Rats take over abandoned housing.

[Thinyser]

Rats invade cities with high abandoned housing

So do the high zombie populations in cities then keep the rat population down (as they do have a little PPE each) or does the rat population explode, then rapidly die off after its easy cash of decaying bodies and easily reached human food wanes?

I would think that they would go after them for the chance to extinguish life, but how do you run this?

[rat_bastard]

Honestly, Rats need humans to survive in the numbers they do. That combined with the shear number of zombies killing them for their PPE and former pets hunting them for food, rats should basically be at the same level the usually are.

[asajosh]

I believe animals tend to avoid zombies in DR.
So I'd say there would be isolated pokets of rodent population explosions (as they feast on left behind food in grocery stores and humans arent actively exterminating them). But once their easy food supplies become exhausted, the population will dwindle back down to "pre-wave" levels, then dip even lower as there are few humans to survive off of.

[azazel1024]

Zombies aren't dead, they are undead. The book states that dogs and other animals seem to be able to sense zombies, so I'd imagine most would try to stay away from them. Though the rats might smell a zombie, they aren't necessarily going to be trying to eat something still moving and possibly trying to kill them in return.
-Matt

[Thinyser]

I think that slouchers are too slow to effectivly hunt small fasts critters like these... i mean they evade regular people easily. They are simply too small and fast moving to be caught by hand and most zombies wouldnt think to set traps for rats nor would thinkers consider it a worthwile endevor because they activly want to kill humans and will look for evidence of us. Though I agree they would probably not be food for rats as undead I'm pretty sure that rats would eat them without a second thought once they are dead dead.We are talking generations of rats living off our abandonded food supplies and bodies at first then zombie bodies after we start to (hopefully) turn the tide against them.

So I think that this would all be enough to insure a huge rat explosion and then a huge rat drop off for a while but that the overall rat to human ratio will be more in the rats favor than it was before. They are opportunistic and will scrounge our produce and leftovers because its easy but they are better instinctual survivors than we are even when not provided for by humans.



On a side note, I'm thinking that a rat hunter with a high powered airgun or silenced .22 would be a gritty way to make a living. Or a hound master could train a pack of wiener dogs to hunt them. In addition to being used to flush out badgers (Dachshunds are mean little bastards if they want to be, and I'm sure they want to be when you put them in a hole with a badger) they also make great ratters.

[asajosh]

Zombies aren't dead, they are undead.

Zombies are the animated dead, different from undead. But I guess its somewhat open to interpretation.

[azazel1024]

I think of them as undead since they have their own will (though limited intelligence) and need to feed off of life essence (PPE), though depending on your interpretation of animated dead maybe. There doesn't appear to be someone controlling them.

For the results, rats may try to feed on them, but even a slow sloucher or crawler would likely be able to catch a rat trying to feed on it. For hunting them down, probably wouldn't be to effective unless they cornered one.
-Matt