Ratinator??

[mossyoakpro]

Any real life reviews on the "Ratinator"? I was out doing my nightly thermal scanning for night crawling predators and heard some noise in my barn....turns out the rats are having quite a social gathering in there. Fortunately it's a ways from my house and chicken coop but I'm sure it's just a matter of time....I'm thinking between a decent trapping regiment and some nightly thermal shooting I can get them under control rather quickly. Oh and we have barn cats...apparently they are fed too well since that is there home they are sharing with the rodents.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Debbie292d]

I've heard great things about mixing equal parts of Jiffy cornbread mix (small box, really cheap) and baking soda. You can either put a bowl of it in a cage so your chickens can't get to it or put it in a cheap plastic container with a lid, like a plastic ice cream bucket and cut a small hole about halfway up. We never had a problem, but our neighbor has so many that dig under her outdoor pens that the pens are caving in. She's tried a dozen things. Then she tried the above. The next day we found a giant dead rat in our front yard that faces her farm. I called her over, and she came running so excited because she said she found about a dozen dead rats at her place. Hubby used a grain scoop to pick up that one in our yard and guessed it weighed 4 lb!

It doesn't harm our pets should they get ahold of a dead rat that ate this stuff, but the principle is they can't pass the gas this creates, and they die.

 

[MGG]

We had a big rat problem at our old house and tried lots of things too. My dad eventually decided to try the "Ratinator", and it did work really well. We pulled any feed sources, (chicken feeders, dog feeders, garbage, etc.) and shoved a corn cob in the middle bait section.
We caught all of these in the first night

The next night we had around 20, and the night after that around a dozen, then less and less in the next nights. Within a week or so we were down to catching one or two a day and in two weeks we weren't catching any at all. After that we kept it set all the time in our chicken/dog building, and only caught one or two on occasion. It completely eradicated our problem.
I would definitely recommend it. You can use peanut butter smeared on the corn cob too, they just can't resist it.

 

[mossyoakpro]

We had a big rat problem at our old house and tried lots of things too. My dad eventually decided to try the "Ratinator", and it did work really well. We pulled any feed sources, (chicken feeders, dog feeders, garbage, etc.) and shoved a corn cob in the middle bait section.
We caught all of these in the first nightView attachment 3578043

The next night we had around 20, and the night after that around a dozen, then less and less in the next nights. Within a week or so we were down to catching one or two a day and in two weeks we weren't catching any at all. After that we kept it set all the time in our chicken/dog building, and only caught one or two on occasion. It completely eradicated our problem.
I would definitely recommend it. You can use peanut butter smeared on the corn cob too, they just can't resist it.

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for on a review!! I ordered mine during Prime days and have had it out there for a few days with the door open as instructed with some cat food and chicken scratch to get them used to the buffet. Think I'll set it tonight and see what happens. Between this and the fart bomb and my nightly shooting I should be able to handle it before it gets out of hand. Just an FYI....shooting them with a suppressed 22 and a thermal is loads of fun!! LOL Thanks again!!

 

[mossyoakpro]

I've heard great things about mixing equal parts of Jiffy cornbread mix (small box, really cheap) and baking soda. You can either put a bowl of it in a cage so your chickens can't get to it or put it in a cheap plastic container with a lid, like a plastic ice cream bucket and cut a small hole about halfway up. We never had a problem, but our neighbor has so many that dig under her outdoor pens that the pens are caving in. She's tried a dozen things. Then she tried the above. The next day we found a giant dead rat in our front yard that faces her farm. I called her over, and she came running so excited because she said she found about a dozen dead rats at her place. Hubby used a grain scoop to pick up that one in our yard and guessed it weighed 4 lb!

It doesn't harm our pets should they get ahold of a dead rat that ate this stuff, but the principle is they can't pass the gas this creates, and they die.

