Hi Yvonne
Really good news you have hogs back – and hoglets too – brilliant. Sorry about the dead ones on the road, though.
Yes, rats are a complete pest, but they tend not to like cat/dog food so much. So you might want to try that. But if you feed the birds, you also need to make absolutely certain that no bird food is accessible to the rat. It’s often the bird food that initially attracts them.
I would make sure that where you feed the hogs is well away from where the hoglets are nesting.
Sadly, hogs can and have been caught in ‘humane’ traps. I don’t know whether more modern ones have made any adaptations to prevent that. But you could try only leaving it out only during the day and check regularly to make sure no hog gets in there and release them if they do. Theoretically the hogs shouldn’t be out during the day, but some might venture out especially during hot weather. Rats often are out during daylight time. But if the rats have access to any food other than what’s in the trap they are likely to go for the easy food.
The following is a link which has several other links about previous posts re. rats. There’s quite a bit there (and much of it repeated), but you might find something which helps deter the rats.
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/forums/topic/rat-probelm/
Good luck. Hope the hoglets continue to do well.
