RATS!

Every now and then someone mentions to me that they’ve put poison out for their rat problem.

Now and then the poisoners also happen to kill their dog or their cat.

How many hawks, falcons, cats, dogs, owls, etc., that eat the poisoned rats and then die, is an uncomfortable mystery to ponder. If you’ve never seen a rat, cat, dog, owl or hawk dying of rat poisoning, trust me, you don’t want to see it.

When rats spoil my tomatoes or get into my basement to spoil stored food, I want them promptly and humanely as dead as I can make them. I don’t believe in catch and release when it comes to rats. I wouldn’t relocate my rats to your neighborhood, and I don’t want you to relocate your rats to my neighborhood. When it comes to rats and other disease spreading or dangerous critters, you’ll find me in the, “People for the Ethical Treatment of People,” group.

A good friend of mine, after his dog ate the rat poison that he had put in his garden, came up with the cleverest and best way ever to catch a rat in a snap trap – without a miss. His vet bill to save his dog was $3,000. I think that is a good gauge of the value of his invention.

What you need is a snap trap, available in any hardware store, and a peanut. Victor brand rat and mouse traps are available everywhere. And you need a peanut. Roasted and salted seems to work faster than raw peanuts. If you only have raw peanuts, that works. If I only have raw peanuts, I put a little peanut butter on a tooth pick and push it inside the shell after I’ve broken it in two. I want the stronger smell of roasted peanut on the raw peanut. The peanut butter pushed inside the shell handles the smell and the rat will have to work for it.

The following pictures are pretty much self-explanatory. Always hold a set trap so that if it goes off accidentally, you don’t break a finger. Even if you don’t break it, it will feel like you did.

The two pictures involving pliers show how to set the trap with a hair trigger, or to increase it if you get it so lightly set that it goes off when you breathe on it.

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