Hello,
We were away all through January, and came back this week to find a burrow as pictured. We are not sure what it could belong to and are unsure how to safely manage this without harming the animal and/or ourselves.
Any advice appreciated
Brown rat, I reckon.
We get them in our garden. Between us, our cat and I have dispatched 15 of the blighters since September 2023. They travel from local woods and along a drainage ditch. They are prodigious diggers.
Get yourself some heavy duty break-back traps -big things, not the weedy things that look like oversized mouse traps. Also some decent rat poison - I use the blue cubes, but make sure you also get a suitable rat bait container. Don't just sprinkle the bait all over the place.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
Thanks Angus! We are relatively new to UKso this helps, I will look into it. Question though - How should one dispose of these blighters once you have their back broken?
In the bin - also I would plead not to use poison as it can disperse into the wider environment and get into the birds of prey and foxes as they pick off sluggish rodents
Cin J
If my break back trap got a rat, I would leave it in the middle of our garden for either red kites or foxes to take away and eat.
If I am unsure whether poison or break back trap got a rat, then I would put it in bin; as Cin J suggested.
This is the model of break back trap I use.
Roshield large heavy duty rat trap
Note. Rats are quick to learn. They will avoid trap if they have a nasty experience with it i.e. it's triggered, but the rat avoids being caught because it's reactions are so quick.
That's why I use poison blocks as a back up - with the provisos that a) you need a proper bait station to house the poison blocks, and b) the rat is disposed off in a bin.
Oh, if you see one rat there is every possibility there are several. Also, rats cache food. So you might seen poison blocks disappear but rats are still sighted. Eventually, though, they will eat the poison and die - provided they do not have resistance to the poison. Some do.
Make sure your garden doesn't have a food source for rats e.g. bird food dropped from a table, compost heap rats can get into, etc. My bird feeder has been designed to keep 99% of bird food in it. The 1% that does drop on to the grass is immediately eaten by birds leaving little if nothing for rats.
If rats aren't caught in rat traps or poisoned, then I'm afraid is hiring pest control people. They have a larger arsenal of rat disposal equipment which 'should' work. Though, once they get rid of any rats in your garden, there is no saying others wont come back - which is why I invested in traps and the like. 15 months and counting of me and my cat (plus others that visit our garden) disposing of rats.
You could get a trail camera, relatively affordable these days..just to confirm.
If it's rat you'll find droppings, other holes & clear paths as they are creatures of habit.
I control them on our farm using traps, air rifle & terrier's. Too many people react with poison as first choice ️
Thanks for the suggestions.
As an update, I have not been able to notice any further movement whenever I checked. I had put most of the dirt back in to the hole, very lightly, as to see if the animal would burrow the hole again.
Its been now couple of weeks, and it hasn't been dug up at all. May be we had one coming in to test, but decided to not stay!