Morning at our place

[miekec]

Yup. Definitely rats. The first one I found in front of the fridge somewhere in the middle of the night [edit: dead!]. At least it was only a small rat - paws were in proportion to the body, not huge like the others we had last month. Should have taken a pic of it, I guess. Somehow the first priority in my sleep-addled brain was to get RID of it rather than examine it in excruciating detail. Funny that!
After disposing of it (not with tongs this time :) ) Weasley got some extra petting and encouraging words. He wasn't particularly hunting right then, but he won't rest until the other one is caught. Probably (hopefully?) when we get home.



Peekaboo!

"I'm gonna get you!"

Quite interested...

. o O (uhoh... cats *and* a human)

Comments

[johngnassi.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I never thought I'd say I was glad to be at Disney World...

[miekec]

I bet!

[itsthevlachica.livejournal.com]

what, you mean droves and droves of tourists and frequent pop-up rainstorms don't do it for you?

[miekec]

So, after mulling it over for a while, I think that these two actually came in under their own power. As in, Weasley didn't drag them in. The weather this weekend was just outright nasty; cold, soaking wet, dark. Add to that all the construction on the major roads and T lines around us (both the D line and rt 9 right across the street from us), which always uproots the vermin populations.

At this point, I think anything we do to limit access can help. Including the magnetic cat flap we have sitting on a shelf. Somewhere. If we replace the one in the basement with that, and put an opener on our cats' collars, that should at least stop the "voluntary" rats and raccoons. Doesn't fix the ones they carry in directly, but hopefully indirectly as they will be blocking the signal of the opener.
Now where did we hide that catflap?

[itsthevlachica.livejournal.com]

sad thing is, the pictures *almost* make it look cute. almost.

[miekec]

That's what I thought too. Seeing one dead cures ya pretty fast :S

[nekowoman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I've been very curious today about the mouse vs. rat debate. I had imagined it would be easier to tell the two apart. But upon further research, I think the issue could be that we had *baby* rats... Big rats are easy to spot, but babies look an awful lot like mice.

Here's a site that has lots of pictures of *fully-grown* rats AND *baby* rats... http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~akerr/personal/rats.html Those babies look an awful lot like the critter in the pictures I took...

I wonder how many many rats in a litter? Let's hope it wasn't a baby with brothers and sisters! Mieke thinks it was just a small rat (not a baby) since it had paws in proportion to its size... I wonder how small a full grown rat can be?

Despite all that... Weasley is a *very* good cat. I've always heard good hunter called a "good mouser." What do you call a good rat-hunter? A good ratter? :) Let's hope the ratter left me a present at home... packing soon to go see.

Your cats are adorable!

[redembers.livejournal.com]

He's a helpful hint. Any area where you think they can come in (say said small hole that the critter is poking it's head out of) you stuff it with steal-wool.
Squirrels and mice hate the stuff.
We had squirrels getting into the house thru a small area around a chimney and this stopped them.

Be sure to use rubber gloves when handling it, or you can get metal slivers in your fingers, which can be painful or cause infection.

Good LUCK!

Re: Your cats are adorable!

[miekec]

Excellent suggestion! Yes, we'll definitely do that tomorrow. As J mentioned, we'll use the soap-soaked ones we have - they'll like that even less. I hope.

[johngnassi.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I know where they came in, judging by the noises nekoracer, the cats, & I heard (something walking on the steel shelving units in the basement under the kitchen): The dilapidated northern basement window. I bet the gap between its frame & the wall is big enough & was stuffed only with fiberglass insulation - which may have fallen out, even. One more project... try stuffing all the gaps around the 2 back window frames with steel wool, as redembers suggested, & we'll add it to the list of things to do (rotten clapboard replacement, clearing new bathroom, clear space for futon, Freecycle more computer equipment, fix file server, etc).

[miekec]

No, no, no. No kludge - we have the actual replacement windows for that section! We could just, you know, put them in :)

[nekowoman.livejournal.com]

Well... no bodies when I arrived home and both cats sleeping soundly upstairs. The cats seem relaxed now... mostly... Weasley was stalking something for a few minutes tonight though in the kitchen. Either we're in intermission or the rat left... we'll see...

[robynmulcahy.livejournal.com]

My God, my sympathies are with you!! And to answer your "how big can a rat get" question, a few years ago I was at Mooney's Bay in Ottawa with Erik when we saw an injured cat in the corner. Only to discover upon closer inspection (and to my horror) it was a crouched rat, about the size of a 6 month old kitten. But maybe we grow em' bigger in Canada.