Rats & Mice

C

Cheeky Girl

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I am slowly persuading SWMBO that we should just go. So she picked up the new bible in the house (Sell up & Sail). Then happened to read the above chapter and said I am not going if we get rats on board, she is bad enought with field mice in the loft at home..

Can you please try to re-assure her that this is a very rare occurance if at all.


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Um, you do need to take precautions. Rats and mice don't just "turn up" - they arrive whilst in a marina or port, the skankier the better, and the more food lying about on board, the better. I saw sizeable rats in Marseilles, for example, and wd imagine it is this sort of city/town marina at most risk.

If at all unsure, make each line a single run (ie not doubled back) and use/make big aluminium discs which slip reasonably tightish over the line so nothing can come aboard that route. Keep the boat well clear of the marina edge - stern-to moring makes this easy - but proximity to other boats doesn't.

Having said all that, i have not heard of any other posts remarking on rat/mice, so it must be fairly rare. Good subject to pep up a book about sailing around the world, i suppose. There's stuff about pirates too. It's supposed to be an adventure. You could take a cat.


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It's got to be extremely rare. Most people don't have the kind of yacht that the Coopers have (actually a large sea-going barge that a rat could easily get lost in), nor regularly visit the dirty commercial ports that they seem to enjoy.

Now cockroaches .... that's something else. She's not squeamish about them, too?

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You might reassure her that being well out at sea is about the cleanest environment you will ever experience. In fact the complete absence of small insects and flies feels almost uncanny, as they are so much a part of normal life as to be hardly noticed. And there are no infectious illnesses to be caught - its really healthy.

If you anchor most places, and never allow paper or cardboard aboard (take food out of its outer wrappers), you should avoid all problems. But cockroaches can fly, so beware of anchoring downwind of a 'roach farm'.

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Re: We always take rats with us!

As a rat owning family (currently five just sold six babies! oh and three children not sold any of those) we always take our rats with us on board. They are clean and don't smell and are very good company. The only germs they collect are from their owners so they can't be unhygienic as they don't meet any wild rats. The only anxiety I have is that if one escaped into the electrics cupboard we might lose some cables. We do have a flag which denotes "rats on board" available from Rat Island in Scilly. Learn to love rats they are not all evil plague carriers! There are worse things in my view like mice in the larder...

<hr width=100% size=1>It's more fun than housework!
 
Personal worst experience.

We have never had problems with unwanted guests (non-human variety) on our own boat. But once while in the Caribbean we accepted an invitation for a drink aboard another run-down yacht that turned out to be alive with bed-bugs. I noticed fairly quickly and beat a retreat from the saloon to the cockpit. But SWMBO was inclined to linger, and by the time I got her out she had bites all over her legs. As we rowed back we spotted little brown specks crawling all over her dress and my white shirt. Nothing for it but to strip right off and dive in, leaving the clothes in the dinghy packed in a stout polythene sack to be taken to the laundry asap!

It was one occasion where we felt unable to return the invitation.

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Rodents

on boats are a right pest, when the occur which is fortunately seldom, unless you frequent commercial port quays.

Having tame rats (very cute) or cats aboard is reputed to discourage them.

Unfortunately, as tales from SE Asia testify, they can and do swim out to anchored boats and are bordering on the insolent in their behaviour.
Don't as an American acquaintance of mine, let loose with a .38. Whilst it does kill the rat (if you're a good enough shot) it also ruins the saloon woodwork and the exit hole in the GRP coachroof is enormous.

However bedbugs are a far more common and difficult-to-eradicate pest, especially in climates where <0C are uncommon.

No I think you can re-assure your wife, on N hemisphere statistics rat-infestation on boats is about the same order of probability as personal lightening strike on land.

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get a terrier as your ships dog.

If you do get a rat coming aboard it will make the weeks dog food budget a little cheaper!

<hr width=100% size=1>Julian

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Re: Couldn\'t do that ....

Well he has to be doing a better job than your DECCA.

Do you sail the ark of something? Oh no, that was doves wasn't it /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Julian

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Re: Couldn\'t do that ....

What better navigator than a homing pigeon?

Actually a very bad one as we found it well out into Biscay (see chart). I think the unit is an old Navstar, never had a Decca.

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