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 !!! 

[Heather5]

Thank you for sharing this advice.  I just came in from my garden shed to find the rat or rats had helped themselves to a just opened packet of Ratsack!  I guess that's one that won't be eating any more of my passionfruit!

[pjturner2008]

I got mine from a toy shop but apparently KMart sells them at a much cheaper price although they are not as life-like.

[fptr69]

u can also paint their eyes so they glow in the dark and put one in your engine bay and one somewhere under your car 

that will keeps rats away that try to get warm and cause $1000's damage to your car as they will eat anything wiring upholstery etc etc

[EricL]

mich1972,

That is an excellent idea to keep rats at bay. They look so real when they are on your tree!  Have you seen those tip-in bucket traps on Youtube? But like you said, the rats are very smart and will probably avoid this trap as well. I think your rubber snakes are the way to go.    

Thanks for sharing that fantastic idea.

Eric

[pjturner2008]

I tried this on my red papaya trees as the rats have been having a field day on them. Unfortunately while it worked for a couple of weeks the rats just ignored them. I think they are much smarter than we give them credit for. They use the tops of the fences as a super highway and then climb up the trees. They also love to eat the lettuces. Any traps I have tried will catch a few but they soon learn to avoid them as well. I now use a triple layer of mesh bags and that seems to deter them a bit better but I am now finding they are chewing through all three layers.

[Jason]

Hi @fptr69,

Just wanted to extend my personal warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community and thank you for joining in the discussion. We are looking forward to seeing more of your posts soon. Please feel free to post anytime you need a hand from our clever and creative members, have a project to share, or have something to add to a discussion. 

Thanks again,

Jason

[Signerjack]

Got mine at a toy shop

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Signerjack. It's great to have you join us and many thanks for jumping into the discussion.

Got a picture of the snake and the garden is guarding?

We're keen to hear all about your projects and plans around the house and garden. Please reach out if you ever need assistance or have something you'd like to share. Our community is full of very knowledgeable members that are always willing to lend a hand.

Mitchell

[pjturner2008]

I was aware of this and when I had a rat problem amongst my Papaya trees I thought I would give it a go. Well it worked for about 2 weeks and then I found the snakes tossed from the trees and the rats again ate my fruit the moment it started ripening. I replaced them but the rats were smarter than me...lol

[RobPat]

@mich1972 

Did snakes protect your veggies from Rats? I’ve lost some Tomatoes all our corn, watermelons, Rockmelons, Butternut Pumpkins, now they’re starting on my Jarrahdales!! Ouch!! Soooo frustrating