Roeshot Hill Allotment Association
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      • June Hint #4 - yellowing cabbage leaves
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      • Hint 31st May - Protecting Cabbages etc.
      • Hint 25th May - extra crops
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      • Hint w/e 4th May - Sowing tender veg.
      • Hint w/e 24th April - Planting cabbages for summer
      • Hint w/e 20th April - carrots
      • Hint w/e 20th April - Still planting potatoes?
      • Hint No.1-13th April-digging & sowing
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      • Mince pies and Mulled wine at the Cafe 15th Dec 2013
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    • Growing Tips >
      • Hugh's water saving tips
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      • Courgette and Raspberry recipes
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    • wildlife >
      • Birds
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  • Ideas & Advice
    • Rat Control
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  • Save our Allotments!
    • EIP Update - 9th Jan 2014
    • Letter to the Echo - 6th Jan 2014
    • Members Update Sept 2013
    • Community Asset Application - 20 Sept 2013
    • Update on EIP - 19th Sept
    • Summary of the situation - Sept 2013
    • RHAA Chairman's comment in Bournemouth Echo - Feb 2013
  • 2018 Green Flag
  • Caring for Wildlife
  • Corona Virus
  • NASLG Covid advice

Controlling Rats 

Chicken keepers can't stop hens scattering feed but you need to protect the stored feed with metal sealed containers and use rat-proof feeders suspended on chains. (Chains are cheap from InExcess).

Our experience is that snap-traps only catch the young ones that have not yet learned to avoid them. Hence the older big fat rats seen running around.

Poison works (with mice as well) if suitably protected from other wildlife in a bait box with a clear entrance and straight through exit. Blocks of poison bait are available from Ray at the Trading Hut - catch him onsite most mornings before 10.30.

Some traditional home-made rat-killers have been used with some success. Bicarbonate of Soda or Plaster of Paris mixed with powdered drinking chocolate or peanut butter may work - again in a protected bait box. (Any sealed plastic box with a rat size hole, about 2" diameter, cut in each end will do.) 
Apparently raw (preferably rotting!) sweet potato mashed into something attractive to rats like chocolate powder is a more natural poison for rats that will not affect other wildlife so doesn't need to be protected in a bait box. (pestweek.com/sweet-potato-kill-rats/) 
​
If you can afford it, electronic animal scarers with flashing lights work well especially in enclosed spaces like sheds (- and chicken feed stores?) but will scare off our helpful hedgehogs if used in the open.
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