Hi hoggy07
The following is a link which contains links from several old topics re. rats
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/forums/topic/rat-probelm/
They are all quite old now, but may be useful. There are lots of newer ones if you search through, but, sorry I haven’t collected them – the Forum doesn’t like more than one link per post these days, so not so easy to do.
But first you probably need to stop feeding birds, if you do (or feed them small amounts which are quickly eaten, on a container on, i.e., a bird table which the rats can’t access, but so that when the rats turn up there is no food there for them). It is often bird food which first attracts rats. But if the rats can’t find food they might give up.
Then search to see if there is a rats nest in your garden and disturb it, so that hopefully the rats will get fed up doing repairs and move home. You will need to be persistent. But also check for any bolt holes – you will usually see mounds of disturbed soil.
Some rats won’t eat wet cat/dog food, but you might have to give up feeding the hogs until you can get rid of the rats. If you do stop feeding, don’t forget to keep providing water. Unfortunately rats do tend to go through water saucers, but the hogs will need water. (Water best left available all day every day for the hogs).
But one other thing you can try, if you don’t mind the rats getting the odd bit of food, is to scatter some cat/kitten biscuits (some rats will eat those, but not all) on the grass (if you have some) which would take the rats longer to find and so give the hogs more of a chance of finding some. But the neighbours may not be keen on that if they see that you appear to be feeding rats. Especially if there are 3 or 4 already. I recall one person being told by the council that they had to stop feeding the hogs because they were attracting rats.
Then there is the ‘supervised’ hog feeding possibility mentioned in one of those previous posts.
I can’t really comment about moving the feeding site, not knowing the layout, other than that if the hogs can find it the rats inevitably will as well.
Sadly there is no easy solution, but good luck. I know what a nuisance it is. Hope you find something that works.
