You hardly ever see rats: usually just big holes like the one I found this week
Shhh – say it quietly.
Nobody ever mentions the r-word: but every vegetable garden has them. They say no-one, anywhere, is more than six metres from the nearest Rattus norvegicus (that’s the brown rat – the black rat, Rattus rattus, is apparently almost extinct nowadays despite its notoriety as the cause of the Black Plague. Black rats have pink, hairless tails; brown rats have hairy tails. So now you know.)
I happen to think that most rats get a bad press. City rats, granted, are horrible things: lice-ridden, flea-ridden, destructive disease carriers that eat rubbish and carrion and are generally disgusting. But your average veg-garden rat doesn’t have much access to carrion (foxes get there first) and prefers your sweetcorn anyway. And there’s the rub. You’ve never seen a veg plant stripped till you’ve seen a stand of sweetcorn after a rat attack. They shin up even the tallest stem, peel back the papery covers and all you find in the morning is a bare core with not a single kernel left. I gave up after my third successive harvest yielded not one single cob.
Apart from this – which admittedly was incredibly frustrating - I’ve never noticed any other damage caused by rats in particular. You do find rat holes from time to time, but they’re rarely near the veg plants. Apart from the sweetcorn, my main reason for not particularly wanting rats on the plot is that they give me the creeps. Which isn’t a very good reason, but, well, I don’t get many people disagreeing with me.
So to discourage rats on the veg plot I watch what I put on the compost heap – nothing cooked, for a start – and turn it regularly to disrupt any nests. Bird food is a no-no and I try to keep things more-or-less tidy.
I don’t use poison – I’ve seen a dog after eating a poisoned rat and it’s not pretty. I do possess a humane rat trap but rats are phenomenally clever and despite my attempts at disguise they’ve never once gone anywhere near it. This leads me to the depressing conclusion that I am more stupid than a rat, but also means I’ve never had to deal with the problem of what exactly you do with them once you’ve caught one.
Sweep running away as usual (left) and Sooty: anti-rat protection par excellence
No: my weapons of choice are small-ish and so furry that you frequently forget their general cuteness disguises a ruthless killer instinct. These particular rat deterrents require regular maintenance in the shape of tins of Felix and Go-Cat, but that’s a small investment when you consider that there has been hardly a rat on the place since I got them. And I harvested my first-ever sweetcorn cob last year.
They’re called Sooty and Sweep, and they’re feral cats. I got them from the Cats’ Protection League after reading an article about how desperate they were for homes for the many feral (wild) cats they were given: most people when they rescue a cat want a pet cat, which lives in a house, but these are cats which hate houses and though they do need the shelter of a shed or outhouse, they aren’t tame at all (or at least, they weren’t when I got them: Sooty in particular is very fond of a cuddle these days).
I think they scare away the rats rather than actually catching them: certainly I haven’t found any corpses. They’re equally effective against mice and rabbits. True, it is the nuclear option and it’s not a solution that suits everyone: feral cats will render your garden a bird-free zone and though that’s not a problem on the allotment it might be at home. They also require regular visits right through winter – I feed them every couple of days or so. But if like me your rodent situation is getting desperate, cats are by far the most effective way of getting the balance back in your favour again. And besides, it’s nice to have someone to talk to apart from yourself when you’re weeding – even if they do try and roll over in ecstasy asking for a tummy tickle just where your seedling onions are coming up.
Rats creep me out, too. We haven’t had any show up yet. But then, we have two kitty predators on the loose, one of whom brought me back a dead mouse with half its tail missing as a lovely little gift over the weekend. They do kill small bunnies on occasion, too, which makes me sad — but then, I like to eat my salad crops. And there hasn’t been too much disturbance of the seeds by squirrels since they started patrolling last spring (squirrels being the *other* rat around here). Only two birds, that we know of, have been lost via this “nuclear option.” (Love how you phrased that!)
My cats were housecats, totally indoor and domesticated, until last year when we moved out to a quiet space in the country. We had been living in tight, trafficky, urban quarters where it’s very dangerous for cats.
I’m so glad you gave those feral cats a home. Lots of no-kill facilities end up with difficulties because of feral kitties cooped up and miserable, and no one willing to adopt. Bless you and your garden!
Hi Meredith, yes the small bunnies are a pretty grim spell we go through every spring, too. I have to vet the shed for remains before letting my 7-year-old on the allotment as she’s very fond of bunnies. I’m less fond of them since they stripped out all my pea plants one year.
To be honest, I’m thinking that when my elderly house cat eventually passes on to the fluffy cat bed in the sky I shall always have feral cats kept outdoors. They have to be the healthiest, fittest little cats I’ve ever looked after: because they hunt for their food, and therefore eat mainly raw meat (sorry if you have a delicate constitution) instead of processed commercial cat food they are glowing with health and the most cat-like cats I’ve ever had.
Sooty and Sweep are so cute. Glad they’re helping in your quest to rid the allotment of rats.
Mmmm… not convinced on the cat front. I live in a street full of cats and while they dig up and cr*p all over my vegetable bed, they don’t do much to keep down vermin. I’ve had a rat in my basement lightwell and saw one on my front steps in the cold snap. The rat in the lightwell did freak me out. But it found a most ingenious way out and then sat around washing its whiskers, without doing anybody any harm. Unlike the cats, which are stupid and leave filth everywhere.
Hi Jo and Lyn. I think cats divide gardeners more or less right down the middle. You have Jo’s point of view, that they’re cute (with which I happen to agree); and your position Lyn which I entirely sympathise with but have never actually suffered from myself. This is probably why I don’t mind having cats around! There was a lot of apprehension from my fellow plotholders when I first came up with the idea, but Sooty and Sweep have been so efficient at chasing off mice, rabbits and rats that they’ve completely won everyone over, even the ones who seriously, seriously didn’t like cats. And I’ve never found cat doo-doo on my veg beds – half-eaten mice and some rabbit innards, yes, but not poo.
I think it probably depends on the cats. I once had a huge ginger tom who looked most impressive but never, to my knowledge, scared or caught anything, especially not mice. In fact I do wonder whether he was a long-lost cousin of Garfield’s. I think it helps if your cats are female, as they’re the best hunters, and also young. And used to catching their own food: domesticated cats are far less efficient hunters as they’re fat and lazy. Bless ‘em.