Rats in a garden

So my mom asked if my cats could visit her... turns out she wants them to catch the rats in her garden.

I told her that mousing is a learned skill... but also Kyuubi is too lazy. He isn't catching any rats unless they come to him. :laughing: Azrael with the proper training could be a champion mouser, but even he has no killer instinct.

My first solution was for them to get a cat of their own. But they were against the idea. Then I got to thinking... critters like rats don't like to hang around areas where predators are. So do you think that by spreading some cat fur (I can easily get bag fulls of this in just a few days of brushing), in the garden will keep the rats away?

Does anyone have any other ideas? Traps don't seeem to work.

Well it can't hurt to try the cat hair thing, and maybe if you have clumping litter you could collect a couple of urine balls and spread them around a bit. For us we used the snap traps sadly and had to kill a few. I hated to kill them, but didn't want them around the house either. Seems the smell of dog in the area didn't both our rat neighbours. But I'd try the hair and pee thing before I resorted to killing them maybe. At least your version is free and humane.

Cat fur won't work rats aren't afraid of cats, in fact rats will attack cats. You could try one of those sonar things. As long as there is food out there the pests will come.