The great opportunists

The average rat likes to live close to humans, reports Charlie Wilkins.

Gardeners are better qualified than most to play detective. Their habits are slow and observant. They are usually well placed to watch comings and goings over the garden fence or to notice strangers through open French windows.

They are not however, busy-bodies, but they do inhabit a world where the observance of a benign and gentle movement could just as easily be a portent of more serious matters. Take garden pests as an example, especially rodents which are now on the move.

Harvest time is the annual trumpet call for rats living in the open. And as produce is gathered into barns and outbuildings, they follow with great enthusiasm. Once the grains have been gathered and stored, the grey rat, (the greatest survivor in history) will invade under floor spaces, inhospitable nooks and crannies and even under rubbish or rubble which may be lying about.

Anywhere that provides a safe, dry, and secure hide will become a home for rats and their families in winter. Gardeners and householders beware!

I broach the subject of rats this morning in view of what experts have recently told us about their eating habits.

In towns and cities the common rat no longer favours grain, but turns readily to our most common snack food; take-away suppers and their discarded remains. Fatty chips and the gristle bones of cooked chickens make a far more tempting meal it seems than a stomach full of bland oats.

Because rats and mice are so devious, cautious, and stealth-like you’re unlikely ever to see them until they build up into sizeable numbers. However, many will notice their droppings and see their runs long before then.

On farms, look for regular rat runs between food and nest sites and for tracks in mud or dust. In homes and outbuildings, look for greasy smears on walls down low for rats like to press their bodies against supports as they run.

In the open, be observant and look for signs of nests in earthen banks, under rock piles, discarded lengths of timber, dry rubbish, and especially in compost heaps which are badly made, poorly maintained, and never turned.

The world’s greatest survivors can live where you and I would almost certainly perish. Intelligent and adaptable, they can swim, climb walls, jump obstacles and smartly chew their way through concrete, plastic, and most forms of building material.

Extremely sociable, they live in colonies of up to several hundred and because they need to drink every day, they always nest and live close to water.

Rats (and mice) become active at night using the cover of darkness to feed on their favourite foods.

Unlike rats, mice do not need to drink, getting enough moisture from their food on a daily basis. It has often been stated that it is not the amount of food that rats consume that makes them a pest, but the food they spoil and leave behind.

Every year rats and mice contaminate foodstuffs worth millions of euro along with damaging farm buildings, homes and dwellings. Worse still, they spread disease, including salmonella and brucellosis among livestock.

Control these pests with the likes of ‘Storm’ bait. Pellets are best laid under pieces of old guttering and other ‘hides’ for in that way the rodents feel safe and the bait itself won’t deteriorate.

Rodents feeding on this will usually die within five days and a second application after seven days will target new rats.