Rats - how do they do it?

[CliffordPope]

Somewhat related to the plasic plumbing thread:

How do they manage to totally strip a long length of live mains cable without either killing themselves or shorting the cable?
You might have expected to find piles of dead rats , all but the first having failed to learn the Darwin principle.
But I have never seen an electrocuted rat. They must instinctively understand about earthing, never touching a live wire unless totally isolated, or how it's all right to walk along a live rail but only to jump on or off but never step.

I have occasionally wired up a switch without turning the power off, but only poking the pre-stripped wire into the hole and tightening the screw with an insulated screwdriver. But I've never stripped back a live cable with my teeth!

 

[Feltwell]

No idea, but I do know that since I installed one of these a few years ago, I've not seen a single rat anywhere around my house. Expensive but worth it! It's in the last access chamber before my soil pipe leaves the property to go into the public sewer.

https://www.pestcontroldirect.co.uk...twall-drain-barrier-for-clay-plastic-pipes-4/

 

[Easrow]

I have seen one electrocuted rodent and that was in my dads loft. I used to play with scalextric as a child up there and when we came to dismantle it years later we found one fried mouse under the track. It wasn't even an old house.

 

[LadyArowana]

How do they manage to totally strip a long length of live mains cable without either killing themselves or shorting the cable?

Easy, first they steal a Wellington boot