RATS in my greenhouse. help

[kaybee]

any no-poison, preferably no-kill way to keep rats out of my greenhouse? they have been munching on the cucumbers and chewing on my sunflower greens the last few days. i think the sprouted sunny seeds attracted them. my biggest concern is that im about to set down wintercrops of baby greens, spinach, corn salad, etc, and i dont want them in it. there is a disease here that is transmitted to people and dogs through rat pee called wheels disease and it can make you very sick if you eat something that a rat has peed on.... i hate to not use the greenhouse for the winter, but need to solve this... anyone have any brilliant ideas? im going to grow the sunnies outside in fishboxes with wire and horticultural fleece over the top now, but once the rats have been in the greenhouse, i expect theyll continue to go in there. also i want to plant a winter green manure cover crop of rye in some of the beds outside but last time i planted grain seeds outside the rats got into those too.... any suggestions?

thanks much

this is SO YUCK.

kaybee

[Veganforlife]

Check this out:

http://www.havahart.com/

This one in particular:

http://www.havahart.com/advice/critter-library/rat-control/rat-control-options

ESPECIALLY this one:

http://www.havahart.com/store/sister-products/M753#desc

[cavany]

I also have rats close to my home. The disease wiles I think can only affect you if you expose some cut skin to it. I would not like to test this nor would I like to consume vegetables watered with rats wee.

I have though about a humane way to deal with our rat problem and came to the conclusion it’s impossible. I also believe in a natural order to keep things in balance and left it to nature and our cats to deal with the rats. Although one of my cats brings home a fair number of rats I still like to think that some did manage to escape.

I have 3 children and feel a little safer knowing that the local rat population won't easily be rolling in the grass with the kids.

I know my post is not the answer you want to hear, I don't believe in poison, I would be concerned about the sonic sound emitters and a trap is ok if you are dealing with 1 or 2 rats. But rats dont live in 1 or 2s and we have had evidence of 20 different ones over 6 days.

[kaybee]

ah...cavany i see youre in ireland too :) there just seems to be an overabundance of rats in this country... at home we had them in cities but they didnt seem so prevalent in the countryside; here they seem to live in all the stonewalls. i hate killing things but i wish i could use cats or a rat-terrier; maybe that would scare them away at least. but the tunnels not at my house...its in a man's yard who let me use it but who has lost interest in the tunnel or gardening. yeah, i dont know much about that disease, just that my friends terrier died from it and everyone keeps mentioning it... .....

vegan4 life thanks for those links. im thinking ill try an ultrasonic thing before i resort to other options. cant tell if those are plug in or battery opp though; maybe i didnt look close enough. theres no outlets near the greenhouse so id have to find a batt opp one...

[carolg]

I tried many options to control the 'mice' population in my country environment. The Ultrasonic thingie that plugs into the wall without any battery recharging that I know or or need, I was not handling the problem well. So last resort was the "UNnatural route" to get rid of the mice that worked. I do now have great results with the plug in sonic thingie I have in several rooms. Otherwise, I was having company running across the kitchen, living room, or even computer room at any day or hour. I choose what I had to do for my situation.
carolg

[cavany]

I have one of these Ultrasonic thingies for mice yes I also have had a mice problem too. I will not use it continuously but just for short periods of time. I wondered what do these do to the rodents and how did it effect them? These signals are called EMF’s and could they affect us? If you think about it our thoughts are electrical impulses so something emitting electrical impulses has to affect us. When I started looking around I discovered I was surrounded by items emitting EMF's and realized it’s impossible to stay away from them. But I could reduce my exposure.

I found this site which is interesting and gives an opinion about this http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/science/guidetoemfs.asp