Rat in fish pond

Jenny128 · June 2023

Hi,
We have noticed lately that there are holes in the net covering our fish pond which we put over to stop herons eating the fish. At first we thought the holes were caused by magpies eating the floating fish food. However, yesterday we saw a rat in the water which has obviously been eating the food and destroying the net. Any ideas how to prevent this please?

dappledshade · June 2023

Get a cat. Mine are prolific mousers 😈

Slow-worm · June 2023

I assume your pond isn't massive if you can net it? A couple of deterrents: You could try putting a length of string around the edge, after dipping it in camphor oil - obviously that would need refreshing regularly especially if it rains. If you have any mothballs you could dot them around the edges.
If you have a man in the house, get him to pee around the pond - probably best when there's nobody to witness it, lol!
Move things around by the pond, or put out sticks, rocks, pots or whatever - rats apparently don't like changing environments once they've got a regular route.
Could you feed the fish at a different time of day, or do more feeds with a smaller amount, so it gets eaten quickly each time?

AnnaB · June 2023

Sorry that I cant help you but this has a memory come flooding back for me. We have a huge wild life pond (small lake) here and many years ago we had quite a few Muscovy ducks plus our resident JR terriers. We also had rats swimming in the pond occasionally. The ducks used to chase the rats out of the pond, pecking them if they could get hold of them. The JR's soon caught on to this game and took to the water with great gusto. So now, picture the rat swimming for its life, followed by two JR's followed by a line of ducks all creating quite a bow wave between them. This line up would continue round the pond until the rat managed to make its way up a bank only to be dispatched quickly by the JR's on its tail. The whole circus would then start again hunting for more prey. It did not take long before the rats decided to leave the area and look for pastures new. It's interesting how different species of animals can work together when needed.

Fairygirl · June 2023

I think you need to take steps to get rid of the rat @Jenny128 - whether by tackling it yourself, or getting professionals/council etc in to do it.
There are traps available, but you need to follow the info correctly, and certainly don't catch them and take them somewhere else to release, as someone recently on the forum thought would be acceptable

Fairygirl · August 2023

amelia2watson.1992nbgt6qJD said:

Arrange cat for those rats!

Hmmm.....don't think so.....

barry island · August 2023

Just put enough food in that the fish can eat in 10 minutes don't leave food floating on the top for hours at a time.

Allotment Boy · August 2023

Metal mesh on a frame rather than ordinary netting. I agree, tho take steps to eliminate the rat.

christopherstan.mr1.2.1.98429072 · September 2023

That's a bit of a pest problem! Rats can be sneaky. You might want to try rat traps or bait stations near the pond, and maybe reinforce the netting with something tougher. Hope that helps keep your fish safe!

NormandyLiz · September 2023

And the bad news is that you've probably not got 'a rat'. They're very sociable animals and more often than not if you've got one, you've got several. If you go down the bait/trap route, don't forget to keep it up for a couple of weeks.

The other thing that's important is hygiene, you and your neighbours. Anything that's possible rat food needs to be stored so they can't get in - fish/bird food, kitchen waste, etc.

Personally, unless the problem gets worse, I would go down the hygiene/stronger netting (e.g. chicken wire) route. Baiting can mean inadvertently poisoning something else, and it's a horrid death. As a last resort ok, but I'd try reducing their access to food first.

Rat in fish pond

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