AAAGH A RAT!

[Cassi&Charlie]

Oh no, we have a rat! Our hay is in the garage and a rat has gotten into the garage. What should I do? Do I have to ditch the whole bale? We bought the bale yesterday and noticed the rat before we got the bale but we had some sort of total mental blank until just before when I suddenly went ‘hay + rat = BAD.

So can we keep the bale or do we just get rid of the whole thing? How do you keep rats away from hay? I feel so terrible because I don’t know how long it’s been there for so it might have been eating the bunny hay for weeks for all I know.

[jerseygirl]

Eew, gosh I don’t know. Play it safe and get new hay? It could carry disease I guess or even be nesting in there. Do you get rats around your area or do you think it could have come with the hay previously? Maybe get some more and donate what you have to be used as mulch. Is it a big bale? You could take the top and bottom layers off and use the middle part if it doesn’t look disturbed.

[Lightchick]

Poor Cassi…can you do me a favor, though? When you try to get rid of the rat, can you try not to kill it? I had pet rats as a kid, and think they’re really sweet…I know the wild ones can carry disease, but no use in torturing the poor thing that didn’t choose to be a plague-bearer, right?

[Cassi&Charlie]

LC, I’m having a problem here lol cause I’m vegan and I can’t even willingly kill a mosquito so I definitely can’t kill a rat so I’m not sure how to make it go away. I’m going to get rid of all food sources and try to make it move out to somewhere with a better food source, hopefully that works. I’m also going to make it hard for the rat to find somewhere to hide by getting rid of a lot of stuff in the garage.

[Lightchick]

I’ve never exactly had to deal with this issue…aren’t there devices that emit out-of-our-hearing-range noises that rats don’t like? Has anyone used those before?

(I’m glad you don’t want to kill poor ratty! He just wants a home, too!)

[Cassi&Charlie]

I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks like this…my parents always tell me that if I should apply the same compassion I have for animals to humans, but I think animals need our compassion as much, or more than humans do! If they ever met K&K they wouldn’t know what to do LOL! Maybe she could rub off on them in the right way, like she has with Dave

[hooty22]

You can always try a live trap, or call an exterminator. As someone who ran an exterminator office for a summer, I know the exterminators get pissed at people that don’t want poisons or other tools used that will kill the rats, but I know they have live traps.

[xParadise]

I also worked in a pest control office for a summer, and yes they do have humane traps. Basically a cage with a “one-way door” that traps the rat, which is later freed. You can even rent these traps. All you need to do is put some peanut butter in a dish inside the trap (at least that’s what they used to do, I don’t know if peanut butter is harmful to rats or not..) – and give him some water in there too, just in case he’s in there for a while before you notice
Hiring someone to do it is pretty expensive, it’s a lot cheaper to do it yourself..

[hooty22]

That is very true. It’s super expensive. Which is why when people would call about such things as fleas, I would tell them to wash everything that they can, move everything that is living out of the house, and go buy however many cans of flea bomb that are needed for the square footage of the house. The exterminators hated the actual bug jobs because the money was in the mold….

[xParadise]

We did TONS of bug jobs- wasps, ants, cockroaches.. especially BEDBUGS. Ickk.
I’m just glad I didn’t have to go out and do it myself.. I would be scratching for a week! Haha.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I would probably ditch the hay, just because I’m extremely anal about my hay, but I’m not sure if it would be bad or not. I’m glad your not gonna kill the rat. I think it’s so wrong to kill an animal because he inconvenienced a human! I find rats pretty darn cute. The stable where I work keeps bowls full of rat poison cubes around the barn and I have tried many times to get rid of them but they won’t let me. The good news is, I think the rats are too smart to eat the stuff. I never see dead rats or pieces missing from the cubes.

[MimzMum]

I agree with the live trap idea. You should be able to get one from a humane society or some such, and perhaps they can take care of the rat without killing it. No point in causing harm to another creature who just wants to survive too. But I wouldn’t keep the hay if you’re not sure how long the rat has been in it. Even if you’ve gotten away without any incident so far, there’s no guarantee you’ll continue to have that luck.
What kind of container do you keep the hay in? Did it chew through a plastic bin or something?

[Cassi&Charlie]

the hay is in a wire box made of NIC cubes (those things are so darned handy). I know it can’t get through he bars so I just ditched the outer layers like JG suggested because i had only bought the hay the day before so it couldn’t have done too much damage. I know the rat was in the garage before we put the hay in there (I just had a bad case of absolute memory loss and put the hay in the garage anyway for a night).

The hay is now in my bathroom, which isn’t fantastic for my allergies but makes the whole house smell like a farm … And I know there is no way the rat can get into the house!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

We have no rats in Alberta…they’re apparently illegal (tell the rats that?)

Yes, maybe for safety sake, get rid of the hay…you could compost it maybe?

[BunnyLiz]

I agree in getting rid of the hay, just in case. Better to be safe then sorry lol. My rats hate hay, not even as bedding material. They much prefer their soft fleece blankets. Throw a fleece blanket outside of the shed and the rat will surely move on to the blanket lol. Glad to hear your not planning on killing it. I read the subject and thought oh no.. maybe i shouldnt read this lol. But wild rats are a lot different then my domestic babies i suppose.

[Cassi&Charlie]

I may be preaching…I am preaching lol…but all animals have the right to life! Even feral rats…I’d make the worst conservationalist!

[LittlePuffyTail]

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement.

[MimzMum]

No need to worry about the validity of your conservationist ideas, C&C. Nature, if left to it’s own devices, takes care of it’s own. It’s actually the intervention of humans that tends to tip the balance. imo.

[Moonlight_Wolf]

This might be kind of strange, but we once had a rat in our basement, I did not see it, but my mom did, and the first thing I said when she told me was, “Was it cute!” I was actually exited about having a rat in the basement. Weird huh? I seem to like all critters.

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