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Rats! Rats! Rats!

Can't believe everything you read in the Scum. I'd probably go so far as to say you can't believe most of what you read in the Scum.
 
Well, there is a huge population of them round here. Rats, not Sun journalists. I got the council in and they cleared my house - a month later they are back. Well, not the same ones, obviously. And a couple of the corpses were unusually large.
 
18 INCHES!!!!! The reporter was probably using the same ruler he uses to measure his dangler.:D
Most rats are very civilized although they occasionally go a bit o.t.t. when on the piss..
headache rat.jpg
 
As a former keeper of pet rats I was fascinated by a programme on CGTN (Sky 509) about Large African Pouched Rats who have been trained to detect mines in Africa and, recently, Latin America.
They’re are also trained to detect Tuberculosis in sputum samples helping diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Why are there no BCG programmes in Africa?
Really interesting programme about fascinating animal. I will definitely be donating to this programme.
Why don’t we ever see such interesting programmes on Sky or BBC news?

https://www.apopo.org/en
 
I had the pleasure of playing with a Pouch rat a few years ago, chunky little chaps.:)
One of my ratties was able to detect oat bikkies at six feet, and then remove them to a safe place.:thought:

bikkirat.JPG
 
More wonderful rats. Doesn't he look cute?!



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This juvenile Key Largo woodrat was captured and released in Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Key Largo, Florida, as part of long-term monitoring efforts.
MICHAEL COVE
Florida woodrat nests are laced with antibiotic-producing bacteria
By Stephenie LivingstonSep. 15, 2020 , 4:10 PM

Key Largo woodrats—small rodents found only in the Florida Keys—build their nests in old cars, abandoned jet skis, and tiny plastic “houses” scattered throughout some of the last remaining forest on their namesake island. The dwellings, covered in feces and urine, seemed potentially risky places to live. Now, a new study suggests the opposite: Not only are the nests free of common rodent diseases, but they are also chock-full of antibiotic-producing bacteria.

This may be the first time such bacteria have been found in wild mammal nests, says microbial ecologist Megan Thoemmes, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and lead author of a new study. That makes the 1-meter-high nests a potential new source of antibiotics, she says. “It’s a pretty incredibly unique environment.”

The study is part of a growing field of interest in antibiotic-producing bacteria found in the normal flora of healthy animals, which may help prevent infection by certain pathogens and could one day help humans stay healthy, says Barbara Rehermann, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health who was not involved in the study. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...nests-are-laced-antibiotic-producing-bacteria
 
A hero rat. Vid at link.

Mine-detecting rat receives prestigious gold medal

A UK veterinary charity, PDSA, has awarded an African giant pouched rat a gold medal for "life-saving devotion to duty." Magawa has sniffed out 39 landmines and 28 unexploded munitions in Cambodia during his career. Trained by the Belgium-registered charity Apopo, so-called 'HeroRATs have been taught to detect landmines and tuberculosis since the 1990s.

Magawa is the first rat to receive the award, which has honoured 30 animals.

Published1 hour ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-54294192
 
A squirrel is only a Rat with good PR
But thats one Rat with good PR and rightly so.
 
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Rat-lovers, avert your eyes, there is nothing here for your comfort . . .

Occasional rodent problems made me aware of the videos of Shawn Woods. I have posted links to them on here before and he is a true craftsman, if somewhat obsessively devoted to the subject of mousetraps. His more recent videos have been abridged and self-censored, since Youtube have disallowed him to monetize rodent snuff-movies.

Presumably because of watching a few of his vids, I have recently been receiving in my Youtube in-box an entirely different type of mousetrap video from the Far East, I think, maybe India. These pretend to be research but they focus entirely on home-made glue-traps. Weirdly, they use the term "saved" to describe how many rodents they catch.

They are hideously fascinating studies of the most horrible way to die. Mice trapped on the glue, struggle to free themselves, give up, begin again. Meanwhile, the game seems to be to send in a more vigorous and ravenous tribe of rats, who waste no time in getting down to the business of cannibalism. I had assumed that this well-known aspect of trapped rodent behaviour took some time to show itself. Yet they seem to turn to it within a minute or two. Some are pixellated, where gnawed entrails stick to the glue and where legs are denuded of flesh. There are soixante-neuf arrangements of mutual mastication, trios, like the Legs of Man and unholy orgies of polymorphous munching. All achieved by the simple application of glue to cardboard.

