Disposing of rat caught in live trap!!

[microchick]

Perhaps there is a way you could just release it somewhere far from your coop like the woods or a park? It’s already in a live trap, why kill it now?

I'm sorry, do not every release a captured vermin so that it become somebody else's problem.

I have enough fox, raccoon, rats, mice, voles, bob cats and cougars around us to last a lifetime.

I would be really POed if somebody dumped their nuisance pest outside our farm gate, and in the same breathe, I doubt if you would be overjoyed if somebody did the same to you.

 

[hayley3]

Perhaps there is a way you could just release it somewhere far from your coop like the woods or a park? It’s already in a live trap, why kill it now?

In the past, that rat would've been another animal's lunch....their populations have exploded because we have killed their natural predators.

Let me add to the excellent post by @cmom that rodents can become resistant to bait.

I'm currently finishing up a bucket of Tom Cat bait. It works but I recently found 4 fat mice that had set up housekeeping in my bait holder and were happily getting fat on the bait.

I ordered Ramik yesterday. I've used it before with good results.

About the holders. Make sure you can fasten them down so they cannot be carried off by a pet. I had a concrete block sitting on one to keep it from growing legs and a tail and walking away. My husband one morning found our Jack Russell/border collie mix girl dog in the pasture happily trying to chew her way into the trap. No idea how she got it out from under the concrete block but she did. What ensued was a call to a veterinary poison control center ran by the ASPCA who talked me through the whole ordeal. The treatment was oral peroxide which our dog was not thrilled about. It took me three ounces to get one ounce down her and the resulting volcano to make sure she hadn't ingested any poison. Gratefully she hadn't but she still had to take a weeks worth of vitamin K to prevent anything she didn't chuckup from hurting her.

We both learned a lesson. She doesn't show much interest in the bait holders and I now put them in my have a heart traps and my wire cage so she can't get them out and try to chew her way into them again.

Never under estimate the determination of a mouse loving dog or cat when it comes to handling bait. I won't even get into children and other such animals.

Also on a curiosity side of things. Do chickens eat poisoned mice? I've never seen my birds touch a dead by poison mouse. I've seen them chase down live mice resulting in me having to chase down the chicken involved and removing it from her beak but if my birds encounter a soon to be dead from poison mouse, they give out their alert danger danger call and make a wide circle around it. They can sense what is wrong, I swear! Last night I picked up a dead mouse in the bachelor run. Those boys are like Mikey, they will eat anything but they hadn't touched the mouse.

I wish our dogs were that smart!

As for humane and inhumane. Let's face it guys, death by poison isn't exactly an easy death either but it's us or them as the saying goes. As for rodent death by drowning...yeah, I've entered my coop to find a mouse swimming around their heated water dish in the winter. Do I rescue it? Nope. I turn away, get busy for a few minutes, then dump the victim and the water outside. No death is humane, nor is it humane for rats to chew the toes off of chicks or hens while they are asleep at night. They are vermin. Pure and simple. They spread disease and are the primary vector for Lyme carrying mice and Bubonic Plague.

Makes me wonder how many do a few laps in the water bowl for exercise and escape to breed another day....

Oh that's good to know about the chickens catching the sick mice. I always worried about it. And I agree poison isn't more humane than drowning...we do not know how it feels to be poisoned so we assume it's more humane.
When my goose saw the rat, she was shaking and honking trying to get away from it...so I worried about my girls and gave them a night light so they would feel safer and they could see the rat if it came near them.

 

[FluffyBottomBantams]

You are right, and yes that may not be the best idea, I guess I’m just a softie. I’m sure if I saw a rat in my own coop I’d start yelling something along the lines of “shoot the darn thing, shoot it!!!”

 

[hayley3]

I'm sorry, do not every release a captured vermin so that it become somebody else's problem.

I have enough fox, raccoon, rats, mice, voles, bob cats and cougars around us to last a lifetime.

