YEAH! caught most of my rats, I hope.

[chooniecat]

I had NEVER in my 23 years of farm life had an issue with rodents(kept mouse snap traps 24/7) and this spring developed some rats. was recommended to drown,poison,shoot(?) them and the drowning/poisoning seems cruel and lazy and shooting near impossible(and extremely time consuming) so I opted for rat snap traps(Victor brand ONLY) and in 7 wks. time have caught 6 young, 1 adult female,1 adult male(today) and will keep the snap traps going until I am sure its pretty much controlled. the first 2 snaps I had to finish the job but fortunately am usually there so I did it quick. subsequent trappings I repositioned the trap, etc and it appears to be very clean kill. I place the trap with bait side facing hole and cover the whole shebang with a milk crate(so rat approaches trap from bait side(with peanut butter) weighed down with a heavy block to keep other critters from getting hurt) am very proud of me and have proved snap traps DO WORK. still keep mouse traps set 24/7 and RARELY snap one.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
you can tighten up the spring by putting a wooden shim under the part of the spring that rests against the wood . tighter spring = quicker dispatch

 

[Ibicella]

I prefer snap traps for rats because rats are incredibly smart, especially of poison and glue traps. If one dies of poisoning, the whole colony knows what he ate and to avoid it. I don't like the cruelty of glue traps and the rats avoid them because of the glue smell.

Cleaning up well and snap traps have worked the absolute best next to having a good rodent-eater population like barn cats!

 

[chooniecat]

Quote:
I don't know why you have a pet rat on your pic but I do LOVE domestic rats so I felt bad doing this(the wild rats were all so shiny,fat, gorgeous) and it actually bothers me when my barn cats have brought me a mouse so keeping the population severely down with the snap traps seems like a good compromise. I so far have just followed where the holes show up under my chick shed and I fill up the bulk of them with dog poop hoping the rats wil then choose my baited trap hole and its worked.

 

[woodmort]

I had rats a couple of years ago until the weasel moved in and took every last one out. Trouble was once the rats were gone he started on the chickens. Luckily he was easily trapped and, as a reward for cleaning out the rodents I just relocated him. Be aware, this is not a recommend way to control rats even though it was highly effective.

 

[Ibicella]

Quote:
I don't know why you have a pet rat on your pic but I do LOVE domestic rats so I felt bad doing this(the wild rats were all so shiny,fat, gorgeous) and it actually bothers me when my barn cats have brought me a mouse so keeping the population severely down with the snap traps seems like a good compromise. I so far have just followed where the holes show up under my chick shed and I fill up the bulk of them with dog poop hoping the rats wil then choose my baited trap hole and its worked.

That's my sweet boy Iggy when he was a baby with yogie treat on his head. Pet ratties are love and cuddles. I have three of them.

I like wild rats too, but I have tremendous respect for how incredibly destructive they are and won't hesitate to get them cleared out if I find them. My mother was a hoarder, and after she passed on we had to clear out her house. There was an ARMY of rats that had taken up residence in that place for many generations. It was like something out of the movie Willard. We'd open boxes and rats would come flying out of them and crawl up our bodies and go leaping off our shoulders to get away. We see several of them running out the garage at a time and into the brush.

We put down snap traps and but only caught three out of that legion. The rest of eradication was simply because of cleaning up. The rest all knew that the jig was up, and the whole colony up and vanished completely within the course of a week.