Rats an More Rats
 

Not sure where to put this post so I`ll try here; Can someone help me with some advice on how to get rid of rats that won`t eat poison an will not take the bait in a rat trap. I have a few in my home I just can`t get rid of, hopefully some one had had this experience an know what to do. Thanks a lot........rick

U got house rats. How bout some house CATS.

I stumbled across this a while back and your post brought it to mind. I haven't tried this myself, but poison and traps aren't working so it's worth a shot.

Simple Mouse Trap

It's a pretty simple premise: a tall bucket or trash can, an empty paper towel tube, some peanut butter (or something else they'll eat). Put the tube with the food end hanging over the end of a table or counter with the bucket/trash can under it. When they try to get the food the tube tips over and it all falls into the container. If it works you'll probably need to keep doing it for a while. If you've seen one....

Thanks Wire...

Rats will kill Cats. Rat Terrier might be better.

big rockpile

The farm ground to the northeast of me was sold some years back, and the new owner decided to rent out the house. He picked some real losers. The old turn-of-the-(last) century barn had been left full of old hay for decades, and one fourth of July these folks thought bottle rockets would be a good idea. I watched that grand old barn burn from my drylot.

Within a short time, all the rats that had previously occupied their place exited for the neighbors'. I got my share, in the barn and crib.:facepalm:

I tried EVERYTHING. But rats are extremely intelligent, and also rather suspicious. I put out every conceivable type of bait. I had loads of cats. I got peppermint oil and spread it on cotton balls everywhere, spread dog hair around the perimeter, stopped up holes with steel wool, and sent my little PBGV digging. These things messed with them briefly, but made no lasting difference.

Then I decided to string lights. Their mischief was mostly in the barn loft at that time. So we put up seven 100 watt lights in there, arranged so there were no shadowy places to hide. Rats like to creep around in secret. I tried to create an environment where they couldn't get comfortable.

I only saw rats once or twice. But wow, you couldn't miss the droppings! After adding the lights, I realized they were moving out to someplace else.

So I strung lights in the crawlspace of the house, as well as the root cellar. :runforhills:

Thank goodness it's worked well for us. The cost is negligible, and it's safe for our critters. I still put out some stinky menthol stuff and have bait around. Only mice will eat it, but it makes me feel better.

I wish you luck! Rats are hard to get rid of.

I have had 4 cats for a few years. Don't see a rat a year, and only maybe a 1/2 doz or less mice a year.

Stickey traps along the wall,sooner or later you will get one or two.

I guess a 12 gauge it out of the question, so I'd mix some peanut butter in with the poison pellets.

Horseyrider, this is a GREAT idea! When I was a kid, a friend and I used to go to his uncle's farm at night to shoot rats. We'd go to the corn crib, barn, where he kept his feed, etc. We'd turn the lights on, and have about 5 seconds to shhot at as many rats as we could. We'd probably see a dozen or more at each spot. Once we turn the lights on, they'd scatter. After shooting, we'd go to the next spot. We sometimes made 3 or 4 rounds before running out of ammo. It's amazing that no one got hurt. They'd only come out in the dark.

We've always had cats on our farm, and don't see many signs of rats. We find a dead one every 5 years or so, thanks to the cats. We've never had a problem with the rats going after the cats. With that many rats, though, you'll need a lot of cats. Good luck! Curt

First place I bought was overrun with rats. Don't know why I never got any rats, but I had my first pk, a 47 Chevy. Id drive it up to the back of the grainery shed which was a combo of one grain bin, one corn crib, with a lean to attached garage. I knew there were rats working back there. Id stand on the running board and lean over the fender and shoot them with a 22. Cheap kinda fun.

I never had a rat problem... Not even a single rat on the old farm place here..
But I had a ton of chipmunks... They are very destructive in there own way and get about the size of a big rat...

I had my best results with a wood base Victor rat trap, baited with a salted in the shell peanut tied to the trip pan with a bread wrapper twist tie... I also tied a short length of brick layers string to tether the trap so something that wants to consume the contents of the trap doesn't drag the trap away where I can't find it...

My neighbor says an unwrapped mini Tootsie Roll tied to the trip pan works well.... I have yet to try it myself...

Good luck....

Chop up some of the rat poison with a good amount of peanut butter.
Toss the knife away after or seal it in with the bait in the big pouch for future use.
Worked great for our mice that got too smart about traps and regular bait alone and the one rat outside.

Don't set the traps, just bait them unset for awhile until the rats get used to eating there. Then bait and set them in the same spot. Rats are known to be Leary of anything new in their area. Another tip: Use a piece of raw fish for bait. Tie it on with string.

Think food,water,shelter. TOTALLY eliminate one of these three and the rats will leave!
If you do NOT have chickens or rabbit etc you can make your property "mink and weasel friendly" or purchase a ferret. Any of the three will end your rat problem.

Wade

Put pepsi or some kind of pop out. Put in a place your pets can't get at and it will take care of the rats and mice.

I have heard that pop - since it is carbonated will give rats gas and they cant get rid of gas so they "gasphixiate". The water trap will work but you need something round on a pole that will spin coated with peanut butter and suspended over the water. They jump on it and it rolls dumping them into the water. Cats and terriors will help too. An Amish neighbor of mine had a pig operation and eventually he got rats so bad you'd see them in broad daylight scurrying out of the large gravity feeder. He tried all sorts of poison and nothing would work and then one Sunday he went out to chore and a skunk had been in the barn - he never had a rat after that. Rats are scared of skunks since they'll raid the nests and eat baby rats. Rats are gross - good luck with them. Make sure you're cleaning up food/ grain/ dog food - anything left around for them, to eat.

