Rodents

I keep a few hens in the garden and inevitably I get visits from rats.  I have put down a well known blue granular poison in small bowls. Upon inspection I find that overnight,someone (rats) have collected leaves and bits of twig and filled the bowls and tins up with it, covering up the remaining poison.  It just seemed a strange action, does anyone else have this problem ?/ experience.

I think they are covering it up as a food store to protect it for use in winter, but I hope it was the rats and not something else like squirrels.

I don't think it is rats doing storage-might be squirrels-my other worry is can hedgehogs get to this poison?

There no squirrels, and the hedgehogs can't get to the bait.  As you say, they may be covering for storage, or they don't want any of their mates to get sick.

I know it is a counsel of perfection, but rat poison should not be 'put out in small bowls'.  The best place to put it is in lengths of drain-pipe on the ground, then nothing can get at it except the rats.

We had a problem with rats a few years back. They were living under next doors decking and using our garden as a source of food as we had a bird table. We had to stop feeding the birds and my neighbour brought in the pest control as the bait he was using had no effect. I asked the guy to check my garden and he said the usual bait you buy doesn't work so well as rats have built up an immunity to it so he used the same method as Welshonion described. He said this was the best option to protect wildlife. Must admit , I wasn't happy with any form of poison in my garden but had no option, It did get rid of the rats.

My daughter has chickens and has problems with rats(who does not),she left poison out for the rats in containers and they took it back to their nests but some dead ones were found in the cage and out side.The best way and kindest is to use dogs trained for a instant kill or as one pest controller told me to put glass in a choc bar (in the rat box)this kills them as they bleed to death not nice but nor is poison.The wildlife is not effected by the last two as is the poison if it gets into the food chain.

Flowering Rose, you are pulling our legs with your ground glass method of killing rats, aren't you?

I would hate anybody to think that was a legitimate method of pest control.