Lori, Our previous garden was a downtown location about six blocks from the water and we had RATS and I do mean rats! They were giants that were sometimes as long as your arm when you included their tails. Our solution (in good fun) was to trap them with a hav-a-heart spring trap. We would then give the rats a ride to a much nicer neighborhood and release them.
Of course, rats are a wild animal and you have to have a permitt to have them in your possession. In all seriousness, you didn't mention that snakes would eat the posioned rats and die. We had this happen on a couple of occassions when area bussiness called the rat exterminator. The snakes (corn snakes, red rat snakes, and several of the black snakes) did a pretty good job of keeping the rat population under control. They (the snakes) are harmless and beneficial to boot. Corn snakes can sometimes be found in pet stores that specialize in reptiles. We grew so fond of the snakes that we named them and moved several of them when we had to relocate our garden. (We couldn't really tell them apart, the names referred to their breed and size. The names also lessened the startle factor when you found a snake in an unexpected location and were much nicer than the profanities that we yelled before we came up with names.) Barbara Powell Harris Orange Blossom Community Garden Sarasota, Florida -----Original Message----- From: lori <[email protected]> To: community_garden <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, Jul 21, 2010 6:39 pm Subject: [Community_garden] Rats in our Garden A year ago at this time our garden was just a big empty field, so it's ot a surprise that we have rats. Especially given all the yummy food rowing in it now. But obviously, we'd like to NOT have them. Has nyone else had to deal with this critter? We don't want to use poison because we're an organic garden, have hildren in the garden, and the fact that if a hawk or owl eats the rat fter it's eaten the poison, the bird would also be poisoned. Glue traps seem rather torturous, but I suppose they could be an option. I do worry about catching a bird or other animal accidentally though. Snap traps are also a possibility, as long as they are beneath a wire age to avoid springing on children's fingers, birds, toads, etc. Have any of these been effective for anyone? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance! Lori Ferris arden Manager nity Park Community Garden ound Rock, TX ww.UnityParkCG.org ______________________________________________ he American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's ervices to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out ow to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20100721/a9f84549/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
