Rats

Rat Traps

After posting my last blog, "Dog Poison," I received this from a gardener near Seattle: "Lee, good notice. I had a friend who had a horse die after eating rat poisoned oats left in a bag somewhere in the barn." A. M.

We know how smart rats are, how much they can destroy, how many diseases they spread and their historical role in carrying the fleas responsible for wiping out a third of the population of Europe on at least one occasion.

We can freely buy deadly poisons in any hardware or garden store. We can buy very clever traps made of plastic somewhere in China. I don’t know what anyone might want with a live rat they caught around the house, but you can actually buy traps that won’t kill them.

If you've ever seen a poisoned animal die, it's something you know you never want to see again, even if it's just a rat.

Traps, simple old snap traps, made in Pennsylvania by the Victor Co., are a very cheap and humane way to get rid of rats. And they won't kill your dog, cat, or anything else even if they do manage to eat the dead rat before you can remove it from the trap. I've used Victor traps for mice and rats since I was a little kid on the farm and they've always handled the problem. I've used pieces of banana, peanut butter, bacon, etc., as bait, all of which work well on mice or rats. Mice and rats both love peanut butter, but very often a rat will lick the peanut butter off the trigger without setting it off. That's when a lot of people get the idea that the traps don't work and resort to poison.

Sometimes people set the trap, but 2-3 days later the trap hasn't been touched and they still have rats--think they don't work and resort to poison.

Whether it's poisoned food, fruit, nuts, or anything else a rat likes to eat, they won't touch it for several days. They know it's there, but they're very wary creatures with lots of enemies. They'll just keep an eye on it without approaching it until they're sure it's safe.

What works for me: I know rats aren't going to go near anything new for a day or two, at least. I put a trap, un-set, where I've seen the rat, located such that my little dog can't get to it. On and around the trap, I drop bits of peanut butter. When the rat gets comfortable with eating the peanut butter on and around the trap, I then put it only on the trigger--but I still haven't set the trap. Now, maybe as much as a week after first starting the hunt, when the rat is happy and feeling safe at his peanut butter feeding station--he isn't. I've set the trap. Once in awhile he just licks the peanut butter off without setting the trap. Then I have to get more clever in the placement of the peanut butter, and/or modify the trigger so that the trap will now go off with only the weight of a strong breath.

The friend with the $2,000 vet bill for the poisoned dog passed along his method, which is the best I've ever heard. I used it the other day and caught the dirty rat that was getting into my compost bin. Of all the ways I've tried over the years, this is suddenly my absolute my favorite:

* Put 2 Victor rat snap traps, right out of the package, in my compost bin and tossed in two whole peanuts, (doesn't matter if they're raw, roasted, salted etc.) not caring how close they were to the traps. I just wanted to get the rat used to the traps being there, but they weren't set.

* After 2 days, the peanuts hadn't been disturbed.

* I cracked them open, just enough that the smell of the peanuts inside would waft out.

* The next day the 2 whole peanuts were gone, shells and all.

* I then inserted a cracked, but not fully opened peanut onto the trigger of each trap, but didn't set the traps. The next morning the 2 peanuts were gone; shells and all.

* Now I set the traps, baited just as above, with a peanut inserted on each trigger

* Next morning, there she was! A fat, very pregnant female rat (I'm a farm boy--I notice such things.) had been instantly killed sometime in the night.

I left a couple of peanuts in the compost bin. If and when they disappear, I'll go through the steps above.

As I said earlier, this method is very cheap, safe, simple, clean, and as far as I can see, 100% effective.

Thank you, David T!