Has anyone successfully used baking soda to reduce or eliminate a rodent infestation?

[EmmaDonovan]

I keep reading that baking soda will kill squirrels and other rodents, mixed with equal parts of cornmeal as an attractant.

Has anyone here had success doing this? It seems too easy to be true.

 

[Al Gerhart]

It doesn't work. If it did rodents are clever and figure out what is killing them.

Three methods of dealing with rodents according to Howard E..
Sanitation
Exclusion
Elimination

First method, bulk feed in metal barrels. An actual treadle feeder and pay close attention to the negative reviews, most are junk. Remove all other human sources of food like compost bins or trash. Clean up the paths the rodents use to travel from their burrows to the source of food. Usually between 20 and 100 feet away, any longer and predators get them quickly.

Second method, used ONLY after you used the first method. Build a Fort Knox coop and run. No holes or gaps larger than a quarter for rats, a nickle for mice. Use metal, wood can be chewed through, even concrete, rodents HAVE to chew to wear down their teeth or the teeth grow into their skull.

Third method, and for a reason, it is unending. Poison and/or traps. Cheap to do, the rodents learn very fast to avoid, a never ending expense with declining efficiency from day one.

However, if used in conjunction with the first method the rodents are forced to take the bait or fall for the traps. But, entirely unneeded unless you are dealing with hundreds of rodents that overwhelm the treadle feeder. Even then, a properly designed treadle feeder has a narrow and distant treadle that is unlikely to be overwhelmed, a spring loaded door so a half dozen mice can't just push the door open or up, and it should have a door that swings inward, not up, so it can trap the few rodents (or dozens if you are dealing with a swarm) that do get past due to swarms or rodents.

On the few occasions I have heard of this happening the rodents smothered themselves by the dozen. One or two rodents will be fine so be ready to lift the feeder off its bracket and dump it in a metal barrel so you can deal with the rodents. Commercial flocks have reported that it happens once per feeder and that the rodents refuse to swarm that feeder afterward. Even if they cloroxed the feeder the rats know or remember. In a few days to a week the rodents are gone.

You are doing well with your research but discount the magic fixes. None work. Sanitation, exclusion, and elimination do work, with various efficiencies and costs in order of their listing. Cheapest and most effective listed first.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Unfortunately we're in the desert where they have natural food sources. Two large squirrel populations established themselves in the yard when the house was uninhabited for several years. There was no chicken feed or any other human food source and they thrived.

We can't use poison. I think the only other option is traps. Can you recommend a kill trap large enough for rock squirrels? They weigh a little over a pound and are 10-12" long excluding the tail. The other type of squirrel we have, the round tail squirrel, is smaller, weighing only about 1/2 a pound.

 

[Krazy kr]

Works. I had an entire group living in numerous trees. All gone and 2 rats too I mixed with damp cashews

 

[Chick-in]

It works great. I've killed several. However, the rats are smart. Mine learned to avoid it. I switched to a homemade peanut butter powder, baking soda, and vitamin D mix. Then a Coca-Cola drink. You have to rotate methods. My rats prefer to eat my animals or drink their blood and most older ones evade the traps (the experience of nightmares). It's been a battle. Hopefully those older rats age out and die soon. We inherited the problem when we moved in.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

It works great. I've killed several. However, the rats are smart. Mine learned to avoid it. I switched to a homemade peanut butter powder, baking soda, and vitamin D mix. Then a Coca-Cola drink. You have to rotate methods. My rats prefer to eat my animals or drink their blood and most older ones evade the traps (the experience of nightmares). It's been a battle. Hopefully those older rats age out and die soon. We inherited the problem when we moved in.

Did you do all at the same time or are the things listed a different solution?

 

[Chick-in]

Did you do all at the same time or are the things listed a different solution?

They are different solutions. I rotate the three options.