Re: Feeding the birds
Originally Posted by
Tiffany
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How many are there, Sharon?
If young ones too, you need to get a rat exterminator in. They can find the runs or where they live & deal with them, they should put the poison down in a safe place where pets & other animals can't get at it.
The rats here were out in daylight too, but I only saw two. I hope now they have gone, one definitely has, to the cat. I'll start feeding again when it gets colder & hope they are gone.
Good luck getting rid of them.
Hi Tiff, I had a very bad experience with getting the professionals in, and it scared me too much to go down that road again.
You are correct in that they are careful and make the bait stations safe and secure, but after the chap had been a long while ago now, one night one of my dogs was violently sick. It was about 1 a.m. in the morning.
She continued vomitting until she was bringing up blood, and still couldn't stop retching.
I knew it was far different from just an upset tummy.
After an emergency trip to the vets in the early hours, and her still repeatedly retching, he whipped her in and put her on a drip immediately and told me he suspected poison and warned me she probably wouldn't make it through the night.
As you can imagine, I was horrified and distraught and drove home in a helluva a state thinking she was a gonna.
She did slowly recover though, and is sleeping next to me as I write.
I carefully checked the bait stations, nothing had been disturbed, she couldn't have got to them so was completely mystified.
All I could put it down to in the end was although she couldn't have eaten the bait, she must have eaten a dead animal that was full of the poison instead. That's the only thing I could think of, unless some bait had been dragged outside the box by a critter and she had eaten it. It is very palateble stuff after all.
After that episode, I had someone come in and set traps instead of bait, - and made sure she couldn't tread on them!
My youngest one now, young Gertie, is only 2 and gobbles up everything she can find, so I'd never chance it again.
She has already been at the vets last year for digging up and eating my Hyacinth bulbs!