chippy

That's how many of these little buggers are residing in the UK (1 each eh!).

According to the news tonight there's been a significant increase in their mumbers recently due to the fine weather.

This got me wondering...are there even more in Aus with its warmer climate etc? I personaly don't recall seeing anyof em out there.

WBB

they do say your never more than 6 feet from a rat.!!!!!

*looks around*

cant be though?

PeteY

Aus does'nt really have a rat problem. Over there they have enough trouble with :

Carp
Bunnies
Mice
Foxes
Cats
Brumbies
Goats
Pigs
Camels
Blackberries
Prickly Pears

And last but most definatly not least.....Cane toads.

PeteY

Thats just a statistic. The idea is:

number of rats over number of sq meters in britain

If you got all the rats and spread them evenly over the country there would be one on every 6 foot tile of land.

Badge

loadsa fun to be had from loading up and shooting them at night..

janeyray

Oh is that right!!

I had NEVER seen a rat back in the UK (apart from a few dodgy men!!!) and I kept a horse on a farm. Then I arrived here and after a really heavy down pour went outside to see one of the buggers having a swim in our pool :scared: got hubby to scoop it out with the net thingy but let it go!!!!!!!!! After this, on different occasions I saw loads more scurry across the fence to nest in a bushy tree like plant at the side of the neighbours house!!!!!!

This was in the rental is a lovely expensive part of Perth!!!!
Luckily though I haven't seen any since I moved to Ellenbrook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pollyana

I see rats from time to time, especially during the recent hot weather. They run down the streets at night here, living off abandoned junk food, and rubbish put out for the garbos.
They compete for the rubbish with the over-large seagulls and the local fox.

Pollyana

In wonderful Brighton, one of Britain's friendliest resorts (if you're a rat)

WBB

and i liked brighton when i visited - will never be the same again

:scared:

MrsDagboy

Yeah, we do have rats here, my cat caught one just on the weekend, but thats only the 2nd or third one in almost 12 months that we have lived in this house. She used to catch them a couple of times a year at our old house as well, but remember, we live on acreage & next to bushland, they arent nearly as common in the suburbs .

Australia tends to have plagues of things when the weather is unusual - mice, locusts (grasshoppers) etc. Those sort of problems almost always affect the rural sector of the community.

Bugger, bugger, bugger, now I have 2 stars

bondipom

Have any of you experienced a Bogon moth plague? There were probably a few hundred in the flat when they visited Sydney in 1998. Big juicy buggers.

Ceri

of course Aus has rats. Trouble with rats here some people kill the wrong ones... ie native rats thinking that their the introduced black rat, hence putting some of the native rats at risk. Anyway yes we have rats here ( the black introduced rats). The most I've seen are around Manly, running around the rocks there in the night. I've even unhooked a rat from a fishing hook once. Some guys next to us put their rod down on the grass and a rat tried to steal the bait, hence hooking itself in the mouth. They came over to us and asked us for help. I held the rat while hubby unhooked him.

You'll see rats if you are out at night near some public recreation areas, next to the water is a favourite with them.. they hide in-between the rocks living off discarded bait and whatever else they can find. Rats are also a problem for some people who keep birds..and also a major prob for some farmers. They released carpet pythons into some farms to keep the rat population down in past years. Rats are a major environmental prob in some parts of Aus along with other introduced species.

One of the properties that I was renting in the past (had a bit of a bush/scrubland at the back) , I put bird seed on the ground under a tree one night for some bandicoots... you ought to see the rats coming in too. last time I did that I can tell you.

Just put in rats into a google search if you think there are no rats here, also try sugar cane farming and rats, carpet snakes (released into certain areas to keep the rats down)..


Cheers