Wednesday, March 2, 2011

ratty pumpkins

I should be packing for my work trip to Singapore that starts on Friday, but I'd rather be blogging. So that's what I'll do. At least for now. Rats. You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. Well, actually, it's probably very easy to live without 'em. While we haven't seen any of the rascally rodents, lately, there's plenty of evidence. I doubt if there is a shortage of ratty food at present, but they have certainly been gobbling up our pumpkins, those that we have picked and stored on our verandah, and those still growing on the vine. What to do? I don't really like poisoning the varmints and we certainly don't during the warmer months when pythons are slithering around, looking for rats to eat, so maybe we'll need some kind of live trap. But then you still have to kill them. But that's OK. I have killed many a rat in my day. They really cause lots of problems - they gnaw through wires in your house of your car and can cause electrical fires. They are of the feral variety, not native bush rats. Anyway, I took the pic this evening of one of our Japanese pumpkins that had been eaten almost entirely by Rattus norvegicus.

2 comments:

Louise said...

How do you know it's rats eating them? Not that I doubt you, but how can you tell?

Mutterings from Maryville said...

Well, to be honest, I can't be 100%sure, but given the only small mammals we have seen on our property that would be capable of this are introduced rats, I think it's a fair assumption. We had some other pumpkins sitting up on a bench which were also eaten to the point of oblivion and only rats could have climbed up and eaten them. There are other tell-tale signs as well such as their dropping and the teeth marks.