Found a nasty rat stalking my ducks... to spare its life or not to spare?

[Chocorobo12]

Also does she look pregnant? Her belly is huge

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Kill it with fire! Just kidding. Drown it.

 

[Kiki]

Kill it.

 

[RiverOtter]

Please don't drown anything, it's unspeakably cruel and inhuman.

What that rat is is young, which means it's family is around somewhere. Drive it off a mile and drop it off, it will become a quick meal for a predator, which is at least fast and natural. Then put the trap back out and expect to catch more. If you can safely use a fast-acting rat poison, put that down a rat-hole and then bury the hole, so nothing else can get to it.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Please don't drown anything, it's unspeakably cruel and inhuman.

What that rat is is young, which means it's family is around somewhere. Drive it off a mile and drop it off, it will become a quick meal for a predator, which is at least fast and natural. Then put the trap back out and expect to catch more. If you can safely use a fast-acting rat poison, put that down a rat-hole and then bury the hole, so nothing else can get to it.

Why would a predator eat it a mile away as opposed to on the spot?

 

[Kiki]

Don't bring your rat to someone else's house to make it their problem. Just kill the damn thing... Poison it.

 

[Chocorobo12]

Please don't drown anything, it's unspeakably cruel and inhuman.

What that rat is is young, which means it's family is around somewhere. Drive it off a mile and drop it off, it will become a quick meal for a predator, which is at least fast and natural. Then put the trap back out and expect to catch more. If you can safely use a fast-acting rat poison, put that down a rat-hole and then bury the hole, so nothing else can get to it.

Please don't drown anything, it's unspeakably cruel and inhuman.

What that rat is is young, which means it's family is around somewhere. Drive it off a mile and drop it off, it will become a quick meal for a predator, which is at least fast and natural. Then put the trap back out and expect to catch more. If you can safely use a fast-acting rat poison, put that down a rat-hole and then bury the hole, so nothing else can get to it.

Im actually a vegan (minus my duck eggs) so you can imagine this is quite a dilemma for me... on one hand I know these guys are destructive, breed like bacteria, have driven countless species of birds to extinction, destroy property, the list is endless really... on the other hand its a sentient being that has as much a right to live as any other... but if I spare it.... it will just go on to multiply and perpetuate even more the problems I listed above... but condemning it to death because of the species it was born into feels wrong too... God I hate rats
It hurts my brain trying to figure out what to so with them.... and as @Kiki says... releasing them will just make them someone else's problem

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Please don't drown anything, it's unspeakably cruel and inhuman.

What that rat is is young, which means it's family is around somewhere. Drive it off a mile and drop it off, it will become a quick meal for a predator, which is at least fast and natural. Then put the trap back out and expect to catch more. If you can safely use a fast-acting rat poison, put that down a rat-hole and then bury the hole, so nothing else can get to it.

Also, rats are smart. They often figure out how to avoid a trap once a couple of them have been fooled. Don't expect to catch more. You already have.

 

[RiverOtter]

Why would a predator eat it a mile away as opposed to on the spot?

Because where it's at, it knows the area. It has known trails and tunnels and stays in these safe spaces. Move it out of it's area and it has no cover - no trails to run, no holes to dash down, making it very easy prey. If you're 2 inches tall, strongly scented, eaten by everything and a mile from a building, you're not making it to a building before getting snagged by something

I do NOT recommend moving and releasing most animals, mainly for this very reason, it's going to die and it's usually much better to just kill it yourself. But rats are really hard to get a humane brain shot on, OP is a vegan and ground-dwelling rodents are an important food source for just about everything. So some hawk, owl, fox, etc gets an easy meal, a chipmunk then gets to live another day and there's one less rat in the barn

Also, rats are smart. They often figure out how to avoid a trap once a couple of them have been fooled. Don't expect to catch more. You already have.

Traps that kill, rats will see a dead rat in and learn to avoid them, 100%. But there's nothing inherently evil or scary about a live trap, so there's no reason to avoid that. But if you drown or kill a rat in a live trap, the pheromones of terror and adrenaline will cling to it, and other rats will avoid it.

 

[RiverOtter]

Don't bring your rat to someone else's house to make it their problem. Just kill the damn thing... Poison it.

Sorry, I should have thought to specify a mile from any building.