Use to have a Neighbor Woman years ago would shoot Rats from her Bed at night. One night she accidently shot herself in the foot :eek::Bawling:

big rockpile

My sister lives close to a river in CA and used to have rats come up under and onto her deck. She read that rodents don't like peppermint so she soaked cotton balls with peppermint essential oil and put them all around her house and deck. The rats disappeared. She keeps peppermint growing around her deck now.
We have had mice problems in our camper in the winter. I now put soaked cotton balls in the camper and the storage areas that are accessed from the outside. We don't have mice in the camper since we started doing that.
I think real essential oil is required.

I used to have a small dog that someone dumped out. That dog killed anything and everything, mice, shrews, moles as soon as she found one. I don't know if she ever killed a rat though.

Take a pie pan and with several pieces of bread in it (Setting on the floor). Pour anti-freeze over the bread. Cover the pan with a milk crate and put a very large weight on top like a five gallon bucket of dirt. The milk crate will keep dogs and cats out but the rats will crawl in and out of the handle holes to get the bait.
They will eat the bread and go off somewhere and die. I've even seen other rats eating on thier buddies then go off and die as they ran across the yard.
Once the rats find out that its there, they will clean up everything in the pan very quickly.
Make sure that you don't disturb them while they are around the milk crate. You want them to be as comfortable as possible around it. Repeat as needed.
You'll pick up a few mice also.
My neighbor used to feed old bread products to his hogs and the rats capitalized on the food source. This is how he kept them in check. He actually used on of these setups out in the middle of his car yard under the yard light. (He could watch it from his house.)
Make sure that you don't leave any dead animals laying around, as they are poison to other animals.

Call an exterminator. They will have liquid baits that the rats will consume as a water source. I tried for several weeks at one of our old houses to get rid of rats and was having no effects at all. Called the exterminator and had the problem solved in about 10 days.

Get 'rat sticks'.... place them in such a way that they can't be toted off... I put them between two boards.... they have to nibble on them, they nibble, they die...

I must have tough cats, both rat killers, and our dog kills them, too. Since we moved to our new property last year, we haven't had any issues with them.

Rats and mice dislike mint. I put that in all our vehicles!

Has any one had luck getting rid of rats with guinea fowl? Read they were good for this, and we seem to be having a problem suddenly with rats. Scared they will kill or attempt to kill our meat rabbits and the babies. Any thoughts? They can be housed with the chickens too...I think.

We have/had red squirrels in our cabin.
Took a 5 gal. bucket, put in rv anti-freeze, about 5 inches. Covered surface of fluid with sunflower seeds. Put a ramp up to bucket (we used a old wash board) so that ramp can't fall down. They go in and can't get out.


We used rv anti-freeze because cabin is unheated while we are not there. Last I looked we caught about 10 sq's.

Check out this thread in the Working and Companion animals thread*-This man and his Pack are professionals! Never seen anything like it! Make a post on his thread?

Is this the thread you are talking about Tom?

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/liv...iers-rats.html

What kind of sissy cats do you have? LOL

Domestic cats, if allowed to wild up, are extremely efficient predators and they don't just kill when they are hungry. They kill for the joy of killing. Mine bring stuff to my door all the time. If a week goes by without each of them bringing at least two dead things to the porch I think something is wrong LOL.

We have a Cairn terrier as well as cats. They all do a very good job exterminating the foul rodents. The Cairn will even tackle weasels and mink.

Bring in some black snakes and you won't have a problem. They are a lot less trouble than rats or mice and don't carry diseases.

There used to be a product on the market called Rampage that was bait mixed with Vitamin D3. The vitamin would disrupt the rodents' calcium balance and they died. Animals finding the bodies weren't affected if they ate the dead mice/rats which made it much safer to use. Unfortunately, it's no longer available.

My neighbor suggested the candy Starburst Fruit Chews as bait in traps but my husband thought peanut butter was more effective. I started seeing some evidence of rodents--too big to be mice, too small to be rats and they have short tails--in the hoop house where I couldn't let the cats go so I tried the candy in some traps. Well, the varmints tripped the traps, ate the bait and tried to carry the traps into their burrows which were a good 2" across. After thinking on it a while, I crushed 2 of the calcium/Vitamin D3 supplements I take, softened 2 of the Fruit Chew candies in the microwave until I could knead the crushed supplement into the candy. The morning after I scattered the treated candy bits in the hoop house, all the pieces were gone. I used a trowel to destroy the openings of their burrows to see if they cleared them. So far, the burrows are still covered. I don't know if the rodents are dead or just left for a while but either is acceptable. I don't have words for how strong is my aversion to mice, particularly rats.

Will post later to let you know the results.

Have to agree. If you don't mind snakes, a black snake or chicken snake will solve the problem. However, they will also eat birds, frogs, chicken eggs, etc.

Had a farm some years ago & can remember hub being in the barn, reaching into the hay loft & a snake crossing his hand. He didn't move, let it go. We didn't have a problem with rats.

Took a huge one out of my basement some years ago. I suspect it had been crawling out to eat the chicken eggs, nearby. But, I had no problem with mice or rats.

I might be that bad of shot.......

We get rats about every 5 years or so. I have to poison them. Normally, they gobble up the poison, but mixing in peanut butter or gravy will make it more attractive. I always place the poison in locked sheds that only have openings small enough for rats to get in (and not cats or dogs). I try the poison by itself first, as it is less a risk to pets should the shed be left open. For us, it usually only takes a few weeks to get rid of them although one year it seemed like the whole area had them. And you need to encourage your neighbors to kill them as well - cause otherwise they will just migrate back. They sure are hideous things!