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Do I need to worry about the rat in my garden?

itsueyitsuey Posts: 42
in Wildlife gardening
I spent half an hour the other morning watching a small rat bounding back and forth across my garden, but when I told my friends I'd called him Richard I was told to call an exterminator. But he's not in my house, he's under the oil tank, he doesn't come up to the house that I've seen, unlike the rabbits, but we do live within 10m of a river so I'm somewhat concerned about wiles disease.

Do I need to be worried? Is there a risk of disease spreading if we don't come in to direct contact with him? Or can I just leave him to his own devices because I'm quite happy to continue watching him being scared by tiny birds. 
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  • itsueyitsuey Posts: 42
    Apparently Richard has some friends; about 5 minutes after I wrote the original post I went to look at the back garden and found two rats on my bird feeder and one nosing around my patio. Obviously Richard reported back that I wasn't going after him with a pitchfork and flaming torch so it was safe to come out. 
  • The Bald GardenerThe Bald Gardener Posts: 212
    Richard will have more than 'some' friends; this guy will have more friends nosing around your garden than a lottery winner has begging letters. haha


  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    I don't think you need worry about Weil's disease unless you swim in the river.
  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,355
    We all know that rats are everywhere - isn’t there some statistic about never being more than 2m from a rat? - Yet how often do we actually see them?

    The very fact that you can see 3 or 4 ‘playing’ or feeding in your garden suggests there is at least one (possibly more) family(ies) living near by. The bird feeders provide them with easy gourmet food every day.

    Rats carry disease. In my head there is noquestion that you need to stop feeding the birds and get somebody in to eradicate the vermin. If you don’t they will soon multiply. Come winter they will be looking for a warm and dry shelter. That could be your house. 

    Think on.
    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  • itsueyitsuey Posts: 42
    There's bits of bird food around the base of the bird feeder as the starlings like to swing on them and it all falls out, I reckon that's what's originally attracted them. I've buried vegetable scraps and tea bags in the flower beds as I don't have a compost bin but they don't seem to have any interest in those. 

    I'll see if I can find some sort of humane trap, I'd much rather gather them all up and release them on to the marsh than have them killed. But I'll obviously have to come up with another way of feeding the birds.
  • Daisy33Daisy33 Posts: 1,031
    @Topbird "isn’t there some statistic about never being more than 2m from a rat? "

    An urban myth apparently...ummm...thankfully. Glad to think I am further than 2m from a rat when I am sleeping on the second floor of my house. :s
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    In six years in my house and garden in London I have never seen a mouse or a rat - and I keep my eyes out for them. We have more cats on the street than people. It's no good for the birds, but hopefully it puts off the rodents. A bit.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Rats spread  Weil's Disease in their urine ... they dribble urine as they walk about your garden. 
    When I was at school a child in the next village caught it while playing in his garden. He died. 
    When I see rats in my garden I take action to get rid of them. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    I'm with Dove on this one. In recent years we have developed a view of 'Nature' that simply ignores the fact that some species are better kept apart and humans and rats fall into this category. The rats come to your garden because you feed them: this enables them to breed even more successfully than they normally do. The world does not need more rats so get an exterminator in to deal with them.
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    edited May 2018
    If you have him 'exterminated', more will turn up as long as there is a source of food. So try to stop leaving whatever food is bringing him in.

    I don't think you can really get rid of rats entirely, although it depends where you live, I suppose. I'm philosophical about the fact there are bound to be some around - and don't worry about it beyond always wearing gloves and being fastidious about hand washing and washing veg. But if I see them I do watch and see what they're eating and try to stop them. I only grow tulips in pots with chicken wire 'hats' because there was one rat that carefully excavated every tulip bulb in the garden and ran off with it (despite me swearing at him from the window quite a lot). I dig up my parsnips after the first frost and store them rather than leave them in the ground because rats were eating them (leaving a perfectly parsnip shaped hole in the ground behind :angry: ) 

    I don't call the exterminators in but I do try very hard not to encourage them
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
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