Rats!

[[An...]]

As if finding 2 giant snakes coming up through our toilets last year wasn't bad enough, spotting a giant rat tucking into a piece of bread in the kitchen was enough to drive my benzo mind over the edge!  You could have heard my screams 10 miles away!

 

We now have a giant rat trap cage in the garden and 2 mouse traps around the kitchen as mice have been having a nibble or two in the larder!

 

One giant rat was tempted into the cage with some bread smothered in peanut butter or peanut jelly (?) as you Americans call it?  He met his fate in a bucket of deep water - we discovered rats can't swim :)

The cage is back again with fresh provisions to catch new family members tonight I hope.

 

And I have broken my finger in that darn mouse trap as I tried to change the bait.  I am sure some mice somewhere are having a right old giggle.

 

Who said life in Spain is dull??!

 

How was your day?

 

Angel

:)

 

[[Su...]]

Rats  ??   

 

I didn't need to hear about a rat.  I have been worring about a ghost mouse in my garage. No signs of a mouse....but I will be setting a trap for him, anyway.

A rat would freak me out !!!!  So sorry you had to deal with snakes and rats....and breaking your finger.

 

Kill all those nasty RATS  !!! 

 

Sunny girl

 

[[Ta...]]

Awww, (((Angel)))...all I can say is well, yuck!  Sorry you have to deal with that now.  I hope your finger isn't too painful.

 

[[An...]]

Thanks for your posts Sunny Girl and Tamzo 

 

No-one in the traps yet ... they will come  :laugh:

[[...]]

Hi Angel!

I'm guessing you don't have a cat? 

Seriously, rodents will vanish quickly (as in a couple of days!) when there's a feline around.

 

 

 

[[te...]]

I have several cats. They have caught a few mice and ate the head---ick!!! they left the bodies for me!! now, if they see one, they look at me as if to say,..." are you kidding me??? I get Whiskas, Friskies, Kit-n-Kaboodle, etc...what would I want a mouse for?"

[[An...]]

Cwj

 

Funny you should say that but there are plenty of street cats in the area. I also have a Jack Russell dog who is a 'ratter'. However where we live in Spain, our house backs onto a huge wasteland and the rats come in from there. It's unusual for them to come into the garden or the house especially with the dog.  So we will leave the traps permanently.

 

Not pleasant!

[[An...]]

Lol Teacher!!!

[[gr...]]

Honestly, we tried the rat traps and they kept coming back. Then we got a cat and the problem was solved.

[[An...]]

My dog hates cats though.  There is a big cat problem here in Spain - there are loads of street cats living wild - so hungry, so thin. Very sad. Some of them hang around in next door's garden - I think they may be keeping the rats at bay as so far we haven't caught another.  There are probably hundreds of them living in the grassland that backs on to our house.

[[gr...]]

Where I live in America, volunteers pick up the stray cats and take them to a place which neuters them and then lets them go. I guess they think it would be too cruel to kill them, but by neutering them, it reduces the number of new cats that are born.

[[Su...]]

How is the rat population ?   

Are you concerned that your little dog might get causht in the traps ?  That is really sad about the cats starving there in Spain.  Surely they will eat all those nasty rats running about...and solve the problem.

[[gr...]]

We tried those sticky traps to catch mice. One time a mouse just had his foot caught. I felt so sorry for him that I helped him get free. After that we started using that blue crystal poison. They eat it and they die a few days later so you usually don't have to see the bodies. It is dangerous for a small dog though.

One time we were watching TV and a mouse came out and walked leisurely through the room. It was actually really cute - it had big eyes - it was a different breed than the kind you usually see.

The worst thing was when a bat got into the house - that was scary.

When my cat left us a mouse body, it was usually on the front mat. I think my cat considered it a present for me.

[[An...]]

This is turning into a funny thread isn´t it?  :laugh:

 

Hey Green

 

We do have Good Samaritans who collect and neuter the cats and return them but the trouble is there are so many of them all over, and they are forever breeding, it´s impossible to deal with them all.  I rescued a stray starving kitten and kept him in a little house I made for him on top of the garage which we had to access via a ladder as the dog wouldn´t let him off the roof.  I fed him and tamed him and he was so sweet.  But after a few months he started to wander,  impregnated his lady friend and I suddenly found about 20 cats and kittens living on my roof.  I had to buy a cage and tempt the original cat in there with food and we took him to the rescue centre where we had to PAY them to take him in.  His fate was probably not a happy one but a humane one. Then the other cats disappeared into the streets.  Sad 

 

I loved your story of the mouse in the house with the cute eyes and of the one trapped by one paw on sticky tape.  Aww.  I would have released him too.  I would have DIED if I`d seen a bat though - they are one animal I am absolutely terrified of.

 

Sunny Girl, no, no more rats yet - I was also thinking of using the sticky tape but after reading Green´s story won´t bother.  Don´t worry, the traps are well out the way of the dog though I have broken a bone in my finger from changing bait in a mouse trap.  :'(

 

Happy Days !

