War on Rats

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ladysown

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My need to kill rats has escalated.

Killed two baby rabbits this morning. Rather distressing that.

FINALLY found rat poison at Canadian Tire that I could buy.. certainly couldn't get it or any kind of poison at the feed mills.
What makes the difference???

So I have two bait stations.
Rat poison (pelleted)
mouse poison (bait block)
live trap.. caught two big ones YEAH!!!
I keep setting out snap traps cause the young ones are sometimes stupid

What I have tried (unsuccessfully)
- cake mix/plaster mix - not even sniffed at.. was peed and pooped on.
- snap traps (caught two the rest now avoid them)
- pail with water (not even slightly tempting)
FORGOT to add.. Glue traps (I swear they laughed at me)... I found them turned upside, sides nibbled, pooped on, peed on (that was just special) hay dumped on them.

Hubby shot at one with a pellet gun this morning, made it jump don't know if it will die or not as it scampered away not as fast as before.


Suggestions????
THIS IS WAR!!!! I don't need an upset boy child and more dead rabbits (babies with legs chewed off).
 
So sorry-I feel for you. It's so frustrating to be having these types of things happening, and you almost feel like your home, property, animals, and privacy is being invaded! I hope you get them all soon. Do you have cats? That helped with our problem, and I haven't seen evidence again.....
 
Yeah, I don't have any mouse or rat problems since we have 2 very good cats and the dogs tend to get one every once in a while. do you have a cat? if not and you want to get one then I'd suggest finding a kitten that was raised by a mother that hunted for it those skills are taught at 8 weeks of age in kittens.
 
we have stray cats in our backyard all the time... LIKE ALL THE TIME except for the one hour that our housecat is outside. They do NOTHING for the rat problem.

We have TONS of rats and it isn't getting any better.....it takes a good cat to get an adult rat.
 
Rats also vary by location, I think ours must be smaller because I have seen our cat kill a rat, but have also heard that most of the time they won't even mess with them because they may or may not win that fight and it's not worth it. The other thing you might try are the glue traps, have you seen them in stores in your area? You can buy a lot and put them every where that you think the rats could be traveling. They work well along edges of walls or the fence.....but they are sticky so expect anything that crosses them to get stuck, including cats or dogs, and probably a lot of bugs. I have heard rats are so smart that you have to vary your corse of action. Are the poison pellets chewed at all? <br /><br /> -- Mon Mar 28, 2016 11:02 am -- <br /><br /> You could also look into buying or borrowing a specific breed of dog, like a rat terrier, who is known for it's effectiveness in killing rats.
 
you reminded me of the glue trap debacle. :)

After i run through this course of poison it doesn't work.. then I am not sure what I will do. Won't be able to do dogs here for at least a month after the poison is cleared up as the poison can kill the dogs.
 
Not so long ago, a member posted an interesting idea. (Sorry, can't recall who posted and no time to go looking for it.) The idea was to house one or more guinea pigs in the rabbitry. Apparently rats hate, loathe and detest guinea pigs and will not hang out where they are.

No idea how effective this is, but it might be worth a try.
 
Tried the bucket methd? Maybe since they are rats though you'd need something bigger like a galvanized trash can.. We caught a rat sized baby possum once in one. My grandmother had put the empty catfood cans in it when it was otherwise empty, poor guy. We released him outside of town, where hopefully he stayed...

Put something really enticing in the bucket (in your case trash can)... They won't think about how to get out before they jump in.
 
We were discussing that rodents would repel other rodents but it only works to a point. Rats will get bolder and bolder until they don't seem afraid of anything and they learn fast about traps and bait. Rotating methods helps. For the plaster bait we use powdered cheese in a batch, then powdered sugar for a batch, then corn meal in a batch... It takes a good month or 2 to see progress because they have to keep eating it and you absolutely must keep it out there constantly. If you lapse at all litters will slip by too quickly and you'll be back where you started. I tried every trap anyone could imagine and it's never useful for long, if at all. Poison is necessary.

