Re: How to deter rats from your edibles

mich1972

Good morning Workshop Community Friends !!!!!!

If you are growing your own Edibles or you have a Chook Run or Bird Aviary, you will unfortunately have Rats and Mice hanging around and moving in. That’s life.

We have a problem with rats as we grow edibles and have chooks. Our Nextdoor neighbours have an aviary so the rats are living in luxury !

We have our cage trap set every night and we catch a few, but they are smart and start avoiding the cage. We also have a safe bait station that doesn’t cause secondary poisoning to pets. That works well.

But this is something I would love to share with you all is a Rat deterrent.

RUBBER SNAKES

We have a beautiful Pomegranate in our chook run that is loaded with fruits.
Unfortunately the rats were demolishing them. I had read about using rubber snakes as a deterrent and wanted to try it out. So I purchased a few rubber snakes and wrapped them around branches of the Pomegranate. This experiment has been running for nearly two months and I must say , the branches with fruits and snakes have NOT been touched at all !!
The higher up branches with no snakes the rats have eaten. We are really pleased to say we have saved some of our fruits and will be adding a few more snakes to the tree.

Once the Pomegranate has finished fruiting and goes fully dormant in Winter, we will be giving it a hard prune to control its growth and once it starts to set fruits again we will be ready for the snakes.

The rubber snakes come autumn winter will be transferred to our Edible No Dig Garden and we will see how they go deterring rats from our vegetables !!!

mich1972

Hi there @RobPat

Looking at your photos, I absolutely feel for you as it’s so frustrating to get your edibles that far and then they are destroyed either by Rats or Possums.

Since making this post I have added a few more rubber snakes 😆

They seem to be deterring the rats from my Pomegranate and Passionfruit.

I do have hidden bait as we have chickens as well so I must keep this under control, otherwise our neighbours won’t be happy.

With our vegetable edibles it’s been ok BUT guess what the rats have eaten and nearly demolished……. Our Chilli’s !!!!!!!!!! They eat ALL the flesh and leave the seeds 🤦‍♀️ madness. And unfortunately it’s against a wall which is their nightly pathway to destruction. So I want to purchase some more rubber snakes for both sections of the garden.
I’m not saying they repel 100% but they must be helping in some way as my pomegranate tree and Passionfruit are safe for now.

mich1972

RobPat

Thank you, omg Chilli!! That’s the last thing I’d expect them to eat. That black snake looks awfully realistic. I covered the pumpkins with hoops and netting, but it didn’t work. I’m wondering if it was physically netted in amidst the vines. It’s eaten some small green Jarrahdale pumpkins now. This afternoon our cat presented us with a Rat. I’m not getting my hopes up though.

EricL

Hi @RobPat

Have you considered using Jack 900mm x 5m 6.5 x 6.5mm Mouse Mesh and building like a square timber frame to protect it from vermin? Or is the plant too big for a cage? Mind you those rubber snakes look awfully real.

Eric

RobPat

Hi Eric, that’s a great idea. My dedicated veggie patch is really big. I have three separate round rainwater tank beds and I plant amongst my garden beds too. Our pumpkins are in two seperate areas, but sprawl everywhere. It’s never been an issue in the past. If it continues into the future, enclosing the main veggie patch will be necessary. It’s extremely frustrating.

EricL

HI @RobPat

My mom has a small watermelon plantation patch in her backyard and the rats just gutted everything, all that was left were the outside husks of the watermelons. If you decide to proceed with building the cage, please let us know. We'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Eric