The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I hope this is an appropriate topic for this forum space, apologies if not.

A few months back a large female took up residence in an abandoned brick pile in my garden. I have been keeping an eye on her to see if this was a temporary lodging or if she was going to make it more permanent. It would appear that she has been successfully raising a small family behind my back as we are now running alive with them again!

Love them or hate them? Tolerate them or eradicate them? For the most part of my life I have been in the 'hate them/tolerate them' camp (live and let live has been my strong motto) but since my move to Lincs I now have to deal with the damage that they do and now fall into the 'hate them/eradicate them' camp.

How do other forum members feel about the rat? When it comes to all other rodents in/around the garden (voles, field mice) we welcome them, even feed them when times get hard.

Mark,

I hate the damn things, after seeing one the size of a double decker when I was an apprentice working on a sub-station near Grimsby in the 1960s!

If this thread takes off like some of the others it will soon be transferred to the Chat Section

Regards

Max

Interesting question Mark. I really like rats and enjoy watching the ones at Blacktoft Sands, but I've never had any in the garden or house. People's personal experiences obviously have a lot to do with it - my Dad didn't like mice because one ran up his trouser leg when he was a young boy! It was only when I got a couple of pet mice that he realised they weren't that bad!
I had very mixed feelings a while ago when I had my first sightings of a squirrel in my garden - new species for my garden list, great; nest raider, not so great.
So for now I adore rats, if I get a family in the garden...I might change my mind!!

Max - how big!?! You'd certainly hear that one scuttling around in the loft!?!?! See you in the chat section!

Libby.

Libby,

She is all yours, I can have her on the DHL van to you for 1st thing in the morning

When visiting Potteric Carr in March, we saw a rat eating seed below one of the feeders, talk about fat, it was as wide as it was long, honest.

A female rat reaches fertile maturity in 5 to 12 weeks.
Her gestation period is beween 3 to 4 weeks.
She will produce between 8 to 18 young.

Lets say that the rat you saw in March wasn't just fat, she was PREGNANT, and gave birth the following day

Lets also say (for ease of maths) that this female came from a strain that were fertile after 8 weeks, the gestation period was 4 weeks after which they produced an average of 12 young of which 50% were females.

Lets also say (again for ease of maths) that Potteric Carr only had the one fertile male rat and he came by every 12 weeks just after the females gave birth (I think you can see where I am heading).

Come May we would have 7 pregnant females.
Come June we would have 84 newborn
Come August we would have 49 pregnant females (84/2 + 7)
Come September we would have 588 newborn
This month there would be 343 pregnant females. (588/2 + 42 + 7)

If you were to visit Potteric Carr next month you just might find 4,801 little rats running about the place all as a result of that one single female feeding below the bird table (4116 newborn + 343 earlier females + 342 earlier males):evil:

I've never seen one!

Mark,
That was a very interesting maths lesson, however I think I will decline your very kind offer! I did go 'awww' at the picture though, cracking photo.

Libby.

I think I may have mentioned this before on this or another forum, but when we had a rat in the garden it did an excellent job of getting rid of snails,piling up the shells in the shed, if numbers get too high then out comes the rat trap.
On a different subject, a neighbour told me she'd recently seen a badger in her garden, the first she's ever seen, but wasn't so pleased when she found it had bitten the head off her tame hedgehog.
Geoff

YOU'VE NOT MISSED NOWT!

Libby, maths is fun but doesn't tell the complete story, apparently juvenile rats have as high as 90% natural mortality rate (thankfully or regretably, depending on whch side of the fence you sit).

Katherine, I'm surprised!! The Times reorted that in January of this year it was estimated that the UK population was 70million - more than the human population! It is the poor old London residents that get it the worst, DEFRA claims that in London you are never more than 15m away from a rat at any given place

Geoff, this is slightly out of context with the thread and certainly out of context with this forum (being Lincs based not Essex) - but here is a pic of one family group that were regular visitors to our Brentwood garden (4 in the pic but the family were 6 strong). We used to sit on the patio and have them literaly walk amongst us - it wasn't our company they saught, just the p-nuts!! I would give all the T in China to have a full blown set in our garden here, even a Summer set would be ok

Nice picture.