[[An...]]

Mrs Rat caught today 

[[gr...]]

Glad to hear you caught Mrs. Rat. So sorry about your finger.

I saw a movie once that had a scene where a bird got stuck on one of the sticky traps, so the guy tried to take the bird to the vet to get it removed, and when he was driving the bird flew up and the sticky trap got stuck on his face. It was hilarious, but I could imagine it really happening.

A wild cat had kittens and kept them in a tree outside my daughter's house. The kittens fell out of the tree so my daughter brought them into the house. Then the mother cat started meowing at the door, so my daughter gave her back the kittens. The cat took them back up the tree and two of them fell out again. This time my daughter didn't give them back. One of them died. The other one I have adopted. We got him before his eyes were opened and we fed him with a bottle. I thought that he would be extra tame because we got him at such a young age, but he isn't very loving. That might be due to the fact that our other cat didn't appreciate having him join the family, though.

A funny thing about this cat: when he was very little we kept him isolated from our other cat. In the room where we were raising him, I had a baby rabbit that I gotten a short while before. We let the two run around the room and play together. Often the cat would chew on the rabbit's neck and the rabbit would just sit there patiently taking the abuse. It didn't seem to hurt the rabbit so I continued to allow them to play together. Then once the cat got big enough I introduced him to the rest of the house and the yard. About a year later I was fed up with the destruction the rabbit was causing in the house, so I moved him outside. He was a dwarf rabbit, not more than 6 inches in length. As soon as he saw the cat, who was probably 5 times his size, he chased him. The cat was terrified. A few times the rabbit bit him and drew blood. So I guess he got his payback.

One more thing about the rabbit: he fell in love with my golden retriever. He followed him all over the yard. When my dog got in the pool, the rabbit would ride on his back.

Another sad story: every year for several years, a bird built a nest on our sloped roof. Every time the eggs rolled right off the roof and broke.

[[...]]

Wow, Green!  

Your posts in this thread are both funny and sad at the same time!    

 

I've never needed to use a mouse/rat trap, but if I did I'd definitely go with the non-sticky ones.

 

 

[[An...]]

I love your posts too Green!  I can visualise the rabbit chasing your cat, and your cat riding on your labrador's back.

 

Our Jack Russell is a ratter as I said.  When I was in the acute withdrawal stage of my w/ds, practically dying in my bed lol, my husband walked him, and stopped to chat to a neighbour.  The dog was off the lead and ran into the neighbour's garden to play.  After a short while, this neighbour asked hubby where the dog was and my husband  said he was in the garden.  The neighbour went white with shock and shouted "the guinea pig! the guinea pig!" and dashed off.  He returned a few moments later with a bloodied and dead guinea pig in a plastic bag.  He said his children would be devasted so my husband told him not to worry, he would get him a new one.

 

He and the dog came into the bedroom.  At first I thought something terrible had happened to the dog as his mouth was all  bloodied but then my husband explained the dog had killed a guinea pig.  He asked me where we could buy a guinea pig - as you know we have recently moved to Spain.  I had no idea.  I didn't even know how to say the word in Spanish.  I looked it up - its "cobayo" in case you are interested!

 

My anxiety seriously soaring now, I checked on the net and found a pet shop about 25 miles away.  Called them up.  Yes they had a cobayo.

Ok.  Off he went.  Eventually returns real angry.  He had found the shop, chosen a guinea pig, taken it to the neighbour and the neighbour's wife had told him she didn't want another guinea pig, she was glad it was dead, the children didn't look after it etc etc and it was good it died that way as it would only have ended up with some illness!

 

Jeez!  This poor guinea pig was sitting in its cardboard box in the back of my husband's car. What to do?  I told him he would have to take it back to the shop.  He was real pissed off by this stage.  Anyway he took it back.  The woman in the shop told him she couldn't take an animal back!!  So he told her that if she wouldn't take it back, he was going to open its box and let the creature run around in the shop as there was no way he was keeping it!!  So she relented.  This poor guinea pig had been here there and everywhere only to end up in the same place he started off from!!  He must have been terrified, poor thing!!!

 

This story has nothing to do with rats!  Sorry!!

 

Angel 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[gr...]]

I have a guinea pig story too...

The first pet I bought for my children was a guinea pig. My daughter had a friend who had a female guinea pig and they thought it would be neat to mate them, so we put the two guinea pigs together. They had three babies. Guinea pig babies are adorable because they are born with hair. We left the happy family together. Five weeks later, all three babies were pregnant. The father had no morals and I didn't know that guinea pigs that young could get pregnant. So we ended up with 19 guinea pigs! There is probably not a creature in the world more timid than a guinea pig. That guinea pig probably didn't even try to run from your dog.

It is a shame that your neighbor and his wife didn't talk to each other before your husband went to all that trouble. That was very rude of her. Do you still talk to them?

 

 

 

[[An...]]

I have a guinea pig story too...

