Available Here: Rat Diet Advice

Slow Motion Rat Hunting #17

Dislike 0 Published on 5 Aug 2012

The rats are invading!

Their numbers have been increasing lately, more and more have been coming to feed on the bird food. They can give birth to 7 youngsters every 21 days and can carry a number of diseases - so they are not welcome in the garden! They could be poisoned, but as there are other animals, pets and children in the garden, this isn't the best option to control their numbers. Shooting is the best and most humane way of keeping the numbers down.

All shots were taken at about 14 yards, from a window overlooking the garden. For my rifle this is 1 mil-dot high. All of the shots were taken over a number of days, whenever we spied one that came for a visit.

*1
You'll notice in this shot my crosshairs aren't following the rat's head. A good tip when
you're trying to shoot something that's constantly moving its head while feeding, is to
settle your crosshairs on where its head is in the relaxed position when they're chewing
whatever it is they've picked up. This is what I was doing with the rat. I waited for him to move back to his sitting position after he pulled off a chunk. That way, you're not
constantly following his head around and the second he moves his head back to chew, I'm there ready to shoot, instead of having to move the crosshairs and re-settle (the 1-2 seconds it takes to do that he'd probably have moved again for another bite.)

*2
I followed this guy around for ages as he dashed out, loaded up his mouth with bread, then dashed back into the hedge. You'll notice he made a fatal mistake - he loaded up so much in his mouth he couldn't see where he was going and ran into the brick! As he stopped to pick up what he dropped he gave me enough time to place the pellet through his skull.

*3
Rats hardly ever keep still. A good tip when rat shooting is to do what I did here - smear a little peanut butter or chocolate spread on the ground. The rats can't resist this and as they can't run off with it, they have to sit there licking it up, keeping their head nice and still :).

*4
Pretty much a carbon copy of number 3 this one. The peanut butter working well :)

Equipment used: Air Arms S410 C .177 (Sub 12ft lbs) Gary Cane custom stock, MTC Mamba 4-16x50, Casio EX-ZR100 on home made mount, MTC 5-700 Laser Range finder, Harris Swivel Bi pod, Pellets: .177 JSB Exacts 4.53

Music by Kevin Macleod