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

[BlindLemonChicken]

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

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

That is not my experience with trapping rats. They are very wary. We had a terrible rat problem and we only ever caught one in a live trap. We caught another in a snap trap and it lived which was bad too. My dog dispatched that for me. Not sure I would recommend that method. My husband tried killing the live rat with an air rifle (very bad idea like you said) and when that didn't work my mom drowned it. Which was probably a mercy at that point. Poison is slow too. I had a friend who would use a shovel and that is probably the most humane way if you have the stomach and the skills which I don't.

 

[chickenenthusiasts5698]

I’d kill it too and anymore I saw.

 

[Coffee N Chickens]

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

It's a rat. Kill it. It is just a filty rat that spreads disease and destroys things. And I've been a vegetarian since before a lot of the people in this board were born.

 

[addctd2plnts]

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.

Rat poison is definitely more torture. I had two dogs that got into some when our barn girl was stupid and put it out. It takes days for them to die and their lungs eventually fill with blood. They drown gasping for air. They had to tap our dogs lungs several times to stop the, from dying and do multiple transfusions. They saved them but the vets were truly heroic. I wouldn't suggest it as a painless or quick method to kill an animal. Dumping it in water takes 1 minute and it's over. Shooting would be fastest.

 

[Tonyroo]

Or take it into a wilderness area and release it so the predators have something to hunt for.

 

[addctd2plnts]

Rats carry serious diseases that kill people and other animals and can utterly destroy buildings. When you see one, there are many more nearby. They won't just stay in one building. I read a study that said, because of their tremendous rate of growth and frequent litters, two rats can become 15,000 in a single year if left unchecked! Don't under estimate them, or mice. Mice carry the Hanta virus that is very lethal to humans. Inhaling the dust of their droppings can be fatal in days!

 

[rosemarythyme]

I had a friend who would use a shovel and that is probably the most humane way if you have the stomach and the skills which I don't.

x2. Unless you're a great shot with a gun, clubbing them is the most basic way to do it - 1 good hit and it's over and done with. If you can't do it have someone else do it, but you get immediate results. Better than several minutes drowning, or several days to poison.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

Also does she look pregnant? Her belly is huge

I'm sorry but I'm on the "terminate with extreme prejudice" side. Rodents can wipe out entire generations of wild birds, Such as grouse, quail, turkey, by eating the eggs and nestlings, as well as domestic birds.
Also they are a disgusting disease vector.

 

[Lenny loves chickens]

Also does she look pregnant? Her belly is huge

Put it in a box and let it run out of oxygen

 

[SilverBirds]

I had to get 2 cats because we drove off all of the natural predators and now have a mouse problem. At first I thought they were rats because they were chewing through the plastic buckets to get to the feed. They even found a way to move into the house and unfortunately made a nest in the toothbrush drawer overnight. Drowning it probably wouldn't work to well as they can hold their breaths for quite some time. You can try to snap it's neck? As an animal lover, I understand they urge to let it live but as others have said they breed and destroy many things.