Fortunately mine are those wood rats that pretty much everyone has if you live in the country....they get in your cars something terrible if you don't get them taken care of quickly. As a matter of fact while sitting at a redlight on Wednesday one crawled out on the hood of my truck in town!! That's when the battle got serious!! Thanks for the remedy! I'm going to give it a whirl

 

[Debbie292d]

Fortunately mine are those wood rats that pretty much everyone has if you live in the country....they get in your cars something terrible if you don't get them taken care of quickly. As a matter of fact while sitting at a redlight on Wednesday one crawled out on the hood of my truck in town!! That's when the battle got serious!! Thanks for the remedy! I'm going to give it a whirl

I am glad I didn't see that rat jump out from your car. I don't know why I fear them, as I fear nothing else really. I hold daddy longlegs spiders, garter snakes, etc. About 20 years ago (serious, I'm old, lol), I was asked to babysit for a friend's two pet rats for two weeks. One was white, and the other was black and white. I did it. They were very tame, and I forced myself to hold them and feel their tails. Hers were fine, but the one's like we've seen still just freak me out. Maybe I saw one too many Alfred Hitchcock movies or something.

 

[mossyoakpro]

I am glad I didn't see that rat jump out from your car. I don't know why I fear them, as I fear nothing else really. I hold daddy longlegs spiders, garter snakes, etc. About 20 years ago (serious, I'm old, lol), I was asked to babysit for a friend's two pet rats for two weeks. One was white, and the other was black and white. I did it. They were very tame, and I forced myself to hold them and feel their tails. Hers were fine, but the one's like we've seen still just freak me out. Maybe I saw one too many Alfred Hitchcock movies or something.

I'm the same way....don't like rodents at all. I handle critters all the time but I draw the line at those nasty things. The Ratinator has one to it's name right now and I have 4 with my nighttime thermal shooting. Your method is in my barn so I can't tell if it has claimed any or not just yet but I have not seen one in a couple of night thank goodness.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Do a forum search for Howard E.s posts on rodent control. Poison and trapping become less effective as rats are very smart. And it is a never ending task as the population thins or even if it is eliminated, a new batch will move into the vacant territory.

Three steps.

Sanitation, bulk feed in metal trash cans, coop feed in a real treadle feeder, clean up all avenues of approach that provide cover or concealment for the rodents so the natural predators help thin the nasty things out. Do this first step and the other two steps are not needed.

Exclusion, build a Fort Knox of a chicken coop. Expensive but it would work if no free range is used.

Elimination, poisons, traps, and hunting with pellet rifles or ferrets/terriers. Poison threatens the natural predators of the rodents and the rats quickly learn to avoid the bait. Traps can be effective until the rats figure out what they are. I have seen some phenomenal results with the guys that bring the ferrets and terriers out but once the population has been cleaned out a new population will move right back in.

Deal with the reason the rats show up, the chicken feed buffet. Get them out of there before they find the wiring on your car and cost you thousands in new wiring. This happened to my mom a few years back.

 

[chickfused]

I am infested this winter. I didn't catch it until we were about 2-3 generations in. It's BAD.

In two nights, with two traps, I have hauled out 44 rats. (It would have been 60+, except one of the doors malfunctioned and got stuck open after a massive chonker jumped on it going inbound. Everyone left.) I think the door malfunctioned because the trap was set on a slightly angled bit of the coop floor, with a slight angle the wrong way making the door not want to close as much as the weight was able to pull. So when you set these, they need to be perfectly level or with the door part angled slightly downward so it's more inclined to reset. Or maybe wrap the weight bar with wire if your situation doesn't let you control angle - it wouldn't need much to make it a bit more heavy.

Tractor Supply had these on sale last week about 30% cheaper than I could find them anywhere else.

These are, by far, the BEST rat traps I have ever owned in my life. To dispose of your myriad of rats, you just toss 'em in some deep enough surface water (I use a creek) or they come with a perfectly sized drowning tray to fully submerge the rat trap. (The manufacturer calls it a "safe transport tray" in the packaging, but I think they mean transport to the rat afterlife.) Then do whatever you like with the carcasses. Feed the crows, the chickens, the worms, or the dump rats. Whatever - they're perfectly non toxic.

