I have lived in BC more than 10 years longer than you Farmchiq
. I am quite a bit older, smiling, so I can up you on this. How many years of these years have you lived in farming community-type environment. not all I bet, weren't you city girly girl once upon a time
. Teasing, seems to be a morning for getting a little teasing done, lightens up the air, smiling again.
All my life that I have lived and can remember stuff about rats in the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast, the Fraser Valley area too, there are rats. Big frickin' rats. Lots of big freaky rats, everywhere.
So for anyone to say that certain parts of BC are rat free, maybe, maybe not. In the Okanagan in our new life, I haven't yet to see a rat. Evidently there are no rats in these dryer climate areas, but I doubt it. I bet there are rats SOMEWHERE around here. I only see mice. And I really do know what a rat looks like.
Back in Maple Ridge we had four box stalls, which held four horses. Cement floors which we had poured cement for, so not earthen. Old structures that had new cement floors, nice. Anyways. Each horse stall had the typical door of a barn. Liken to a piece of wood cut horizontally in half with the top that swings and the bottoms that swings, so the door can be half door or full door to close the door. Smiling. Pretty common eh? I just like to describe and it probably made others conjure up something other than something that it was...The horses would put their heads in their feed buckets in the box stall. Then stick their heads out the door to look out while they chewed on the grain. You could see the rats all line up below the doors. Where they had made tunnels, obviously below the cement floors. Their stupid heads would poke out, grab some of the grain that had fallen to the ground, I think horses are sloppy eaters, go backwards into their hidey hole and then repeat the process. I got fed up with feeding so many rats, that I got out the big guns and performed extermination and was pretty much rat free for years. Until the neighbour moved in that had more horses, llamas and chickens. Yes....she did not practice rat control and I had to begin all over. I again was rat free, but I am sure that since we moved away, that the rat population again exploded on our old farm. I freakin' hate rats and I feel much the same about mice. Mess, crap, pee, everywhere and tell me, who in the blazes needs that. I am vigilent here about mice control and am on top of it much earlier than I was last winter and feel that I am almost there with mice control. Not catching many in the traps now....death traps, instant death traps. Last year I can remember it was freezing cold before I began to work hard to work hard to rid mice. I am months ahead of last year and soon won't have pee or poop of that species covering my stuff in my chicken houses. Blah....ya....I have had lots of experience with rat BC, and there are lots, not just on the waterfront of Vancouver. Blah. Did I ever mention that I cannot stand rats, particularly those freakin' huge water rats that are so big on the shores of the inlet??? Great topic, did we stray off? Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.