I am fairly certain, by the way the mice or rats arrive, that these are not videos of pest-control. They are a new form of blood-sport. You should certainly not watch one or you will buy a season ticket to Hell. Ban them now! :popc:
 
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Here's a rat who's on our side:
News story

Magawa, the landmine-hunting hero rat! They've given him a little ratty medal! Check him out on the video (to which the obvious punchline is lacking).
 
The Eagle Claw Mouse Trap of 1877.

I suppose this would serve rats, just as well. It looks rather like a fancy light-fitting but the "shade" consists of eight spring-loaded razor-sharp spikes. The rodent has to reach up to take the bait; as the video makes clear, it needs to be suspended at the right height, which may have militated against its general use. Extracting the victim from the trap may also have been a messy business.

Mr Woods assures us the kill is very quick. If not, I suppose you could play Nero, douse it in tallow and use it as a torch! :evil:

With supporting feature: How a Baby Mouse Killed its Own Mother in a Magnetic Trap. :oops:
 
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I wonder if rats are able to get their hair done during the lockdown?

Rats with poisonous hairdos live surprisingly sociable private lives

Crested rats don’t just chew tree bark that’s poisonous enough to kill an elephant. The rabbit-sized rodents dribble and lick the toxic drool into their long rat fluff for a weaponized hairdo. Yet these dangerous rats, which scientists assumed were loners, turn out to have a close and cuddly family life. They even purr.

Chewing on bark or other parts of East Africa’s arrow poison trees gives the rats toxic saliva to apply to specialized zones of fur. The toxins sink in to porous, easily detached hairs on the rat’s flanks. Any predator foolish enough to bite a Lophiomys imhausi gets a hairy mouthful of bitter toxins that human poachers use on arrows for hunting big game.

The rats “have the personality of something poisonous,” says ecologist Sara Weinstein, who studied them during a Smithsonian fellowship at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya. “They can run quickly if they feel like it, but they don’t typically.” The rats are more likely to jog away from trouble or stand their ground, hissing, growling and grunting.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rats-poisonous-hair-fur-africa-tree-toxins-social-lives
 
Mautam is a cyclical ecological phenomenon caused by boom and bust cycles coupling rat populations and bamboo reproduction in certain areas of India. This phenomenon is blamed for outbreaks of famine conditions.

Mautâm is a cyclic ecological phenomenon that occurs every 48–50 years in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur, which are 30% covered by wild bamboo forests, as well as Chin State in Myanmar, particularly Hakha, Thantlang, Falam, Paletwa, and Matupi Townships. It begins with a rat population boom, which in turn creates a widespread famine in those areas.

During mautâm, Melocanna baccifera, a species of bamboo, flowers at one time across a wide area. This event is followed invariably by a plague of black rats in what is called a rat flood. This occurs as the rats multiply in response to the temporary windfall of seeds, and leave the forests to forage on stored grain when the bamboo seeds are exhausted, which in turn causes devastating famine. Famines thus caused have played a significant part in shaping the region's political history. ...

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautam

Similar runaway boom and bust population phenomena in Australian and East Asian mice (mouse plagues) are discussed in:

Mouse Plagues (Swarming Mice; Australia & E. Asia)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/mouse-plagues-swarming-mice-australia-e-asia.68231/
 
Rats enjoy croissants in Islington Sainsbury’s

Filmmaker Anthony Mitson was browsing at the supermarket’s branch on Essex Road in Islington, north London, when he spotted the two chunky rodents gorging on the last croissant left on the uncovered stands.

He managed to start filming them just as they noticed him before leaping up behind the shelving of the dairy section and disappearing from sight.

Sainsbury’s said they took ‘immediate action’ to clean the store on Sunday and had called in pest control.
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Short video.
 
The guys at Rentokil can identify those croissant-noshing rats. I think that’s Dave and Eddie there.