Best bait so far: Potato flakes, peanut butter powder mixed in, leftover Xmas cookies/candy, and dried grub worms. Also, last night, I found half a rat when nothing other than the other rats in the cage could have got it, so possibly dead rat is good bait too.

Edit: I should note, this is not an easy task for me. I used to keep pet rats. They are actually very friendly adorable creatures if you tame them down from childhood. But I can't have this much disease vector in my coop.

Edit 2: The design of these things is freakin' genius in it's simplicity. It reminds me of primitive fish traps.

Edit 3: Cottonseed meal (commonly sold as a relatively inexpensive fertilizer - 40 lbs for 60 bucks shipped(ish)) is an effective birth control agent in all mammals. The chemical with the magic function is called gossypol, be sure you read about it before following the next bit of advice. Make rat cookies and keep the cookies always available in bait stations where nothing can get it but the mice and rats. Effectiveness wears off about 4-6 weeks after stopping the feed. If you breed other mammals that eat rats/mice intentionally, this could harm their fertility as well. Throw a cat in the coop at night, bait stations with rat cookies, and leave the traps set. This is my current plan. And then shoot whatever's left with a revolver and rat shot if needed.

 

[RaesChicks]

I am infested this winter. I didn't catch it until we were about 2-3 generations in. It's BAD.

In two nights, with two traps, I have hauled out 44 rats. (It would have been 60+, except one of the doors malfunctioned and got stuck open after a massive chonker jumped on it going inbound. Everyone left.) I think the door malfunctioned because the trap was set on a slightly angled bit of the coop floor, with a slight angle the wrong way making the door not want to close as much as the weight was able to pull. So when you set these, they need to be perfectly level or with the door part angled slightly downward so it's more inclined to reset. Or maybe wrap the weight bar with wire if your situation doesn't let you control angle - it wouldn't need much to make it a bit more heavy.

Tractor Supply had these on sale last week about 30% cheaper than I could find them anywhere else.

These are, by far, the BEST rat traps I have ever owned in my life. To dispose of your myriad of rats, you just toss 'em in some deep enough surface water (I use a creek) or they come with a perfectly sized drowning tray to fully submerge the rat trap. (The manufacturer calls it a "safe transport tray" in the packaging, but I think they mean transport to the rat afterlife.) Then do whatever you like with the carcasses. Feed the crows, the chickens, the worms, or the dump rats. Whatever - they're perfectly non toxic.

Best bait so far: Potato flakes, peanut butter powder mixed in, leftover Xmas cookies/candy, and dried grub worms. Also, last night, I found half a rat when nothing other than the other rats in the cage could have got it, so possibly dead rat is good bait too.

Edit: I should note, this is not an easy task for me. I used to keep pet rats. They are actually very friendly adorable creatures if you tame them down from childhood. But I can't have this much disease vector in my coop.

Edit 2: The design of these things is freakin' genius in it's simplicity. It reminds me of primitive fish traps.

Edit 3: Cottonseed meal (commonly sold as a relatively inexpensive fertilizer - 40 lbs for 60 bucks shipped(ish)) is an effective birth control agent in all mammals. The chemical with the magic function is called gossypol, be sure you read about it before following the next bit of advice. Make rat cookies and keep the cookies always available in bait stations where nothing can get it but the mice and rats. Effectiveness wears off about 4-6 weeks after stopping the feed. If you breed other mammals that eat rats/mice intentionally, this could harm their fertility as well. Throw a cat in the coop at night, bait stations with rat cookies, and leave the traps set. This is my current plan. And then shoot whatever's left with a revolver and rat shot if needed.

Your link doesn’t show the traps you were talking about and it looks like the server re-routes 2 or three times before it gets to tractor supply.