Rat vs Electric Fence

[kartking22]

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A simple solution for you and your rat problem is a drown trap. A half filled pail of water with a floating bait. Rat will go after the bait and can't get back out. Float a shallow pan with corn or your choice of bait. The rat will jump onto the pan to get the food and sink the pan, causing it to swim for his shortened life. Make sure you offer a way into the pail. The rat just won't realize that there is no way out unless he can jump really fast when the pan sinks. LOL

 

[kartking22]

The rat Vs electric fence is more of a fluke accident on the rats part. Although it did work, The rat was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wouldn't take stock in using an electric fence to deter rats. They usually just crawl under the fence. The rat in the picture was just unlucky enough to get his teeth caught on the fence and large enough to have his tail touch a ground. Great picture though.
Such as why birds can sit on a 20,000 volt wire and not get fried. There is the need to have contact between the positive and a negative ground. The rat unfortunately found both which would have been a shocking experience and lived if not for the fact that his teeth got hooked on the wire and was long enough to create the connection. I found that the electric fence is more focussed on critters that are trying to climb your enclosure with one foot on the ground and one on the fence. Racoons sure don't like my fence. Usually don't come back for seconds either. I have an old electric fencer called a "weed burner". More of a constant Zap than a typical cattle or horse fencer. Works on sparrows too that decide to sit on the fence and drink out of the water trough.

 

[BradnKellie]

I like the idea of a water trap. The trouble with me is my dogs would clean out the bait........

 

[pedro24]

you do know that if you
put blood meal down the
rats and other critters
away because they dont
like it but i dont know why

 

[mdbokc]

That pic of the snake was great in #16...but that was not an electric fence. The wires have to be insulated from the metal posts and those weren't. But dang, one of the very few, and creepy, pics I have seen of a snake with it's mouth wide open like that. Fascinating.

 

[kartking22]

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Put a screen over the top with holes big enough for the rat to get in yet keep your dogs out. That should do the trick .

 

[Wolf-Kim]

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I don't know why, but this picture seems fake to me..

I don't know why..

The fence wire isn't insulated, or is that post nonconductive?

OP: That's pretty comical about the rat. A friend of mine who keeps chickens, has a single strand all the way around the coop and he says that he finds tons of squirrels that will steal the chicken feed and then squeeze out of the coop, get zapped as they touch the wire, they spin around and bite it and get "stuck" on his continuous fence.

 

[chickbird]

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i'm interested in the way you have your electric fence ran.... did you just cut off pieces of pvc pipe and wrap the wire around??? if so, much less expensive.. please post reply as i'd like to try it. thanks

 

[BradnKellie]

On my coop run I used fence insulaters that I got at Home Depot in a bag of 25 for about $4 (see photos on my BYC page). The picture with the rat is along my garden, and yes, those are 1/2" PVC pipe posts with a cap that I drove into the ground about 10" with a rubber hammer. I just hand stretched the wire and wraped it around each post as I went.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

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Please be very careful using "blood meal". Use a filter mask when using blood or bone meal. Google "Deadly Feasts" and read as much as you can about MAD COW. A word to the wise should be sufficient.