Rats stole 4 chicks. graphic pic of dead rat

[drdoolittle]

Very good idea. I am going to go ahead and order the Rat Zapper-----I like that it lasts 2 years.

 

[silkiechicken]

Your rat trap worked! I swear the large rat snap traps I got are utterly useless... I resorted to a chipmunk/squirrel live trap.

This "little" guy was about 8 inches long not including the tail.

 

[kareninthesun]

Quote:
Yep, I use them and LOVE them! Works very well. No muss, no fuss, no critters sticking to the insides or smelling up inside walls or poisons. I was very surprised over how many times they can be used before the batteries needed replacing. They said about 50, and it is true.

 

[drdoolittle]

I did order 2 of them-----really need 3, but Hubby is skeptical about how well they actually work. I told him someone on BYC said they were great and that I believed them and he said, "I'm sure you do". Ugh!!!! I can't wait until they get here and he sees that they do work.

 

[Debbiesflocks]

Well not a single rat last night, but i am sure there is more i am not seeing. We have had a small rat problem for years. Are next door neighbors about a 1/4 mile up the road had a 40X100 foot rabbit barn full of garbage. when the barn was full they started tossing the garbage in the back yard. that's when the county showed up and got onto them about it. then after a few months and nothing got cleaned up the county came in one day with dump trucks and backhoe and cleaned it all up, that's when we started seeing rats. every neighbor out here got infested with rats.

 

[kareninthesun]

Quote:
Guys like visuals. I suggest after catching your first, stick it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer until it is solid. Drop it on the seat of his car without the bag about half an hour before he needs the car. He'll get the idea pretty quick.

When we first moved here, we had a very serious field mouse problem. It was terrible. I bought those little glue mouse traps and caught some, but someone had to either kill them or listen to them suffer. And these ended up bbeing expensive because every time I caught one, had to use another one. When Home Depot ran out, I grabbed the big rat ones. This was like a horror movie gone bad, at one time, counted 8 of them stuck on one.

Since I garden organically, it didn't make any sense to use poisons and take a chance of little ones or pets getting hold of them, or them dieing where I couldn't remove their carcasses.

Then I found out that rats and mice don't hang around together. If a rat claims space as it's, they will seek out and consider the mice free food.

So we had rats. They need sources of water and did fun things with the plumbing. They were stealth like, never leaving tell tale signs that they were there like mice. A friend of mine who's a real estate agent always uses the Vicxtor electronic ones once a house is empty after showing a very expensive house and finding a rat floating in the master bath toilet. Most of my neighbors bought them too. What's really nice about these is that first you get the adults, those seeking to get food for the younger ones, then the juveniles, and because the ones nesting have nothing, it breaks the cycle. A year ago, you couldn't drive down the street at night without seeing one run across the road. Not now. And, down the street, there is a large church with a day school. A friend of mine works there. They started using them, and have had no sightings, no bodies in about 9 months.

 

[laseterlass]

Uhg. Thank God Anchorage is RAT FREE!

 

[drdoolittle]

Well, I spent all day Monday "rat-proofing" my main coop-----and I mean ALL day (8:30-6:00). I covered the entire floor of the coop with hardware cloth and then covered it with a layer of dirt (I will be adding sand and shavings) and the hardware cloth is stapled (I got to use Hubby's staplegun!) to the edge of the shed sides. It was a lot of work, but worth it. I could see this morning where the rats had tried to find a way in----they pushed the dirt away from the cloth that was underneath it all the way around the back side. I also heard a Great Horned Owl this morning----maybe she caught some of the confused rats!

My rat zappers haven't arrived yet, but I am going to place those in the other 2 pens until I can work on rat-proofing them.

 

[Debbiesflocks]

I set mine up yesterday after the mail ran. I have it set up in the chicken barn now. I used dry dog food for bait as the directions said. I really don't think it will see any rats soon. I have not caught any more rats with the snap trap. I hope i caught the rats before they had time to reproduce. I will leave it in the barn full time as i think it is a great item to have and i like the fact my silkies wont be getting caught in it. I am sure it will see some action with field mice as soon as the weather starts cooling off.