Hi Richard123
Sorry no-one has replied sooner. If you still have a rat problem, I would go down the route of stopping food for a while – or at least use a large tray for any bird food so that none reaches the ground. Although some rats are exceptionally good climbers and find ways round that. How long to stop food is difficult to say as some rats are much more persistent than others. It’s really trial and error.
But humane rat traps have been known to catch hogs as well, so like you I would be worried about using one.
It’s a really tricky problem, not least because rats vary quite a bit. Some people report them not liking objects being in different places, but the rats that have been round here in the past haven’t seem to take any notice of that sort of thing and have been quite bold.
This is a link to an old topic re. rats which has some links to some other ‘rat’ topics. They’re a bit old now, but you might find something useful there.
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/forums/topic/rat-probelm/
Good luck. Let us know if anything works there.
