our rats come from the next door property because their animal husbandry ethics are very low (stink the better word) so they prolifiacte there than come over here. oh no need to destroy the nest hole when rats return they will just dig a new one anyway. just keep the tomcat baits (best to mix baits up a bit use 1 brand then another get them from the produce agents supermarket baits are lollies to them) going as they run out so you kill the critters before they build a home. it takes a while for a few days for a rat to die from bait mice go much quicker. if you get them early you won't have any breeding going on, won't stop them from coming tho' you will have to find their breeding ground.

len dealing with rodent control and prevention 24/7.

Yay, got my first poisoned one. tried all the baits, one at a time. Couldn't work out what the smell was, and then I stood on it. I didn't realise they would liquify so quickly, it was only one hot day. I'm such a squealer, I got the lady next door to scoop it up and throw it in the bin. We were both hyperventilating. She was mumbling something about the man of the house, and I was hoping not too many maggots would drop off in my garden.
Only three to go now, but I think we got the big one.
The body was 8 or 9 inches long, very well fed too. except for the poison that is.

lol, adamus, I can't even stand the look of them, yukkkk, even on the telly I can't even stand to look at them, the filthy buggers, ours come from the place accross the way, kids throwing bits of food around and not cleaning up, so they decide to nest in my garden and go back and feed at their place, dam it. I get my bait from the Council each week for free, they change it around from time to time, keep baiting Adamus, you will get on top of them eventually.

Only three to go, I might use a hammer. So much more satisfying to manually despatch an introduced species. Ah Bliss.

could this catch a rat LOL
http://www.mcxnet.ch/screenclean/