When it comes to commercial poison there are the generation 1 products like warfarin and the generation 2 products. The generation 2 was made because some rat populations were becoming resistant but it doesn't work any faster. You will still have to wait 2-4weeks to see if it's working. Also the generation 2 stuff is far more dangerous to animals higher on the food chain and very detrimental to birds. Supposedly coumatetralyl (racumin is the main brand) is superior and will not affect animals that don't eat it directly but I can't get any straight info on why it isn't sold in the US. It seems it imports just fine with no extra costs so we decided to put in an order just to check it out. Takes a month to ship though. Should be here in about a week. There are some potential negatives to it that we really needed to get our hands on a product to confirm.
 
hubby laughed this morning when I told him the rats were pulling around one of the snap traps.... trying to pull it into their hole...

Heavens these beasties are frustrating....
 
Glue traps are a despicable form of pest control and should be outlawed. Maybe an animal caught on them shrieking in pain/distress and in the process of chewing its own limb off might change your mind.

I also fail to see what's funny about an animal getting a limb or tail stuck in a snap trap, and dragging it around. An animal suffering in a trap is not and will never be funny. If you're going to kill/dispose of pest animals, at least have some humanity about it, gosh. :angry:
 
I think on an individual case this is true, but if you have ever had a rat infestation you have to have a little humor or you will drive yourself insane. It's not funny to see them suffer at all, but their resilience is so frustrating and kind of amazing at the same time....no judgement just trying to really think about where the commenter is coming from, and I don't think they are thrilled with suffering....JMHO based on other posts I have also seen from them.... <br /><br /> -- Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:29 pm -- <br /><br /> I hate glue traps too but I hate rats more, they are dirty spread disease and will kill my baby rabbits.....I do whatever it takes to get them gone.
 
Justify it all you like, but laughing at the suffering of an injured animal isn't right... infestation or no infestation.
 
GregStreet":3pvolxej said:
Justify it all you like, but laughing at the suffering of an injured animal isn't right... infestation or no infestation.
Wow... I understand your opinion on the matter, but I think it can be handled with a bit more respect and kindness. I see your joining date was a while back, so I assume you have lurked around here quite a bit over that span of time. This is a good place to be, and the mods and members work hard to keep it that way. No need to jump all over someone right out of the gate...

Out of curiosity I did a search on the name and it looks like GregStreet only comes around/posts on topics with mice/rats and glue traps... odd, but, whatever. Different strokes for different folks.
 
Snap traps commonly sold these days are so weak. I'm not even sure the ones I can buy in local stores physically hurts the mouse/rat. It sure isn't going to kill them. I had one drag a trap into another trap that it also got stuck in and then still kept going. I bought some stronger plastic traps online so they'd stop getting out of them before I found them but if you want a chance of actually killing a mouse/rat at all humanely in a snap trap you really have to go back to those basic old wooden traps that will leave your finger stinging for days. Otherwise the snap traps I could find aren't a huge difference from glue traps. They just limit or stop movement until you check the traps and dispatch the animal.
 
heritage":2yw7x156 said:
Wow... I understand your opinion on the matter, but I think it can be handled with a bit more respect and kindness.
What have I said exactly that was disrespectful and mean? All I said was that it's not funny watching an animal suffering.
 
I just think that the person who posted that was not laughing about the animals suffering.....and I think that because I have followed her posts on here for close to a year. When you are on here often for a variety of questions and answers, you get to know people. This is a good place to be. And we all start to feel like we know each other, and how we run our operations and feel about things. I have never once got the impression that ladysown enjoys watching animals suffer. So all I would say is that if you don't have a good sense of where someone is coming from don't assume things. It's not justifying, it's simply understanding what was intended to come across. And we all know there are good humane ways for something to die, most people here do have conversations, even graphic ones at time, as to how to achieve that.
 
Where are the rats coming from? Are they just breeding in your property? If they are coming from some where else you're not going to get rid of them unless you remove what ever is attracting them.
 
MaggieJ":2ayqsye3 said:
Not so long ago, a member posted an interesting idea. (Sorry, can't recall who posted and no time to go looking for it.) The idea was to house one or more guinea pigs in the rabbitry. Apparently rats hate, loathe and detest guinea pigs and will not hang out where they are

Yeah, it works for us every time. And just a few days ago I found two baby rats drowned in a rabbit drinking bowl, so here we go again :|
 
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