Rat hunters to enlist facial recognition tool in war against humanity's greatest pest​

Pest control giant Rentokil Initial has developed a hi-tech AI identification system which can distinguish one rat from another in the eternal war against humanity's greatest pest
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/rat-hunters-enlist-facial-recognition-25080593
 
The guys at Rentokil can identify those croissant-noshing rats. I think that’s Dave and Eddie there.


Rat hunters to enlist facial recognition tool in war against humanity's greatest pest​

Pest control giant Rentokil Initial has developed a hi-tech AI identification system which can distinguish one rat from another in the eternal war against humanity's greatest pest
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/rat-hunters-enlist-facial-recognition-25080593
Why? See rat, kill rat, simples.
 
Barely slept last night.

Rats in the roof, in the skirting boards too. Scuttling, scratching and chirping.

Could not be sure if they were inside my room or my cupboards.

Searched today, no sign nor sound of of them nor of droppings.

They returned about half midnight, in the roof.

Have called pest control.

Stopping them getting in near on impossible I live in a block of flats.

But any advice gratefully taken.
 
There's sonic pest repellers that you plug in, Talon pellets if you can throw them in the roof. They also don't like perfume puffed through the vents.
Thank you.

Last night I sprinkled 100% Peppermint Oil round my flat.
Also some Cayenne Pepper and a small amount of Black Pepper.
I put this next to walls and skirting boards, places that rats run along.

Last night they were active in the roof again, but no activity that I could hear in my skirting boards or in my bedroom.

Will keep you updated.
 
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There's sonic pest repellers that you plug in, Talon pellets if you can throw them in the roof. They also don't like perfume puffed through the vents.
Electronic pest repellers, yes.
Don't poison them, they may drop dead in your roof/wall/whatever and then stink the place out.
 
Last weekend I listened to an audio version of Bram Stoker's "The Judge's House."

I've read the story before, more than once, but it wasn't until I listened to it that I thought, "Holy moly! That sounds like a lot of rats in that place! Why would anyone stay there?" I mean, there were way more visible rats in the house than was usual in the 19th century.
That horrified me more than the supernatural elements.
 
Rats take down Devon Broadband - Residents have been without phone or broadband services since 15 October after rats damaged cables

Phone lines damaged by rodents in North Devon
Some homes and businesses in North Devon are experiencing issues after internet and phone lines were damaged by rodents.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-58969015
 
Thank you.

Last night I sprinkled 100% Peppermint Oil round my flat.
Also some Cayenne Pepper and a small amount of Black Pepper.
I put this next to walls and skirting boards, places that rats run along.

Last night they were active in the roof again, but no activity that I could hear in my skirting boards or in my bedroom.

Will keep you updated.
Ever considered of getting a cat Vic..? Apparently rodents don’t like the smell of cats and will avoid any property that has one as a pet.

The cat I have at the moment is an absolute killer. Not a day goes by without her bringing dead mice and birds back to the house. Last month it was a baby frog - still alive and seemingly unharmed (she carried it into the house in her mouth.)

She dropped it at my feet while I was eating breakfast, then gave me a look as if to say there you go son enjoy. :D
 
As penance for my pin-headedness, I regularly take out of the local library books on stuff I don't know much about or don't care about. The latest of these cognitive adventures was on rat theology. That's right: the theology which rats think about, conjecture about, and believe in. As channeled telepathically by rats to live human animal communicators. Some of the rats were alive and some were dead when communicating. "Animals and the Afterlife" by Kim Sheridan.

An intriguing book. Much I disagree with - methods, logic, and conclusions. Some I agree with, but feel conflicted about my agreement because of the overall bat shit crazy logic.

I live in Arizona in a well-irrigated neighborhood with fruit trees, so rats are a constant. I kill by any means possible and put up rat-proof screening around my back porch. The little fuckers threw down the gauntlet 2 years ago when they swarmed up a Christmas statue, took down the fabric Santa hat, dragged the hat about 15 feet, chewed it into strips, and hauled the strips down different rat holes hidden in the ground by a cactus. I awoke to find the tail ends of red and white fuzzy fabric sticking out of the ground.

What we tried and didn't work: rat traps, pepper powder, moth balls, peppermint oil, urine from coyotes and mountain lions, and the sonic buzzer. What worked: poison bait, screening, getting rid of the cactus, and plugging holes.
 
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