Rat! Unwanted Liveaboard

[meeki007]

3rd night on the new to me Santana 35 I heard some crunching noises in the bearth above me. In my sleepy grog I reached over to my plastic jar of peanuts. I was rewarded with a rat jumping all over me.

After 3 days of traps with peanut butter and living off canned goods and glass Mason jars I got some poison.

3 more days of cleaning up turds with bleach wipes and I found him dead at the base of the gally / head space that runs next to the bilge decking.


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[JPA Cate]

If it interests you, it is easy to make rat guards for your dock lines. Rats can easily walk on them to gain access to your boat, without them. Use the aluminum foil pie pans that you buy in packs of 6, cut a hole in the center of it just large enough to accommodate the line, and push the pie tin down the line far enough from the cleat than the rat can't jump to the boat from the line. He can't jump over it (can't see where to land), and can't get to the boat, either, he goes away.

You were lucky, actually, he didn't chew your wiring, he didn't die somewhere really hard to get at; and maybe he's done no damage.

Ann

[meeki007]

Oh he ruined a bunch of wire!

Seems to prefer the oil resistant marine grade 10 Guage the best.
Lucky I have a digital multi meter. Heat shrink. And a gas soldering pen torch.

Got about 40 usd in the repairs and only have to fix the altinator 30 amp wire now. It was cheep copper gone black so not too upset about replacing it with the good stuff.

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[meeki007]

I'm going to use your pie plate solution! Good cheep fix for now.

Currently glassing in the last part of the charting table to accept my industrial singer sewing head. Then I'll buy some plastisized material and make some cones.

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[Reach]

Please check your propane line too!

[colemj]

Why didn't you just hang it to begin with? Would have saved you all the poison and trap stuff…

Mark

[Steadman Uhlich]

From the photo you posted of the rat hanging over the side of your boat, it appears you are fishing for a catfish.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Steady Hand

From the photo you posted of the rat hanging over the side of your boat, it appears you are fishing for a catfish.

That was bad but good!

The Dashew's have a story in one of their books about rats that got on the boat and killed the engine just as they were about to go over a bar.

Later,
Dan

[Steadman Uhlich]

What is it about rats or mice and electric cables? Seriously!

[RaymondR]

I had one for about eight weeks. Did not want to poison it and have it go some place hidden to die and smell bad since I was in the tropics. I tried to trap it using pieces of apple on the trap which it appeared to have a weakness for(apple not trap) Crafty mongrel was able to take the apple off the trap without setting it off and when it finally did would not go near the trap again. It appeared to favour Tupperware over wiring and chewed it's way into all the containers I used to store dried goods. I finally resorted to baits and was lucky to notice a couple of bluebottle blow flies hanging about above one of the sections of cabin sole so managed to get rid of the carcass before it liquified.

I found mice to be worse as they chewed through sail bags and made holes in the sails.

[zeehag]

cat.
get one.
best tool on boat.
take good care of a cat on board and you have a good friend who cleans out the bs that enters boat, like bubba does.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by zeehag

cat.
get one.
best tool on boat.
take good care of a cat on board and you have a good friend who cleans out the bs that enters boat, like bubba does.

Unfortunately I am allergic to cats.

But, I am more "allergic" to rats!

I like dogs, and have no allergies to them, and I hear they can swim, and even have a swim stroke named after them.

So a wee little Rat Terrier (a very good small dog breed) would be my shipmate, and also be an early warning to pirates.

One rat terrier holds the record of killing 2,500 rats in seven hours! True story!

He could always take the dog watch too!

I would just have to make sure he knew his proper place on the poop deck.

I think I would name him Popeye.

[captain58sailin]

I don't know about rats, but Smoke is hell on mice and voles etc... We recently got a new ermine (weasel) around the back porch of the house that seems to have put a real hurt on the vole and shrew population. He is pretty bold, had a frying pan out back with some scrambled eggs in it and the ermine (Frosty) knocked the lid off and helped himself to my left over breakfast.

[Seymore]

Rats and mice are easy to get rid of. Use spring traps baited with strong cold cuts like salami or keilbasi. Bait them, put them out on the cabin sole, and sit very still and watch.

Cheese doesn't much work. It's an urban legend.

[TedElixirNZ]

Don't forget to protect even your anchor chain if using European mooring method. We watched with amusement the little skuttlers swimming out to boats and entering up the anchor chain or for them "gangplank".