The first pet I bought for my children was a guinea pig. My daughter had a friend who had a female guinea pig and they thought it would be neat to mate them, so we put the two guinea pigs together. They had three babies. Guinea pig babies are adorable because they are born with hair. We left the happy family together. Five weeks later, all three babies were pregnant. The father had no morals and I didn't know that guinea pigs that young could get pregnant. So we ended up with 19 guinea pigs! There is probably not a creature in the world more timid than a guinea pig. That guinea pig probably didn't even try to run from your dog.

It is a shame that your neighbor and his wife didn't talk to each other before your husband went to all that trouble. That was very rude of her. Do you still talk to them?

 

 

 

 

Love your story Green  :laugh:  19 guinea pigs    What did you do with all of them?

 

My neighbour stuck a note in the mail box outside our house telling us not to bother getting a new guinea pig after my husband had already left.  That wasn't much good as we didn't think of checking the mail box and I wasn't in any state to go outside.  They should have rung the bell.

 

Yes, we are still friends - they are lovely Danish couple - I think we are the guiltier party in this story, it was our dog who killed their pet.

 

Angel

[[gr...]]

We put an ad up on a bulletin board at a store offering them for free to a good home. We lived way out in the country, so the people had to drive at least a half hour one way to reach us. One of the people who took one of our guinea pigs was the most unlikely person. He was a Goth teenager - dressed entirely in black - looking a little scary. His guinea pig, who he had clearly loved, had died and he was heartbroken. When he picked up his new guinea pig, he was so gentle with it, we knew it was going to a good home.

We got two more cages and kept some of them. I can't remember exactly how many, but I think we had 5 or 6. This was many years ago, and they are all dead now, but I think they had a good life. When we lived in the country, I would go on daily walks collecting the weeds I knew they would like to eat. Later, I bought lettuce every week even if we weren't having a salad, so they would have a treat. We usually left the cages open during the day after we moved to the suburbs but they rarely wanted to come out. My daughter used them for a science project, trying to see if they could see color, which apparently they can. They were all sweet and cuddly, but not very bright, except for one of the girls.

When I got my rabbit years later, I expected him to be a lot like the guinea pigs, but he wasn't. He was fearless. He didn't realize how small he was. We were lucky that he fell in love with the dog because the dog kept him safe. He was the same size as the dog's muzzle. That dog was so patient. He let that rabbit crawl all over him and never complained.

My mother-in-law used to have a Jack Russell. It killed my sister-in-law's cat. They are tiny dogs but they are tough. When my Golden Retriever was a puppy, we went on vacation and left him with my mother-in-law and her Jack Russell. Even as a puppy, my dog was bigger than hers, but he was much more gentle. He was a little afraid of the Jack Russell.

My dog never hurt anything except by accident. Once when we were still in the country he found a nest of wild baby rabbits and carried them carefully in his mouth back to the house. We couldn't return them to the nest because we didn't know where it was, so we bottle fed them until they were old enough to be on their own.

My dog is 13 years old and now has arthritis. I am thankful for every day he is still with us.

[[An...]]

I love your stories Green - do keep them coming.

 

My Jack Russell is a real character - I fell in love with his photograph on a rescue home website and although the home was miles away from where we lived, I knew I just HAD to have him.  We had just lost our other beloved dog and I couldn´t function without a dog.  My husband was dead against getting another one, at least not immediately, but on Billy´s first night with us, he snuggled up behind my husband on the sofa and that was it - the love match was formed.  In fact he is my husband´s "boy" more than mine.  There is a photo of Billy on the Pet thread.

 

Angel xx

 

PS No more rats or mice trapped yet

[[...]]

Haha, when I saw this topic I was thinking that it will be related to psychiatrists because in Russia we call bad people RATS!,,,,

 

I think one more thing to learn that rats are sometimes only rats

 

In Solomon islands there were such a scary rats around every single pile of garbage,,,,I heard they were eating small kittens and puppy's,,,,

 

Also everywhere you go you would see red marks on the ground, I was thinking that it was a sign of some fight that someone was bleeding, but then my husband explain that it was some kind of root that they were chewing and spitting,,,,they all had a rotten teeth from that damn opiated that they were chewing,,,,can't remember what is was called,,,,,

[[Ch...]]

Haha, when I saw this topic I was thinking that it will be related to psychiatrists because in Russia we call bad people RATS!,,,,

 

I think one more thing to learn that rats are sometimes only rats

 

In Solomon islands there were such a scary rats around every single pile of garbage,,,,I heard they were eating small kittens and puppy's,,,,

 

Also everywhere you go you would see red marks on the ground, I was thinking that it was a sign of some fight that someone was bleeding, but then my husband explain that it was some kind of root that they were chewing and spitting,,,,they all had a rotten teeth from that damn opiated that they were chewing,,,,can't remember what is was called,,,,,

 

I think that's maybe betel nuts?

[[...]]

yea  i just checked...you are right....so freaky,,,, :crazy: