Thread: Rats..... a first time for everything

Its not my first run in with rats in the bush that's for sure

A $390 pair of boots in Te Urewera that they thought might be tasty.


A $400 Bill Nikl Knife set. Again in the rat infested Te Urewera


But I do fight back, with some bonus results

Originally Posted by Maxx

Covered by insurance?

AMI covered us when they made nest in the wiring loom of ours.
The Taupo Toyota guys said they had a brand RAV4come in, that the rat damage was $4k

Some them arent very kittle either.
During a job at Wairango station many years ago our crew was staying in the filthiest sheares quarters in the world. Lots of big rats in there. The biggest we killed in there measured 18 inches nose to tail !

I hate the bastards and have waged war on them most of my life. The last one I killed with the steel poop scoop that I pick up the dog shit with.

They have just started to appear again in my garden. About now every year.

Originally Posted by Woody

Some them arent very kittle either.
During a job at Wairango station many years ago our crew was staying in the filthiest sheares quarters in the world. Lots of big rats in there. The biggest we killed in there measured 18 inches nose to tail !

and the Managers wife is still missing her mini sausage dog lol ( sorry could not help a joke )

Hope he’s still not hiding in your car!
Had 1 in the truck in Africa and took an age to get. Got lucky in the end…..found him sleeping in a boot of all things….so yes he did get the stomp! But the bugger gave us a right run around!

well we can all tell storys of rats and damage but is there ways one can actually scare them off - I know the electronic rat devices that emit ultrasconic sounds are a bloody gimic they do not work - at Waikaremoana in the house every winter rats - what did put them of I would get a moggy of my mate from town and shut that in the basement garage- that and some rat proofing with bird netting helped - but what else might - some kitter litter well used hung in a bag maybe - anyone any ideas - practical ones please

When we moved into the house here it took about 3 years to rat-proof the place (f-ing cat bring the things in). First event was with the wife breastfeeding the firstborn daughter in the baby's room one evening. The cat walked in and went weird, basically indicating on a bookcase. What the you stupid bleating animal...

Until I went to move the bookcase, and the cat disappeared - huh? Changed plan and went looking for dork, he's hanging upside down off the bottom of the baby's crib where he's got prime time viewing behind the bookcase. Hmmm - maybe he knows something, back to plan a. Moved the bookcase, simultaneously all hell broke loose the cat impacted the bookcase and just about knocked it out of my hands, the wife screamed, the cat started this hellbeast level growling followed by a sickening crunch and a squeal, then the wife vomited all over the baby. And the cat high tailed it outside growling all the way... This felt like it all happened in about 2 seconds, with me still trying to right the bookcase and wondering what the hell had just happened as I hadn't seen the cat claim his prize.

Wife now has a lot more respect for the cat that's for sure - bloody rat maybe the same size as the one in the photo up there but healthier condition wise had decided to move into the daughter's room and apparently it's a thing with breast-fed babies. Wife just about abandoned the house after that effort. Took a few hours cleaning up under the bookcase, so it had been there a few days. Bloody things...

Now the kitchen has four gaps blocked up, the curtains are all lifted off the ground to stop the rats climbing straight up them, the back of the firebox stand has mesh on it to stop them boltholing behind there, the couches are all hardened and a few other places are rat proofed as well. The first few I nailed with the handspear until we decided that was too damn messy, and the air pistol kept chipping the tiles shooting through. So ended up with a butterfly net and a solid bottomed bucket as that stopped the shoot through problem with the CO2 air pistol to dispatch them. The handspear and kitchen knife combo was a bit feral and too much cleanup (the wife loosing her lunch not due to the rat). After that we started poison stations and trapping and that lowered the numbers to a tolerable level anyway (mice became the prey of choice for the cat, if there are mice the numbers of rats are pretty low).

The metal bucket 3/4 filled with water and then tip the roast mutton water/ fat into it works a treat,left out where they can climb/ jump in for a feed. Check it every now and then...job done.

Biggest mess with rats I was involved in was getting rid of a farmer's large pig pen. About 5m x 20m of concrete floor and half walls, turning into wooden walls and CGI roof. It was in the late 1970's, so before every dairy farmer owned his own digger, so we demolished it with hand tools and quite a bit of jelly.

Turns out the cracks in the concrete floor had permitted rats to make one almighty big nest down there. The charges we pushed down under the floor either shredded them instantly, or concussed the survivors. All wandering around dazed in an almighty big crater. The redbands got a workout, dispatching the ptsd'd survivors. Very few managed to get away across no man land.

Grain crop balage,wholecrop balage is shocking,the little huas go under tube and burrow in then just keep going...wheat/barley straw is bad enough but the tube wrapped stuff is next level if been sitting for any length of time...yuk I hate rats.see them often around cowsheds on nightshift.

When I started finding only a rats paw in my traps..... I realised that I also had a cat or stoat problem around one of my camps.

Should see the big bastards on the wharf that jump off the ships occasionally, one that I saw one night had a tail that looked like a small kids forearm. I said to the maf dude that he's dreaming with the normal sized stations they had dotted around the wharf - he was like 'oh really'? I just figured he thought I was taking the piss, but no they came back in with a dog team next night and nailed a few of the bastards - yuk.

Biggest rat I've seen in NZ and not a species I'd like to see get established here. About the size of a small domestic cat or a big rabbit, I dunno what the thing weighed but up til that point I didn't know that they got that big anywhere! I think he said some type of asian water rat so not a 'rat' as such, but as noted - just yuk.

Locally where I am we have a heap of avo tree blocks and other fruit and food trees so no shortage of tucker and pretty much year round too. Normal sized common NZ rat species but they are HEALTHY to the point of being obese. Some of them just drop out of an avo tree, plop onto the ground, stagger over to the nearest windfall avo and have a feed then stagger back to the tree. I have a photo of one in the cat's gob that is so fat it's legs don't have visible joints. The guts was so big the rat would have been dragging it on the ground, it had no chance to get away from a predator like a cat. Fed itself to the point of suicide basically. Fur on the thing was shiny and sleek, all that avo Omega 3's haha. Yuk again.

I wonder if one was parking up in somwhere like Te Urewera if one sprayed under the bonnet with a product like a silicone water proofing spray or a armourall product- would that put the buggers off from chewing the plastic worth a look ?? especially if it was put on fresh