I would be really POed if somebody dumped their nuisance pest outside our farm gate, and in the same breathe, I doubt if you would be overjoyed if somebody did the same to you.

Honestly I've never lived this close to people and now I have rats for the first time since I began keeping chickens in 1994. So maybe they caught the rat in the trap and gave it to me.

 

[hayley3]

You are right, and yes that may not be the best idea, I guess I’m just a softie. I’m sure if I saw a rat in my own coop I’d start yelling something along the lines of “shoot the darn thing, shoot it!!!”

I hated it...let me assure you...I rescue beetles from the water and carry turtles across the road, so it did not thrill me but I was afraid of it at the same time.

 

[birdlover2]

I'm sorry, do not every release a captured vermin so that it become somebody else's problem.

I have enough fox, raccoon, rats, mice, voles, bob cats and cougars around us to last a lifetime.

I would be really POed if somebody dumped their nuisance pest outside our farm gate, and in the same breathe, I doubt if you would be overjoyed if somebody did the same to you.

There are two sides to every story...and I stand some-where in the middle on this one. I do agree with this sentiment, but also with what @FluffyBottomBantams said. Perhaps you could get a trap designed to kill in some sort of humane fasion instead of getting a trap which you then have to kill the animal in in an inhumane fasion because it's still alive would be a good idea. And if you were going to release an animal it should be at a national forest or park or something, not in somebody else's backyard. Or perhaps bring it to a wildlife center and they can release it somewhere suitable. Regardless, I don't know if re-releasing a rat into the wild at some type of nature preserve or national forest is illegal, it probably is in at least some areas of the country, and I'm unsure if any wildlife preservation or rehabilitation center would take rats either. They're widely considered pests, and also an invasive species

 

[FluffyBottomBantams]

thank you @birdlover2 you worded it much better than I

 

[FluffyBottomBantams]

I hated it...let me assure you...I rescue beetles from the water and carry turtles across the road, so it did not thrill me but I was afraid of it at the same time.

I’ve seen one dead in a field that a bird must have dropped...holy cow them suckers are huge!!!

 

[microchick]

Honestly I've never lived this close to people and now I have rats for the first time since I began keeping chickens in 1994. So maybe they caught the rat in the trap and gave it to me.

Yep, that's the point.

I recently had somebody tell me that their dad kept catching and releasing raccoons that were demolishing their garden. After the third catch and release the son told his dad that he bet they were catching the same raccoon. The dad didn't believe him so when he once again caught a raccoon, he sprayed it with non toxic spray paint and his dad once again took the coon several miles away from his farm and released it.

Guess what he caught in his live trap several days later?

Mr. Raccoon was gifted with a .22 carat lead diamond at that point and was no longer a problem.

 

[microchick]

Please understand, we are farm people. Here in Missouri when wildlife become a nuisance and we call the conservation dept as I once did when we had a female fox decimating area chicken flocks in order to feed her kits. I was told, any wild animal that threatens or kills livestock, it is a nuisance animal. Shoot it!

I love animals. We have 7 dogs, 5 cats and about 50 chickens right now. 5 of the dogs we rescued from a puppy mill, 2 were dumped as 7 week old puppies and found their way to our farm where we immediately adopted them.

Way too often people thing that country/farm folk have a place for stray animals and happily dump them at our door step. We are different from most. We do not shoot strays. We take them in, love them and give them the best life that they can have.

But rats and mice are vermin. Turn them loose? Unadvised. Little kids will come upon a sick rat in a park or sanctuary and try to pet the 'kitty'. Rat has rabies.....need I go on? What about relocated skunks and raccoons?

Last night I clubbed three mice to death. Did I enjoy taking their lives, no. It's bad Karma that I will have to struggle to overcome with good deeds. But I will continue to dispatch mice and rats in what ever means possible to protect the safety and health of ourselves and our pets/livestock.

I appreciate the sanctity of life. But I dare say that if you call any sanctuary and ask them to take a captured wild rat the last thing you will hear before they hang up on you will be their hysterical laughter.